CHAPTER 9 - Talent System
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“Eroan… Eroannn… Waaake up!”
I woke up at the substantial shaking of Isabella on my body.
“You need to wake up now! It’s the day, it’s today! Kyaaah” Isabella excitedly jump up and down on top of my body as I lay in the bed.
“Ugh! Ack! Stop!” I cried out as her butt hit a soft spot in my stomach and give me unexpected pain early in the morning.
I force myself to open my eyes as I look at Isabella who was on top of my body grinning excitedly.
I close my eyes in annoyance, I put my arms on top of them and breath deeply as I think about the past.
Today is the day that we were able to awaken and know our talent.
It has been 2 years since I met Isabella we did a lot of things and almost roamed the entirety of Adestine Kingdom.
We did a lot of fun things and met a lot of people during our 2 years journey. However, it comes to an end, Fredric said to me that Isabella is going to enroll at the most prestigious academy in the continent, and I may be able to join her together based on my talent.
But I am already pessimistic about this as I had an accident 2 years ago and I think I will most likely not be able to be together with her in the academy.
That’s why the excitement I can’t relate to the excitement that Isabella is feeling right now.
“Hey, Eroan just how long are you going to wake up” Isabella woke me up in my thought and set aside the arms that are blocking my face.
“Just give me a minute” I replied as lazily brushed her off.
“You’re ‘going to ignore me?”
Isabella said annoyingly as find something to hold and all of a sudden decided to break it in half.
“Ack! Aghhh!!! What the fuck is your problem bitch!!”
I throw Isabella that was on top of me elsewhere after she bent my hard morning wood. I hurriedly look inside my pants if there’s an injury hopefully there is not. I just saw my little brother shrinking rapidly from the shock. It seems it was traumatized that he was just peacefully greeting the morning and some psychotic whore decide to break him in half.
“What kind of crazy thing are you to do that” I stared at her angrily.
“Pfft. Your little brother has been poking my ass it’s a little annoying so I teach it some lessons.” Isabella mockingly replied to me.
I just glared at her and started changing my clothes.
I swear if I learned something that could humiliate this bitch I will do it every day even if she begs me to stop.
After I change my clothes I left the room annoyed.
“Hey, it was a joke!” Isabella hurriedly caught up to me and jumps on my back.
I turn my head sideways as I look at Isabella. I just naturally carried her as she does this thing usually.
“A joke?” I asked unconvinced.
“Yeah” Isabella replied pouting.
This girl is acting innocent again. For the last 2 years, I already develop enough trauma that could scar me for life.
I still remember, ever since she came to know about the weakness of a man. She’s been repeatedly throwing some below-the-belt attacks for the entirety of 2 years.
If I am not careful enough during our training I’d end up squirming on the ground holding my balls. There was that time when I had enough and started to confront Isabella about her dirty tactics.
‘It is for my self-defense as men are usually stronger than women. So I should train my attacks so I could impulsively aim at their weakness at any given moment.’
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‘Self-defense my ass!’ I angrily retort back.
This was how Isabella explained as she try to justify her actions when I confronted her about the dirty deeds she was doing with me. I’m not even stronger than her so her excuse is just rubbing salt into my wounds.
Ironically instead of her, I was the one that develops a self-defense mechanism. Every time a foot was placed slightly between my legs I unknowingly close my legs immediately like a clam or oyster that was afraid to be touched.
It was extremely humiliating when I did that in front of Fredric when he tried to approach me and put his foot in front of my legs. I still remember his disgusted face as he look at me in misunderstanding.
“Eroan my baby, I’m sorry okay?” Isabella tried to console me as she saw that I am already fuming with anger while I am in thought.
I look at her and decide to forgive her again for what she did earlier in the room. She will just annoy me for the whole day if I do not forgive her. I adjusted her body and catch those thick legs of hers so I can climb down the stairs comfortably.
We got down and saw the people from the caravan are already eating their breakfast. Isabella’s caravan rented this entire inn so they can rest well before they go back to their home.
Isabella is going to enroll in the academy after this. That’s why the 2 years ‘buy and sell’ business of this caravan was put on a halt to escort their lady Isabella back to her hometown.
“Hey, Eroan! Is lady Isabella bothering you again haha”
“Eroan cheer up it’s your awakening day”
“I heard that our duke also gifted you the highest grade of Spirit Stone for your awakening as a gift.”
“Yeah, Duke Davidson is extremely amazed that you could put our lady always in your tabs.”
Countless people from the caravan started greeting me as I went to the table.
“Hey, I all heard you do you want me to report you guys to my father? Let’s see if you can still laugh around.” Isabella who was gradually becoming the subject of a joke rebuked them one by one.
“Honestly I don’t deserve the praise and gift from the Duke. Putting a rein on this brat was easy” I boasted to the whole crowd and the whole crowd went wild.
“Sheesh”
“That’s it Eroan”
“That’s my boy”
The crowd started tapping the table as they can’t believe I said that.
“What did you say? How about I put you on rest let’s see who was reining you.” Isabella who was caught off guard by my assertion started choking me with her arms.
“Ack! Haah I– it– it’s just–” I could not even complete a proper sentence as I fight the demon who was embracing me from behind.
“Lady Isabella, Sir Eroan is not breathing anymore please let go. He needs to be in full condition before he awakened.” Fredric calmly said as he comes to my rescue. “You should also begin to prepare for your awakening, my lady.”
“Hmph, he deserves it!”
Isabella let go of me and push me away from her while I caress my neck as I gasp for breath. Seriously this brat strength is something just a couple of seconds when she started choking me and the air could not enter already. She doesn’t even hold back and just began murdering me in front of the crowd.
