Odd Discovery

When morning came, Taejun woke up even before the sun rose, and ran to the bedroom on the second floor of the library.

"Grandpa, wake up! You promised to awaken my ability today!" The boy shook the old man's body relentlessly until the old man woke up.

"Why are you so impatient? Looks like I'll have to teach you how to behave before anything."

The man looked at the boy's impatient eyes, then sighed.

"But a promise is a promise, so I'll do it now."

Without any further words, the man brought the boy to a capsule-like machine that emitted a neon light. It was made of black metal and blue glass, and the inside was filled with a liquid substance that was made of who-knows-what. It was the machine used to awaken potential. Most powerful abilities took a long time to generate, as there would be a large quantity of "potential", also known as the dormant mana inside the people's bodies. After the awakening, the whole point of training was to awaken all of the dormant mana. Only once this was finished, one could be considered a true special warrior. Taejun was impatient, as the power of the "ability" was directly proportional to the combat power of the warrior. Though physical training could cover some of the distance between the power of "abilities" or the distance of potential, it was only a minuscule factor in calculating body power. Some "abilities" required the usage of a certain weapon, while others could be used without any restrictions. Also, it was not uncommon to have many abilities. Generally, most of them were all related, but some rare heroes showed different abilities that were completely unrelated to each other.

The old man wished for Taejun to have an ability that was more suited towards support or command type ability, or a scholarly ability that could aid him in his study of strategy.

Taejun spent more than 2 weeks in the capsule, and with each growing day, the man's expectations grew higher and higher. After exactly 21 days, the eyes that were firmly shut were opened, and the look of an enlightened person could be seen inside his eyes.

"How was it?" The old man smiled, knowing fully well that the boy must be extremely excited right now.

However, the boy's eyes soon turned into disappointment, as he checked what his ability was through the images in his brain. Once one's ability awakened, the body would immediately send and receive images on how the to use the "mana" most efficiently, and these images were guidelines on how to use the abilities. However, these were only the most basic usages. It was possible to train to improve these abilities or gain new ones related to these.

"Not what I'd hoped for... they seem pretty hard to use. I guess I could train them, maybe?" The boy half-smiled, not wanting to seem disappointed in front of the old man. "They have no actual combat prowess, well a little bit."

"Well, don't keep this old man waiting! What is it?"

"There's two of them. Both of them are related to the human brain, I guess? The first is sort of a mind-reading power, but it's not as strong. It's kind of just reading intentions, like what the other person might do, and presents the probability of each choice that the person might make. The second is something that affects the other person's brain. I can make them see things, like a rabbit."

He made the old man see a rabbit on the ground to prove his point.

The man observed the lively rabbit.

"Can you see the rabbit yourself?"

"Yes. Perfectly well. But I can look past it if I focus."

"It seems that your hallucination ability can be seen by yourself as well. However, can you make something bigger than a rabbit? Or make someone feel something?"

"No. A rabbit is the best I can do for now. I'm already out of mana. And as for feeling, I don't think I can do that." After saying that, he felt his vision go blurry. "Can I test my vision again? It feels like my eyesight has gotten extremely worse for some reason."

When the old man heard that, his face instantly turned into a frown, and grabbed the boy's shoulders.

"Are you sure your eyesight's gotten worse? Absolutely sure?"

"Yes, grandpa."

With this, the tension was broken. The man sat down on the small office desk next to the capsule. He addressed the boy, and in a heavy tone, spit out his next words.

"You'll probably get a new ability that breaks the technological constraints. I have no idea what that will be, but I am absolutely sure that this will happen."

The technological constraints. They were the absolutes, things that couldn't be passed even by the superior technology. Though technology seemed to have improved, things that couldn't be surpassed still remained the same. Ideas such as time travel, traveling at the speed of light, creation of living things, teleportation, resurrection were all things that couldn't be surpassed by current technology.

However, it was possible that one would get an ability that was capable of surpassing the limits of technology. These would truly be considered magic, and once trained, they would become absolutely priceless.

With the tidings of war approaching, having this would make the boy be welcome on all sides of the war. It would also guarantee his safety.

There was one problem. Normal abilities would often give physical boosts, whether that was by strength or speed. However, once the special ability awakened, there would be severe backlashes on the human body. Most who possessed this ability would have a certain disability that would worsen the more they used the ability. If it got to a certain point, then the human body would disintegrate. Therefore, those who had these abilities would normally not use them under normal circumstances.

'If the boy's backlash is the worsening of his eyesight, then there is a possibility that his vision will become infinitely close to being blind once the backlashes took full effect. Though both of his abilities seem normal, they may mutate into something uncontrollable. If it does not, then it would probably be a hidden third ability that has not awakened yet. If it does not manifest in the near future, his backlashes would subside until it actually became usable.' The old man thought hard and long before telling the 12-year old this: "Just in case, you are forbidden from using both of your abilities, even during training. We will continue on with our theoretic lessons. You will not tell anyone about this incident, and only after some observation we will start combat lessons. Think of yourself as a normal person without any talent from now on."

"Yes, grandpa." Though the 12-year old Taejun did not understand why his grandpa was acting like this, he accepted it obediently and since it was nighttime, he went to bed to contemplate his findings today.

However, from the next day on, he found his life to be miserable. He could only tell his friends that his potential wasn't really as good as they thought it was and he had no abilities that awakened at all. This caused his friends to drift away from him, while most of them gathered towards Im Hyung Jun, who was the boy who had gotten a talent rank of 19 on the test.