Chapter 13 - Awakening

James was now heading towards his house for his rank advancement. His face filled of joy as there were now more plans in his mind regarding the interior and exterior of the structure.

After a thought, he thought of asking his mother's help regarding the interior and exterior construction of shelter.

He went straight to his room after placing all the supplies he acquired along the way.

He lay flat on the ground of his room to avoid falling again after his rank advancement.

"Host has met the conditions of E-rank hunter advancement. Would you like to advance now?"

He replied with a resolute, "Yes!".

"The Host will be temporarily put to sleep for any discomfort caused by the rank advancement."

His eyes felt heavy and vision becoming blurred. They shut down, and he found himself in a dark environment where a very small dot was flickering intensely.

The flickering soon stopped, and the dot inflated at least ten times to its previous size.

A sphere of golden, pale light was now visible in this dark environment, where nothing existed other than James and itself.

He went forward and tried to grab it, but the golden light was a barrier that didn't let his hand pass through it towards the dot that had stopped flickering.

James tried to place both his hand on the barrier. The barrier showed no signs of repelling this time.

The barrier vanished after some time and the dot like structure dashed towards his chest. It all happened in a flash, and before he could check his chest his eyes opened up dragging him out of the dark environment, and he felt like a dream.

After waking up, he saw system alerts in his sight.

"Host has successfully advanced to the E-rank."

"You have completed the quest of shelter construction."

"The host has successfully awakened the talent 'Rune Mastery'. From rank advancement."

"The residents in the house will now commence to their awakening."

"The host will also awaken his second talent."

James questioned, "Second Awakening!?"

According to his past life, those who awakened twice were lucky as there was no way to awaken twice, which had made him question the system.

The system didn't reply to his question. Frustrated from being ignored, he went down to the gathering place.

He saw everyone lying down in the room as if they had passed out. Trying to reach them, his eyes felt heavy and vision blur before closing again.

In the dark environment...

James had once again found himself in a strange environment. A golden light was revolving around his body and disappearing, repeating the process from head to toe.

A black ore emerged out in front of his body, absorbing all the golden light. The orb began to produce multicolor dots in its surface. It began to reach his chest showing signs of coexistence with the golden light and the light turned from black to every possible color enveloping his body.

In the guest room...

Everyone woke up at the same time, and they looked at each other. James' mother spoke first, "I had a dream of entering a dark environment and-" right after his father interrupted her speech, "Yes, I had the same dream and a red light pierced through my body. It was scary.".

She spoke again, "No, mine was brown. Strange, No?".

Hearing their conversation, Alita also spoke up, "Umm… Mine was green." with her usually shy tone.

James had already woken up from the 'dream'. He heard that everyone had gone through the same process, but the color of those lights differed.

His gears were already revolving before system alerts popped up in his vision.

"Host has awakened the second talent, 'Chaos Affinity'."

"Host, your awakened talents compliment each other."

After he had gone through the alerts, there were a lot of questions. The system interfered with his thoughts.

" Host, you awakened the first talent naturally, and the second talent was the reward of quest completion."

James shifted his thoughts towards everyone in the room.

He saw his mother holding a brown transparent building structure that was hovering around her hands. Both his father and Alita looked normal as usual.

Seeing his mother, he knew that she had already figured out her talent. Her talent was the best for construction, as she could easily simulate a hologram regarding the weather conditions or land to check the durability.

His mother recommended everyone to meditate and follow the color of their lights.

Everyone sat down and started mediating after hearing her words.

James found himself in the dark environment again and saw the colorful lights enveloping his body.

He followed the lights as per the instructions of his mother. He stumbled into a small orb, and it contained both the talents he had awakened.

The golden orb dashed out of the orb, breaking it. Its size became large, and he was absorbed into its golden surface. There was a lot of knowledge gushing into his brain that he had never seen or heard of.

The golden sphere disappeared completely, as if it never existed. Soon after, the multicolor orb repeated the same process, trapping him again.

This time he had gotten knowledge regarding the elements. He had started feeling a natural connection with it before all the elements converted into a black element, emitting their lights continuously.

He opened his eyes and noticed that both his father and neighbor were still meditating. His mother dragged him out of the room and whispered in his ears, "Don't disturb them."

She went down to her forge in a hurry with the order of not making any noise.

James laid his back on the sofa and slept like a log again.

Alita woke up right after he fell asleep and looked at her hands with passionate eyes, while his father woke up and went straight to his bedroom with an ambitious look on his face.

Alita went to her bed for a sleep, and James' mother also came out of the forge after an hour to rest.