“FIONA!!!” I lashed out at Isabella as I called her the name of the famous female ogre from the folktales to get back at her.
She hated it being called the name of that female ogre. I discovered this one time when I compared her that she resembles that female ogre as she was excessively strong.
Immediately, Isabella’s face darkens and the room suddenly went cold as deep hatred and killing intent permeates the air. At the same time, I am already running toward the entrance of the inn as I dash for my dear life.
“EROAAAAANN!!!” I heard the cry of a demon rushing behind me at extreme speed.
The not-so-good wake-up earlier becomes more chaotic as I run for my dear life. The Duke, Isabella’s father should reward me more for my hard work.
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After breakfast, Fredric, Isabella, and I went inside a secured room. Given that the sole daughter of the duke is going to awaken today they want to put the result in utmost secrecy to avoid accidents coming from third parties.
“Before we begin I will ask, Sir Eroan are you fine?” Fredric asked in worry.
“Yes I’m fine ‘tis but a scratch’” I replied to Fredric while having a black eye and full of bruises on my face as I simultaneously smugly look at Isabella who was already ignoring me since breakfast.
Fredric look at me in suspicion but he just decided to ignore the quarrels between the children.
“I will explain to the two of you how awakening works.” Fredric began his explanation.
“Awakening happens a child happens to reach the age of 10 years old. At this age, their bodies are already mature enough to gather the blessings of the Spirits.”
“But the blessings of the Spirits that surrounded us are full of contamination that’s why we use a Spirit Stone to force you to awaken your system and help you clean and maximize your gathering and conversion.”
“People always use and invest in Spirit Stone as this was a long-term product. If you didn’t use Spirit Stone to awaken yourself.”
“What if you didn’t have a Spirit Stone to awaken what will happen?” I was curious as it seems that using Spirit Stone at age 10 was the norm.
“The children that don’t use Spirit Stone will be forced to awaken by the time they reach the age of 11 years old. But no one wants to do this as it was an extremely inefficient thing to do.”
“For example, a child that did not use Spirit Stone could train and absorbs Spirits Energy for 2 hours but it will take him 10 hours just to cleanse the contamination inside his body after cleansing that is just the time when he could see the result of his training.”
“Meanwhile a child who uses a Spirit Stone to awaken even if it was the lowest grade, could train for 6 hours and do cleansing for another 6 hours to see the result of his hard work.”
“This is just an example as there are people who were extremely gifted in training skills that they can simultaneously absorb and purify the contamination that enters their body. However, you will only notice you have this kind of talent after you awakened so people still tend to choose the safe way unless it was necessary.”
As Fredric continues to explain the basics of Spirit Awakening I inwardly thought.
If someone is poor enough to not be able to afford the lowest spirit stone then doesn’t that mean they are forever at the bottom of the food chain? Forget high talent even if you have average talent you’ll still not be able to climb to the top because of your inefficiency.
“Now the ranking for talents, we have 10 ranks of talent and each rank gives you a single skill and a physical boost. Talent also acts as your ceiling before entering the Spirit Realm. The greater the talent the higher the ceiling to reach but a higher chance of breaking through it as your strength stacks up.
While lower talent has a lower ceiling but a lower chance to break it as they don’t have much strength to force it. Although there are ways to break through it without using massive strength however they are extremely rare.”
“This is the list of talents” Fredric put a scroll in front of us with the details of each talent.”
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Common Rank(No Aura)
Rank 1: No Talent
Rank 2: No Talent
Human Rank (White Aura)
Rank 3: 3 awakening skills (3 years max to reach Spirit Realm ceiling)
Rank 4: 4 awakening skills (4 years max to reach Spirit Realm ceiling)
Earth Rank (Yellow Aura)
Rank 5: 5 awakening skills (5 years max to reach Spirit Realm ceiling)
Rank 6: 6 awakening skills (6 years max to reach Spirit Realm ceiling)
Heaven Rank (Orange Aura)
Rank 7: 7 awakening skills (7 years max to reach Spirit Realm ceiling)
Rank 8: 8 awakening skills (8 years max to reach Spirit Realm ceiling)
God Rank (Red Aura)
Rank 9: 8 awakening skills and 1 ultimate skill (9 years max to reach Spirit Realm ceiling)
Rank 10: 8 awakening skills and 2 ultimate skills (10 years max to reach Spirit Realm ceiling)
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I look at the information in the scroll and asked Fredric about the years and ceiling as it was confusing me. Fredric said that once you were awakened rank 3 and above you are already fated to reach the ceiling of the Spirit Realm. Because every year you will level up by 1 level.
If you are a rank 5 talent you need 5 years to level up to Level 5 and that will be your max level unless you can break through the Spirit Realm. The higher the talent the higher its maximum level but it is also longer to reach.
However, Fredric said you can still able to reach the max level sooner than the intended time if you are extremely gifted in gathering the Spirit Energy.
The years were just a default that the system will do if you are not able to gather enough Spirit Energy. You will also need Spirit Stones to fill the gap that is needed for you to level up.
Or else the system will be forced to absorb the contaminated energy in the surroundings and simultaneously leave holes in your foundation.
Blagg
I got caught off guard by the loud sounds on the floor while I was busy dissecting the information about talents.
“These are the two Highest Grade Spirit Stones that Duke Davidson delivered to us for the two of you to use at your awakening.” Fredric presents the two-spirit stone that has a diameter of more than 2 meters each.
“What the heck” I can’t help but cursed out to express my astonishment.