Chapter 5: Talent Ability - Writ

After feeding himself and the cat, Ain wanted to study his innate talent. However, the exhaustion from all the events today persuaded him otherwise.

The next day, Ain woke up feeling refreshed. He saw the sun peeking in through the window, and the cat sprawled out on the floor as usual.

He felt a little uncomfortable because today was Sunday. Usually, he would already be on his way to work at this time. Shaking this feeling off, Ain started his day.

After freshening up, he took a seat on an old chair. He wanted to think about his future plans.

Now that he had awakened, he had one year of spirit academy ahead of him. This was mandatory for all newly awakened students.

Ain quickly researched nearby spirit academies and finally chose the Red Oak Spirit Academy. His criterion for this choice was simply the academy's proximity to his home. Of course, it was only relatively close. The Red Oak Spirit Academy was still closer to the central region of the city. It was a 45 minute commute from his home.

Soon after, Ain fiddled with his hololink for a few minutes and completed the registration application.

Spirit academies began their school year the week following the Spirit Awakening Ceremony. Ain would have to start school tomorrow, which he hadn't done in years.

Although education was mandatory, it did not specify the mode of education until the Spirit Awakening Ceremony. It would suffice to pass the annual examinations required by the Board of Education.

At the age of ten, Ain had started learning from his mentor. So, it would be his first time attending school in seven years.

After finishing up with the enrollment, Ain turned his attention back to his innate talent.

He had already seen the effects of Premonition. It was somewhat difficult to test its effects without taking any risks, so Ain overlooked it for now.

He moved on to Scan. Ain thought back to the information that had emerged in his mind when his innate talent mutated.

‘With Scan, I can obtain the present parameters of anything with a spirit. What is a spirit? What has a spirit?’

Ain understood the first part, but the second part eluded him. He didn’t linger on for too long.

He glanced around the table and grabbed a pen. He focused on it and tried to use Scan.

After staring at it for a minute, there were no changes.

‘So the pen doesn't have a spirit? Is that why there is no reaction?’

Ain stood up and tried various items around his room, and they all unanimously failed.

After the constant failures, Ain sat back down and stared straight ahead, trying to think of different ideas.

At that moment, the white cat entered his vision. It was rolling around on the floor, lost in its own world.

Ain's mind spun immediately, and he got up and crouched next to the cat. The cat turned to look at Ain, wondering what this human was up to.

"Don't move." Ain placed his hand on the cat and tried to activate his ability again.

Unlike before, he felt his spirit energy being consumed.

‘It worked.’ Ain's eyes lit up as he felt some information appear in his mind.

After pausing for a second, he quickly summarized the information he had just obtained.

At this point, Ain knew that he had named this ability appropriately; this was really no different from scanning.

[Species: Jasper Cat]

[Attribute: Ice]

[Rank: Rank-0]

[Quality: Common | Max Quality: Common]

[Attribute Traces: Ice 89.221%, Water 5.673%, Earth 0.249%, ..., Time 0.002%]

He had actually obtained even more information, but he only summarized the relevant data for comparison.

He was already aware of the first four points of information.

The cat's species was called Jasper Cat. It was a common spirit beast, often domesticated and used as uncontracted household pets. It wasn't uncommon to see them in cities.

Not only were they found all around the world, but their attributes were also very diverse. Just from the slightly cold touch, Ain was aware of its ice attribute.

It was also no surprise that it was a Rank-0 Spirit Beast with a Common quality. Jasper Cats were kept as household pets exactly because their max quality was Common.

Common quality limited the spirit beasts to Rank-0. They were unable to rank up without evolving their quality first. But there had never been a case of a Jasper Cat evolving past Common. At least, Ain was unaware.

Soon, all of Ain's attention was focused on the last bit of information.

Attribute traces.

Ain was not unfamiliar with this term. While studying under his mentor, he had sometimes used the Attribute Measurement Device, or AMD, to obtain attribute traces for some spirit plants.

Spirit energy was composed of various attributes.

Attribute traces referred to the ratio of the attributes in spirit energy.

Attribute ratios in ambient spirit energy were never constant. But after it was absorbed by spirit beasts, spirit plants, and some special items, the spirit energy's attribute ratios would be fixed.

