Chapter 449: The third Talent

Make sure to read the 448 before this one!
*

The day flew by. It always did when you were having fun, and for once Priam was having real fun. Anyone who had ever played a role-playing game could tell there was something addictive about changing one’s appearance: dyeing your skin goblin-green, widening your tongue like a naga’s, sprouting Rhems gills, Fae wings… or growing breasts.

Thankfully, none of the tree of life’s effects were permanent. And Osiris had promised to keep quiet about the last effect after he had been forced to prick his own finger too.

Shared suffering forged bonds.

Beyond cosmetics, test-driving new powers was intoxicating, especially with so many options. Priam didn’t just have sixteen samples to choose from: each one held three Talents, and he could fuse them with others up to three times to create new flavours before applying them.

[Possible combinations: 18 472]

Thanks to the Duatien tree of life, upgrading his race felt like mixing the perfect cocktail.

The only hitch was that some Talents were so esoteric it took hours of testing to figure out what they did. Priam’s curiosity powered him through the drudgery with ease. Exploring the arcana of magic, this was what he had been born for.

With his skills’ progression blocked by the shadow of a sevenfold Tribulation, Priam focused on hunting the perfect Talent. He devoted every waking hour to it for a full week, to the point he even ignored resistance training.

After each test, while the tree purified the ichor seed, the Champion wrote down notes and brainstormed with Osiris and his add-on about the best possible Talent.

“As I see it,” Priam said, “I’m standing at a crossroads: I can either increase my versatility, or reinforce my current toolkit.”

“Studies in Duatien psychology show most people end their sentence with their favourite choice,” Osiris said. “So it stays fresh in the audience’s mind.”

“Human psychology says the same,” Priam replied with a smile. “Honestly, I find versatility less appealing than a specialisation, as I’m rarely in a situation where I don’t have a weapon.”

“That might not be true for the others of your race.”

The Juggernaut shrugged. “If my path doesn’t suit them, they can carve their own.”

The biomancer nodded. “So we strike the naga blood?”

“Yep,” Priam confirmed, eyes on his notes.

[Talents of Paakruc, naga, Wave 92 boss of the Tier 0 Colosseum:
- pressure resistance
- spiritual pressure resistance
- transformation of the user’s spiritual force (meta authority?) into physical pressure.]

Priam had used that last Talent to crush a Tier 1 corrupted like a soda can. Obliterating foe with a thought was fun, but not interesting enough for his build. Not when [Kinetic Sovereignty] could do the job just as well.

“The anonymous Valarythian warrior?” Osiris asked.

“Same story.”

The one who had called the Deluge didn’t have much left to say, but his bones did. By grafting his racial genome onto Homo Elysian, Priam could either gain the Talent to command certain fish, breathe aether, or summon a water exoskeleton. Since the liquid wasn’t created from aether through a Concept, it had to be condensed from ambient air, or drawn from the user’s blood.

Respectively: useless, redundant, or too weak without a Concept or a skill to amplify it.

Thus, the two researchers crossed off choice after choice: the Gaeserts’ ability to reshape their bodies by absorbing beast cores; Bertomne the sand singer’s soothing voice; Cursed Charles’s silver tongue; Béchar’s ability to alter his physique.

Priam hesitated on that last one.

“I’m the first to see the appeal of being able to change your looks, or grow a scorpion tail,” the fleshcrafter said. “But honestly, what edge would it give you?”

“Combat flexibility,” Priam answered, and grimaced before the words had even finished leaving his mouth. Truth be told, he relied on his body far less than Kazuki did.

“But it’ll make Micro harder to master,” Osiris countered. “Compared to a formshifting mass, learning to drive a humanoid body is a breeze. Trust my experience. And unless I’m mistaken, you don’t have a transcendent affinity with that Supremacy.”

The subtext was painfully obvious: accepting the Talent would slow Priam’s progress, potentially costing him his new Ace Title.

“I was one of the first humans to unlock it,” Priam pointed out.

“With help, and knowing what to look for. Without that, you could’ve been the thousandth. I’m not saying you’re an idiot, but being the best among ten thousand means nothing on a universal scale. And you know it. I’m not even sure Jasmine is a universal prodigy, and yet she’s at least the best among all our civilisations. One in a hundred billion. You’re not there. Not with Micro at least.”

That conversation buried Priam’s pride right alongside any chance of becoming a shapeshifter.

The eliminations continued: Talents that reacted poorly with [Homo Elysian Obsession] or [Homo Elysian Predation]. Talents that were too weird. Talents that were too weak.

