5 Ability (2)

Sin was shocked, his jaw dropped down and his eyes were wide-open.

"A-Ability?!?" Sin stuttered that word unable to form a normal sentence. Bounty only answered with a bright smile, the adventurer with a barking laugh.

"Wha-What kind of ability do I have? Please tell me," begged Sin.

Sin was truly perplexed. Having awakened an ability meant you had the chance to join the ranks of the adventurers. Every adventurer had his own unique ability. And now he, Sin, was about to join their ranks. It was truly unbelievable! Of course, before you could join them you would have to graduate from the adventurer academy. Nevertheless, you could only join the academy after you awakened an ability, that was the only existing requirement. It pretty simple, nevertheless, exactly this was, what stopped the general public from going there.

There were two available ways to get an ability. The first was natural awakening and the second was forced awakening. Obviously, Sin awakened his ability naturally. The special technics for a forced awakening weren't free for the general public, they got monopolized by the noble clans and other organizations. Every one of them had their own ways to awaken their members.

Still, there was a gap in power between the natural awakened and the forced ones. Forced abilities were created after analyzing a natural one. Based on that information a technic was created to awaken someone. This had the big disadvantage that those abilities were only copies and could never compare to their originals.

Bounty squinted her eyes and slowly answered, "I can't tell you anything about this. I could show you..., but it is a little dangerous for you. So..., do you dare to take the risk?" Bounty knew the strange appearance of Sin's eye was the precursor of an especially strong awakened ability. Normally the beginner stadium of an ability wouldn't change the user's appearance.

Furthermore, she lied to him about there being a risk. She was interested in Sin. She wanted to know if he had the guts one needed to stand shoulder to shoulder with the strong. If he was easily stopped from reaching his desires every time he met some danger, she would be really disappointed.

But Sin said without further questions, "I will take the risk." He nodded in her direction with a totally calm appearance. "Please check what my ability is." There it was again the firm voice of someone, who might become strong someday.

Bounty laughed and stretched her hands over to Sin. She really started to like this boy. His character and personality seemed to be the optimum for every adventurer.

"Here give me your hands, I have to send some of my power into you if you want me to check your ability." Sin touched Bountys hands and a purple light rushed out of her hands through his and headed straight for his eye.

"Close your eyes and focus solely on your misty eye," told Bounty Sin. He did as she instructed him, his eye started to itch after a short time and made him want to scratch it but he couldn't because he still held her hands.

The unpleasant feeling got stronger. Then suddenly it was as if his mind got separated from his body. The itching disappeared and Sin reappeared inside a green mist world. The world literally contained nothing but clouds of green mist. A figure appeared in front of him, it was Bounty. "You should train your concentration boy. You needed a very long time to reach this place. I nearly fell asleep waiting for you."

Bounty winked to him with her hand and said, "Come over now. You need to speed up, this consumes lots of my energy."

Sin, who had a translucent body inside this misty place, walked over to her.

"Just listen, I will give you a quick guide." She said in a commanding manner.

"This place here is the manifestation of your ability. It seems to be of the mind category." Sin had a questioning look in his eyes but Bounty didn't let him interrupt her explanation. "To better understand what your ability is you need to gather the mist around you. Hold your hands like this." Bounty raised both arms in front of her, her palms pointed away from her body.

"Do this and then envision that your hands contain a strong suction force. They are the center of gravity."

Sin did as he was told and copied Bounty's posture. With all his might he tried to concentrate and suck the mist over to his hands. The mist started to swirl and slowly came over in his direction. If Sin wasn't as focused as he was, he would have noticed that Bounty was totally flabbergasted. Her plan was originally to explain him first every step in detail, she didn't expect him to succeed on his first try. She didn't even know if there was in history someone else, who managed to do this during his first try. She herself needed to train for a whole day before she accomplished it.

"I found a true jewel! His first try and he already gathers the mist! What kind of monster is this kid!?!", Bounty thought.

She didn't tell Sin before but during her healing of him, she already noticed that he had awakened an ability. Bounty saw the power it contained and got goosebumps all over her body. Its potential was monstrous. In all her years working as an adventurer, she only saw once a person with a comparable strong ability. That person was by a few years older than Sin, nevertheless, she got reminded of him right now.

The suction force increased every second. Sin's hair started to flutter in the wind. More and more mist gathered in front of him. Even though he was just a seven-year-old boy, right not he had something old and powerful around him. It was nothing someone his age should possess.

Bounty cleared her throat and explained, "Good, a little bit sloppy but not bad for your first try." She didn't want him to know how special he was. It was never good if you grew overconfident in your youth. Most people with that character trait awaited an early death.

"Now all you need to do is to compress the mist into a sphere. You do it like that!" She turned her palms, pointing them at each other. Bounty left enough space between them for a ball-sized object. Sin followed her instructions.

However, he noticed fast that this normally easy movement wasn't easy at all. His hands felt as if they were chained to the mist and hard to move. Slowly, extremely slowly his palms turned toward each other.

He started to pant and sweatdrops started to roll down his forehead.

Huff, Huff, Huff!

Sin asked with a shaking voice, "Why is it so hard?"

Bounty squinted her eyes. "What good can come from no effort? If you think an ability turns you strong from one moment to the other then you are wrong. Training an ability is even harder than training your body."

"Why?" Sin was still panting not able to say a single word more than necessary. His hands moved closer and closer to the desired position.

"Why? That is a good question." Bounty laughed out loud. "The answer is pretty simple. It is because you never trained your brain. We humans only ever run around when we grow up but no one stops a second to exercise his brain! What you need here in this space is a strong brain and not body.

Talent alone will bring you only that far." Bounty shrugged her shoulders. Many people, who gained a special power thought that they stood at the pinnacle of the world but the truth was different. The number of people, who gained an ability was pretty high. One among a thousand people had awakened a special power but the number of people, who trained them to a high level, was less than one in a million.

"Telling you the truth though, you are stronger than expected. Look at that mist around you. Every awakened has something similar to this, we call this alpha mist. Your goal is to condense a single pixel out of this alpha mist." Bounty was truly amazed. She knew exactly why it was so hard for Sin to gather the mist into a pixel.

The more mist your body contained the harder it was for the person to control and gather it. It was comparable to a person carrying five kilograms having an easier time than a person carrying fifty. On one hand, the person with more mist obviously could create a stronger and bigger pixel for himself, on the other hand, he had a harder time doing it. It wasn't unheard of that someone couldn't grow his strength further because his willpower was too small in comparison to his ability.

"Alpha mist??? Pi-Pixel???" Sin thought it was amazing. As a commoner, this was completely new to him. His heart burned with the desire to finally know what his ability was. He knew it would completely change his life.

Zuuuuuummmmmm!Zuuuuuuuummmmm!

Sin finally managed to make his palms face each other, his arms trembling heavily.

Huff. Huff. Huff. Filled to the brim with the will to make this power his own, he said, "I am ready!!! What..., What do I have to do now?" The strain on him grew every passing moment bigger and bigger.