They were then referred to as attribute traces.

But the current technology and techniques used to measure attribute traces were sorely lacking.

Ain knew that even the best AMDs out there could only report attribute traces to the accuracy of a whole number. This meant it even failed to measure the attribute traces in the decimal range.

Yet, with Ain's first attempt, he had measured a list of attribute traces with a three-decimal accuracy.

From what he knew, attribute traces were essential in the field of spirit tamers.

His mentor had mentioned more than once that the inaccuracy of AMDs had paralyzed advancements in many related fields.

A tedious amount of trial and error was required at times to bypass this obstacle.

Ain's thoughts ran wild as he tried to imagine the impact of this ability. If he could learn to utilize this advantage well, his future would be unimaginable.

Recalling the information again, Ain's thoughts stopped at the time attribute for a second before moving on.

His spirit energy reserves were still sufficient to test his other abilities.

Analysis and Deduction didn't seem useful at first, but Ain was aware of their value.

His original innate talent, Deep Insight, improved these aspects passively. That was enough to earn it a B-rank.

Wisdom Root provided a greater passive improvement while also converting them into active abilities.

Ain promptly tested them both.

True to its name, Analysis could analyze information for him. Ain found it to be similar to high-speed computing.

Similarly, Deduction could deduce information, but it heavily relied on information already available to Ain.

Although they both consumed Ain's spirit energy, their value was apparent. It could save Ain countless hours in the future.

Finally Ain thought of the ability he was most excited about.

Writ, the ability to ask the Heavens for an answer.

Ain once again thought back to the vague information he obtained when his talent mutated.

Writ would produce consumable writs. Once the writs were used, he would be unable to use this ability again, unless he increased his rank.

During a breakthrough to the next rank, a new writ would be produced.

The previous abilities had already confirmed something. Ain’s abilities were heavily reliant on him, especially when they were limited by his spirit energy.

He also understood that Writ was not only limited by his spirit energy but even more so by his rank.

Ain needed to find the appropriate use for the writ; therefore, he decided to hold off on testing it. After all, he hadn't even reached rank-0. It would be a waste to use it now.

After this series of tests, Ain had a better understanding of his potential. He already knew that most spirit tamers didn’t have such groundbreaking innate talents. Even the S-rank innate talents weren’t this powerful.

Ain already had a springboard; it would now depend on him how far he could jump.

At this point, his spirit energy was almost exhausted, and he felt his body's hunger for food. He didn't waste any more time and prepared a simple meal.

After the meal, Ain felt he was still unsatiated. He wasn't really surprised. Since he had awakened, a normal diet was going to be insufficient for him. He needed to buy more nutritious food.

With the tests complete, Ain realized that he had nothing to do. It was rare for him to have leisure time.

After some thought, he projected his hololink and decided to browse Cyberspace.

Cyberspace was a virtual world that connected everyone together. It was said to encompass the entire world. Even other species and races made use of it.

Cyberspace was segregated into access levels. Information related to spirit tamers was limited in the lower access levels, with regular citizens receiving strictly controlled information.

Of course, Ain's 1-star access was automatically upgraded to 2-stars after yesterday's Spirit Awakening Ceremony.

As he glanced through different news forums, Ain's gaze stopped at one particular headline.

[This year's champion of the Champions Path, Leila Everett, has chosen to attend Saint Heart Arcane University.]

Leila Everett, a name that Ain only became familiar with a week ago.

Each region in the Dawnstar Federation would hold a Champions Path, a competition where fresh graduates from the spirit academies would compete for wealth and fame.

It also served to further screen the fresh graduates for higher institutions and organizations.

Leila Everett was this year's champion of the Champions Path in the Emerald Garden where Duskfield City was located.

She possessed monstrous talent. In only one year after awakening her innate talent, she had become an Advanced Rank-2 Spirit Tamer. It was even rumored that she was about to reach Rank-3.

As the champion, the universities and organizations would fight and compete over her. In this regard, Saint Heart Arcane University had probably offered her significant benefits to attract her to their university.

Looking at the headline, Ain set a small goal for himself.

He would become the champion of next year's Champions Path.