011 - Status

Back at the Shining Residence.

My mom quickly dismissed Lily, she wanted to protest, but seeing the serious expression on my mom’s face, she complied and went back.

“I’ll see you later, Anshe…”

“Yeah, take care, big sis…”

She walked away reluctantly and as I watched her leave, I heard my mom’s voice behind me.

“Come, An.”

She didn’t specify much, but I knew this wasn’t the time to ask questions.

Soon, we were back in the study room.

“So, you did awaken another ability, right?”

I nodded.

The room was covered in a silence barrier as usual. I am just now realizing how much of our conversations are happening in such a setting.

“Sigh… I didn’t think it would, but it did, didn’t it? Heh, if only they knew.”

She smirked a little at the end. But soon her eyes focused back on me.

“Can… you show me?”

She asked, a little nervous.

I may not be the smartest man on the planet, but even I can connect two and two together.

I had awakened a Royal ability today.

That means I either am—or once was—royalty.

Since my family is here in this third rate sect and not some mansion teeming with servants, I can probably guess that our situation isn’t very good.

Have we been disowned by the family, whichever one it is.

Since I saw my mother’s surname is “Frostbarren” and she has frost related powers, I can safely assume that she didn’t take my dad’s last name, whatever it was and that I had inherited her powers.

I don't even know which of the neighbouring kingdom’s royal family has this name.

Now that I think about it, I don’t know anything about my family, especially my dad.

Was he royalty as well? Or was he someone of lower standing that my mom fell in love with? Why did my family situation turn out this way? Where is my dad? Is he still alive? I didn’t know anything.

There are so many questions I want answers to, and the person in front of me has all of the answers too. And there is also nothing stopping me from asking those questions as well.

Sadly, there is a LOT that is stopping me from hearing those answers though.

I could spiral into my thoughts all I wanted but I decided to show her my power first.

‘Avaria, can you make sure no one can detect me using these powers other than her?’

[We can isolate the fluctuations from the body, so detecting the rank of the skill will be almost impossible, but anything happening outside the body cannot be hidden. So please try to avoid doing anything flashy.]

Sure. Let’s just hope this barrier can stop everything else.

I moved my hand up and soon, a beautiful but enlarged snowflake appeared on my palm. Although I wasn’t using much power, the rank of the skill too is being hidden by Avaria, but the power being emitted could not be hidden.

I looked at her and saw her expression change in real time as she was first glad, then scared, then excited then scared again with finally showing an exhausted expression on her face.

“I knew it… although we are not… anyway I knew something like this would happen. Please put it away, An.”

I did as I was told and the snowflake shattered into the air.

“This amount of control on a just awakened ability… Son, my child, my dear dear child, is this ability of yours also above Royal rank?”

Although she asked, she already knew the answer.

So I just nodded. I better not tell her exactly how many ranks above, because even I didn’t know the name of the rank above Legendary until today.

“Remember An, you promised me… you will not tell anyone about this ability. Don’t worry, it would only be temporary, there is no way we can waste such an ability by hiding it.”

“Yes, mom, I remember. Don’t worry.”

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She nodded softly. Then continued.

“Since you also have a fire related ability, please continue to practise that for now, you need to be ready for the examination tomorrow. From tomorrow onwards, I will be barred from helping you any further. You will also have to stop living here. You will be treated the same as any other aspiring student in this sect and none of the professors will give you special treatment. So..”

She hesitated, but grit her teeth and continued.

“So… please choose any peak you like, since fire is a good offensive ability, I can ask Rodan to give you a spot on his peak, although he may not be a good man, he will never go against the sect’s rules. That much I can guarantee. Just… keep our promise in mind.”

I knew how overprotective my mother was of me. For her to say this, it must’ve been a lot.

Still, seeing her like this, I couldn’t help but try to mess with her. There is no reason to tell her I plan to stay here right now.

She can find out at the same time as everyone else, after the assessment ends.

“Ok mom, I’ll think about it.”

I could see reluctance on her face, but she still smiled and sent me off to prepare for tomorrow.