Then came the mixes.

[Homo Elysian Obsession] was a fusion of [High Human Adaptation] and the Duatiens’ [Soul Duality]. [Homo Elysian Predation] was the fruit of a fusion too. The third Talent could be too.

Like a painter hunting the perfect shade, Priam quickly turned to blends. After eliminating every unique Talent in the samples at his disposal, he realised it wasn’t that he couldn’t find a third Talent that satisfied him.

It was that none existed.

He would have to create it.

Instead of worrying him, the realization made Priam smile.

To forge the perfect Talent—the one that would complete the Tier 0 puzzle—he needed hope… but above all, he needed an idea. With nearly forty-eight unique Talents to mix up to three times for a total of more than eighteen thousand combinations, testing them one by one and praying to stumble onto the answer was pointlessly slow. Priam had tried at first. After a thousand tests and a week, he changed approach.

If brute force wasn’t the solution, he might as well use his brain.

Which meant stepping back and defining the problem.

Knowing what Talents he had access to, Priam needed to pick three and fuse them into something tailored to his needs.

His specifications boiled down to two key points: amplify one of his strengths, and fill a role not already covered by his other Talents. According to Osiris, two actors fighting for the same part only made the whole play messier.

Fine.

[Homo Elysian Obsession] targeted his adaptation and resistances.

The body and soul of the Homo Elysian are closely entwined. From this intimate connection arises a primal desire: survival.

In trials and suffering, you grow, transcending your limits.

Legend has it that Homo Elysian can even adapt to death…

[Homo Elysian Predation] targeted his instincts, and the impact of his will on the world and on his enemies.

Your will manipulates the instincts of your enemies to facilitate your designs. Your instinct has a minor chance of hearing the whispers of the aether.

The world hunts alongside the Homo Elysian.

“Which means I need to aim at the rest of my strengths,” Priam muttered. Sitting on a branch of Log-a-rhythm with his feet dangling over the void, he stared into the dark horizon and thought out loud. “The list isn’t that long: my skills, my Concepts, my Supremacies, and my talent for aether.” He looked at the four fingers he had raised, then folded them down one by one. “By elimination: the first option’s too broad.” Three fingers. “The second is too difficult, considering Mist, Pyro, and Breath will evolve at every Tier.” Two. “[Hoplite Warpath] and Promesse already cover Mastery, I’ve got an excellent teacher for Micro—” Beside him, his Shadow jabbed a finger into his ribs with a grin. “—and Domain progresses quickly with my resurrections.” One finger remained. “The choice seems obvious.”

“[Draconic Instinct] is already sharpening your natural talent for aether,” Jasmine said, biting into a fruit that smelled profoundly suspicious. “Not to mention your oneiric meta-affinity.”

“True,” Priam smiled, “so, if I stack another bonus and it multiplies with the rest, I could become a monster like no other.”

In his mind’s eye, he was already juggling formations and rewriting reality with runes. It was a vision he liked very much.

“Would that bring you closer to your goal?” asked a regal voice.

Jasmine scowled and lobbed the rotten fruit toward Esmée. Priam flicked it aside with a kinetic snap and smiled as the princess approached without much confidence. Her boots did not look designed for tree-climbing.

“I don’t see how becoming a better mage could possibly move me away from my goal,” Priam replied as Esmée sat down on his left.

“Not moving away isn’t the same as moving closer.”

“My resistance to fake philosophy is Legendary,” Jasmine growled, “and I still want to slap you.”

The princess rolled her eyes. “What I mean is: becoming a better mage will rarely help Priam defeat a stronger enemy. The System ensures that using a skill will always be faster and more powerful than drawing its rune.”

“But [Aether Manipulation] is more versatile,” Priam argued. “It’s not raw martial quality I lack most, and despite what the Seven would like us to believe, life isn’t just combat.”

The Juggernaut had plenty of tools to destroy, and precious few to build.

“I hope so,” Esmée said, smiling. “But also consider that talent isn’t everything. The ranks of [Aether Manipulation] and [Aether Perception] are limited by your Soul Tier. Their power by your meta-attributes. A little more affinity with the arcane won’t change much.”

“Easy for you to say when you’re better than I am,” Priam teased.

“I’m better because I spent two decades thinking about how to solve problems in a discipline you didn’t even know existed.” She glanced at the horizon. “Past a certain point, weaving aether faster is pointless. What matters is imagination. Intuition.”

The words rang true.

