Welcome Home

After a few minutes, Northern came back with the herbs, he mixed the leaves together and crushed them with pebbles. Then he applied it on the surface of his father's wounds.

The leaves were sinking into the wounds, causing Shin to grit his teeth at the stinging pain as his body easily absorbed the leaves.

After that, Northern took the skinning knives and began tearing apart the monster's stomach. It was harder than usual and blood occasionally splashed on his face.

But he persevered, and as his father said, it had three cores.

'It really was a calamity beast…'

Once again, Northern was at a loss for words. He considered calling it a miracle, but he preferred the word "luck."

However, that luck was brought by his father's experience, effort, and trust in him.

If Shin had not decided at the last minute to throw his sword at him, then Northern was sure he'd be dead right now.

The cores were whitish and full of soul energy.

Shin grinned as he saw Northern retrieve them.

"These are money son! Money!!"

Despite his wounded state, Shin's eyes gleamed eagerly. But the light faded as a thought struck him, then, he looked at Northern questioningly:

"Since you have awakened your talent, you should be able to absorb the cores. Do you want to do that instead? It will give you a great boost. I'm assuming you have a similar talent to mine. It won't be easy nurturing it, but everything is still left to the second awakening." Shin explained.

Northern looked at the cores with a thoughtful expression. He didn't know a lot about himself yet or the strange powers he had received. Would he even be able to absorb the energies in the cores if he tried?

Also, would there be a second awakening for him?

Northern felt like he knew the answer to that question.

He closed his eyes and smiled innocently.

"How about we just get home first?"

"Ah, yes, right. Your mother would be so worried about us."

Northern helped his father up and placed his arm around his neck. He wasn't of a comfortable height to support Shin, but he wasn't that short either.

Slowly both of them made their way home.

—

Eisha waited anxiously. It was late into the night, and her husband and son still hadn't returned from their hunt.

The other villagers tried to reassure her.

"Don't worry, you know your husband..."

"That man was a renowned drifter. He'll be fine!"

"Shin's the strongest in the village. No need to fret."

But she couldn't shake her unease. As the night dragged on, her patience wore thin.

Finally, she heard footsteps. She raised her hand, conjuring a ball of fire. With two fingers, she controlled the flickering flame, squinting to see who approached.

When she made out their familiar faces, she opened her palm, the fire softening from a weapon into a gentle light.

"Shin? Northie?" She called out.

The flames brightened, revealing Shin's numerous injuries. Terror seized her and she rushed to them.

"My dear, I would never—"

He froze mid-sentence as Eisha strode past him and hugged Northern tightly.

He huffed dramatically. "I'm the wounded one, yet you go to him! I'm perfectly fine, can't you see?"

Ignoring her husband's theatrics, Eisha inspected Northern, relief flooding her.

Then she turned to Shin sternly. "What happened?"

Shin sighed. "I forgot... the full moon. A calamity beast attacked us."

Eisha paled, eyes wide. "A calamity beast?! Shin, you could have died!"

Shin gave a bitter smile.

"It's not like I didn't know. My survival was due to luck and your son."

He looked at Northern as she said this, his wife also turning to do the same.

Northern frowned a little bit and shook his head to deny it, knowing very well what his father would say.

"Yes. He killed the beast."

"No. I did not awaken…"

Both their words came out simultaneously, causing a grave silence to follow. Shin and Northern stared at each other cluelessly.

Eisha looked at both of them and then belatedly processed what she heard. She turned to her son.

"Wait? Did you just say you awakened?"

'What part of 'did not' did she not understand?' Northern cringed internally.

How could he explain that he hadn't awakened at all? As his parents beamed with pride, he felt a twinge of guilt.

He beheld their happy faces as they 'heard' that he had awakened, and it became even harder to correct them.

Eisha caressed his cheek, then grabbed Shin's ear.

"Now, let's go get you treated."

"Ah ahhhhh ahhhhhhhhhh!!"

Shin yelped as they headed inside.

—

After all that had happened, Northern lay on his bed, staring at his dull ceiling. It all felt surreal as if he hadn't just narrowly escaped death, as if he hadn't just copied his father's talent.

Maybe it was all a hallucination. But it wasn't.

He sat up abruptly, confusion etched on his face, as he remained silent for a few moments.

"Hey..."

He wasn't sure how to address this phenomenon, this thing that had granted him a powerful ability.

"I know you can hear me. I need an explanation. Tell me what's going on," Northern demanded. But minutes passed, and still, he received no response.

It was frustrating. Why wouldn't it talk? How could he make it communicate?

Then it dawned on him; what if he gave it a command?

"Copy talent."

{System Notice}

{Invalid command}

"Whoa!"

Northern almost jumped back in surprise, he didn't actually think the trick would work. But now that it had, his hopes spiraled.

"Show me my talent."

{System Notice}

{Access granted}

{Would you like to see your entire profile or just the talent section?}

Northern felt very accomplished as he saw the system progress in its communication skills.

"Yes, show me my entire profile."

{System Notice}

[Profile]

Name: Northern Lougguard

Soul Rank: [Walker]

Talent Fragments: [650/1000]

[Copied Talents]: [1/1]

Seeing the black panel bring out these runes, a lot of thoughts ran through Northern's head.

When the first awakening commenced, every potential Drifter was called a 'Walker'; it was also the first rank of their souls.

In this state, the soul could not resist the call of the rift. Ul constantly beckoned on the soul of the newly awakened to enter the rift.

After entering for the first time and coming out alive, their soul would gain a new rank— drifter, and they become fully awakened.

Although they now had a fully formed core and in rare cases, a dimensional name, they still couldn't resist the call at this stage.

The next rank after becoming a drifter was a Nomad. At this point, the call would become bearable and could be ignored without worrying about subconsciously walking into a rift.

But for Ul's call to completely disappear, they needed to become 'Vagrant'.

At this rank, they become masters of their own souls and were popularly referred to as such.

Right now, Northern was the lowest and was prone to subconsciously walking. But he wondered if that was even going to be possible. As far as things went, Ul did not awaken any talent in him or form a soul core.

Which sort of meant there was no first awakening... or better still it had been a failure.

He looked at the runes that displayed his talent fragment, his face contorted with confusion.

He had understood the part where he could absorb the talents of monsters he slayed and convert them to talent fragments which were used to copy the talent of other drifters.

However, what about their soul energy? Usually, drifters gained soul energy from killing monsters, that was how their soul core grew and enlarged, but he did not have a soul core and couldn't gain soul energy. Did that mean he was stuck as a walker for the rest of his life?

At this point, Northern felt like he was beginning to overthink it.

'I should rest...' He thought to himself, but it was rather hard when he was faced with a strange thing that could change his life forever.

Northern felt exhilarated at the thought of it.

There was just one thing he felt he needed to do before going to sleep. Northern focused his command on the talent section. Immediately, another holographic panel appeared beside the main one.

[Copied Talents]: [1/1]

Talent: [Advanced Cloning]

Class: [A]

Talent (True) Name: [Many Of One]

Description: [I am one, I am two, I can be three... four or five. My personas are limitless and only limited to my imagination, in my hands all objects are more than one]

Talent Ability: [Self Clone]

Attribute: [Your soul rank is too low to access this information]

Talent progression: [0/600]

{System Notice}

{Talent fragments can be used to grow and evolve copied talents}

Northern's mouth fell... It turned out he didn't just copy the talent's ability but also the true essence of the talent within a person's soul core. Down to their dimensional name and attribute.

His shoulder shook with excitement as his mouth curled into a delighted grin.

'This is good... this is so good.'