…

Since I had some free time on my hands right now, I opened my status.

[The Insatiable System]

[Host – Anshe]

[Physique - 116]

[Magic- 120]

[Control - 230]

[Skill Points - 0]

[Realm - Rank 0]

[Traits]

* Death String Puppeteer

* Cryos Titan Physique (Dormant)

* Divine Phoenixs’ Blessing

* Living Flame

[System Abilities]

* Soul Bind

* Locked

[Innate Abilities]

* Locked

* Cryos Titan’s Physique (0%) | ASCENDED

* Fire Control (0%) | MYTHIC

* Reaper’s Marionettist (0%) | MYTHIC

[Acquired Abilities]

* Novice Swordsmanship Lv.5 / 5

* Novice Footwork Lv.5 / 5

* Inferior Regeneration Lv.1 / 5

[Resistances]

* Fatigue Resistance (0.5%)

“Wow… a lot has changed huh.”

I didn’t look at it for some time and it changed this much?

The stat raised was expected at some level, getting this many strong physiques and high level skills was bound to have some effect on my body. I just didn’t expect it to reach three digits this quickly.

I clenched my fists and I could instinctively feel the strength in them. I could probably crush stone with these little fingers of mine.

I also felt lighter, my body more nimble and my mind was also a lot clearer.

If I had to guess, just with my raw stats, I was as powerful if not more than a Rank 1 mage. But I doubt I could take one in battle with all my innate abilities being adorned with a great 0 in all of them.

“Sigh…”

Although I complained about my skills having no progress, considering I did jack to get these abilities, I couldn’t really complain.

Realm progression is also something new that was added in the status. From what I know, realm progression is completely independent of the progress of the abilities.

I can max out an ability, but being able to use those fully perfected abilities will be dependent on my realm.

For example, since Lily recently made progress in her skill, that means her is halfway complete, but her realm is only Rank 3, which considering she has been a student here for almost five years more than me, so her progress is understandable.

Rather, her progress is excellent. Second only to the prime student from this peak, who is currently on the main peak. I don’t remember much about that person, but I’m sure we will meet soon enough.

There were a lot more things in the status that interested me, but I’ll check those in a while.

Right now, I just wanted to confirm some things from the system now that I can officially begin on my magic journey.

‘Hey, Avaria. What if one of my targets makes some progress in their realm and not just learns a new skill? What will I gain then?’

[In case of realm progression, the total amount of energy obtained from their realm progression would be rewarded to the host as stat points.]

‘Oh! Awesome! Doesn’t that mean that I don’t even have to work on my realm progression and can just wait and reap the benefits?’

[...In a way. But the host still has to create his own magic circles to actually advance. Otherwise it will be a false realm.]

I understood it wasn’t that easy, if realm progression was just accumulation of energy, people wouldn’t find it so hard.

‘Now then next, what about the skills I gained? Take for example, Lily has the advanced rank one but I have the Mythic one, how would I progress with something like that?’

[That would depend on Luck. If the host’s senior sister were to make another breakthrough in her ability, then that progress will either be converted to stat points or a skill unlocked in that ability tree. But the rate of progression of that ability has to be increased by the host alone.]

‘I knew it was sounding too good to be true. So I still need to do some stuff huh. It’s fine, my progress would still be leagues ahead of anyone else.’

Lastly, moving my eyes towards the skill section for the final time, I noticed that the [Fire Arrow] skill had disappeared from the acquired abilities section.

Every acquired ability gets assimilated into their innate counterparts. No wonder fire manipulation felt easier after I got the ability from Lily.

But just because I had didn’t mean I could use every single fire related skill, I still needed to learn them on my own.

Progressing in an ability can only be done through practice and enlightenment.

Practice is pretty self-explanatory but enlightenment can only be chanced upon, so there are many people who have been trying to reach the Perfection state of their ability but have not been able to do so for the sole reason that perfection is a stage that can only be reached by enlightenment.

I already had in mind what ability I wanted to try to raise first. I could feel it in my guts that it was the best thing for me to do.