Returning from Kunlun, I didn't immediately jump into mastering the Summoning element. I decided it was finally time to tackle my long-standing ambition: acquiring a talent.
What is a talent? I don't mean a simple talent for playing the violin or drawing. I'm talking about a unique magical talent, like Mo Fan's double awakening.
Where do they come from? A mage receives their unique talent during their very first awakening of magic. And how do I plan to get one if I didn't awaken it in this life or the previous one? Simple: I'll take it. How am I going to do that? Well, I need to start from way back...
More than a hundred years ago, a man lived in China. His name was Wu Tu. He awakened in a small town, much like Bo City, and received the Wind element. But that doesn't matter. What matters is the talent he awakened: Awakening Is Always Like the First Time.
Though the name isn't entirely clear, this talent allowed him to awaken a new talent at every level, as if it were his very first awakening all over again. Hence the name.
After breaking through to the Intermediate level, Wu Tu's second awakened talent was Element Transfer. This talent allowed him to steal one mage's cultivation and transfer it to another person. With this talent, he could even turn an ordinary person into a mage. Once he awakened it, Wu Tu went down a dark path.
Cooperating with criminals, helping magical families and clans create heirs possessing desired elements by stripping them from ordinary people. And much, much more.
Thus, using money from his dark deeds, Wu Tu raised his cultivation to the Advanced level and awakened another talent: Two Elements in One. In other words, the Earth and Plant elements were harmoniously fused within a single stardust.
Around that time, people started hunting him down for his unique skills, and he took shelter in the Chinese Mu Clan, where he provided his usual services to the clan, cultivated in peace, and broke through to the Super level, acquiring a new talent: Failed Awakening.
Meaning, from that moment on, he could no longer awaken elements. Yes, natural debuffs can happen among talents.
During his breakthrough to the Forbidden Curse level, a Forbidden Curse mage from the Mu Clan attacked him, disrupting his breakthrough, after which he was used as a test subject for the rest of his days.
Studying him and running experiments, the Mu Clan developed a talent extraction ritual. It was a perverted adaptation of Wu Tu's Element Transfer method into a ritualistic form. Except, instead of simply taking the talent and cultivation, this ritual inflicted irreparable damage to the victim's soul.
How do I know such dark secrets of one of China's strongest clans? Well, canon knowledge combined with personal participation in a raid on this clan in my past life. That's where I familiarized myself with the ritual, which I intended to use to acquire a talent. And not just one.
Only, unlike the butchers of the Mu family, I would mentally cripple only one person: Wu Tu. Since I am intimately familiar with his life story, I know that after breaking through to the Intermediate level, he awakened his second element in Jinglin City. And that small town had only one Awakening Association, just like Bo City.
I didn't know the exact date of his awakening, but I knew the month and year. So, I would just skip to the end of the month and steal the records of those who awakened during that period.
After that, I just needed to kidnap him right after his awakening and perform the ritual, snatching his second talent so I could use it to steal other talents. The first one, with its potential debuffs, wasn't worth anything to me. A newly breakthrough Intermediate mage, even without a Spiritual Seed, was clearly no match for me.
Why would I want Wu Tu's talent if I could just steal talents using the Mu family's ritual?
Simply because I'm not a heartless butcher. Among the talents that caught my eye, not all of them belonged to die-hard villains. If I simply stole a desired talent from someone, maybe even giving another one in return, my conscience would allow it.
But inflicting irreparable psychological trauma on someone like the beauty Heidi from the Alpine Institute, with whom I had friendly relations in my past life? I just couldn't do that. Therefore, it was time to go get the data.
Everything went smoothly. I teleported to the end of the target month, applied spiritual pressure on a regular employee, and asked where they kept the records of those who awakened that month. I broke in, packed all the boxes of folders into my spatial ring, and vanished.
It's a good thing digitization wasn't a thing a hundred years ago. My hacking skills are absolute zero.
Flipping through a dozen folders, I found Wu Tu's awakening date and time. It was time to get to work.
Teleporting to Jinglin, my first move was to exchange some resources for local currency and rent a spacious studio. Afterward, I stalked Wu Tu as he left the association, struck his mind with spiritual element magic, and knocked him out.
Before his body could hit the ground, I caught him, put on the act of someone walking a drunk friend home, and brought him to the studio where the ritual was already set up on the floor.
Thirty minutes later, the Element Transfer talent was mine. Now I needed to practice on some scumbags so I wouldn't turn victims into this. I glanced sideways at Wu Tu's drooling body. I wasn't going to graft someone else's cultivation onto myself, but I'd gladly take the talents.
Returning to my own world, I started compiling a list of the talents I wanted and when to absorb them:
Qin Yu'er's Innate Ice Calamity Talent – a must-have for absorption, but only at the Forbidden Curse level, otherwise I won't survive.
Reid's Defense-Ignoring Talent (from the German World Tournament Team) – need to gather more info on him; he's my peer. If there's no heavy security, I'll absorb it soon.
Ding Yumian's Mental Interaction – same as Qin Yu'er, but at the Forbidden Curse level. Essentially, she is an innate spiritual calamity.
All-in-One – allows pouring the entire elemental reserve into a single attack. I don't know the name of its owner, but it should be among the top one hundred talents in the country; I'll check later. A potential peer of mine; if there's no serious security, I'll absorb it soon.
Three-Hole Heart – Heidi's talent, allows casting three spells simultaneously. Absorb soon.
Mutated Stars – Dongfang Ming's talent – raises the rank of stars by one level. Absorb soon.
Accelerated Recovery – a potential peer's talent. Increases magic power recovery speed tenfold. That means a full reserve can be restored in 72 minutes. Absorb soon if there is no heavy security.
Random Spell Power Increase (from x2 to x5) – does exactly what it sounds like. Essentially an innate blessing. A peer's talent. If I'm not making it public, absorb it after the university tournament, otherwise I'll blow my cover too fast.
My plan is simple. I want to fake having Wu Tu's talent: Awakening Is Always Like the First Time. This will explain where I got multiple talents and why nothing showed up at the Novice level.
All that's left is to choose which talents I'll make official and practice on some scumbags before going on a real job. I also need to comb through the lists of the world's best talents throughout history. Maybe I'll find even better options.