On Earth, Priam hadn’t studied magic, he had studied science. A field where the inventive cast shadows over the merely brilliant. Einstein hadn’t revolutionized physics with general relativity by merely unrolling known equations. Neither had Planck with quantum theory, nor Newton with gravity. Any idiot with a calculator could multiply faster than they did. To climb into the ranks of the great required vision. A spark of genius.

“So I’d need to create a Talent that boosts my… magical imagination? My intuition? My inspiration?”

“Is that possible?” Esmée asked.

“Maybe,” Priam said with a shrug. “But I don’t see how. Very few of the Talents I have access to are aether-oriented. Not in a fundamental way. That’s soul territory more than body.”

“Oh.”

Esmée looked disappointed, and Priam couldn’t tell whether it was the sting of failure in a model student or the fact that she had a vested interest in his third Talent being powerful.

After all, Priam planned to share his new race with all of Oasis.

“Sorry, but…” Jasmine said. “What’s the difference between a magical idea and a mundane idea?”

Priam turned toward his Shadow, then burst out laughing. “You’re a genius!”

The young woman lifted her chin proudly. “Glad you finally noticed.”

Still laughing, Priam hopped down the tree to find Osiris. Behind him, he heard Jasmine whisper:

“So… what did I say that was smart?”

*

Half-awake, Osiris stared at the tree of life with a critical eye. “You want a Talent that sharpens your brain?”

“And boosts my creativity,” Priam said.

“Mmh. You see how to build it?”

“I think so.”

The tree allowed three racial Talents to be mixed. Priam pointed to a first anise-green blood-seed. “High elf as the base.”

The property deed he had received from the Demiurge had been signed in blood. Whether that was for symbolism, tradition, or because ink was rare in the Wandering Islands, Priam had no clue, but he sampled it.

“Why the elves?” Esmée asked.

“One of the three Talents they have accelerates synapse creation—the connections between neurons. Over time, it lets you bulk up your brain effortlessly. Hey, I bet elves can sharpen their intelligence while watching reality TV.”

Nobody reacted, which reminded Priam how thick the cultural barrier was.

“Anyway. It’s a solid foundation for a cerebral Talent, and I want it. Second ingredient: Ève.”

Ignoring Jasmine’s groan, the tree drew a little golden blood, more gaseous than liquid. Unsurprisingly, the fae’s first racial Talent dealt with memory. The twist was that instead of strengthening or securing it, the fae could call a memory rather than waiting for it to come to them. No memory blanks, just instant access.

Incidentally, neither Priam nor Osiris had managed to identify the other two Talents.

He answered the question in Esmée’s eyes. “Fae blood lets us spontaneously pull the knowledge we need to create something new. Excellent synergy with eidetic memory. By the way, it’s a Talent I’d recommend to you.”

“I have naturally eidetic memory,” the princess confessed.

The world had favourites.

Before adding the finishing touch, Priam studied the tree of life, reviewing everything he had learned over the last few days. This was not the moment to miss something obvious.

“Bertomne, the sand singer,” Priam decided. “Composing a song takes inspiration, and a spark of genius. That Talent is the final ingredient.”

A granular blood joined the ichor. The tree pulsed, then deployed a thorn. Priam pricked his finger.

A rush flooded him. Some artists took drugs to kick their inspiration into gear. Priam felt as though he had been hooked up to an opium drip or LSD. With his brain boiling, he needed to act.

He gathered a bubble of air above his palm with kinetic force and imprinted a rotational motion into it. It felt absurdly easy. In his brain, connections formed, crystallising the magical equivalent of muscle memory. What was easy became natural, then instinctive. The skill was no longer a tool but a limb.

Priam felt as though he had been put on an IV of Potential.

Lvl Up: [Kinetic Sovereignty] lvl 6
PERC +9
META(Focus) +9
META (Perception) +9

Meta-perception exceeds 1,000 points. Second milestone reached. Congratulations!

The gas spun faster and faster, and a wave of heat caressed his skin as friction and molecular agitation intensified. Soon, a flame appeared.

Could he push further?

If [Kinetic Sovereignty] could target smaller particles like electrons, then he could rip them free and create plasma as easily as snapping his fingers. And if his magical force rose high enough to disassemble an atom, nuclear fission wouldn’t be far behind. The possibilities—

The altered ichor finally dissipated through his body, and the rush vanished.

Priam smiled. “That’s it. Our third racial Talent.”

“What are you going to call it?” Osiris asked.

Obsession. Predation…

“[Homo Elysian Inspiration].”

*