Talent of Wills

Will turned his nose high into the air, "Huhu, not a skill. I have awakened talent! I can heighten my senses like my sight and hearing. I can even set it to make them look more specifically for certain sounds, so I can make my hearing be more perceptive to people talking, or look for arms and body parts from the rubble."

"Wow, that's incredible. Are all talents this good?"

"Well, talents are generally better than skills, but not all of them are better. And it's really hard to manifest them and even harder to upgrade them and get better at them. I've been stuck at the sense of smell for a year and I have had no improvement."

"Do any of you have any talents?" The rest of them all shook their heads.

"We're still waiting. Kelle hopes she gets a spatial pocket and I hope I get a summoning talent."

"Couldn't you learn these as skills?"

"Some can, yeah, but none of the skills can be stacked up against good talent. Someone with a cooking skill would have a limit to their style, but someone with a Talent of a lower level could easily shoot past them in a shorter time. Besides, not all Talents can be learned as skills."

Will went up a crumbled building after making sure no one else was crushed under it and went looking for people. He pointed out general directions where he sensed the most people needing help and they all went, one by one. The tentacon had stopped moving away, watching the humans work to fix the mess it had caused. A bunch of heavily clad men cautiously went up to the tentacon, but it just lay there even when they start to climb it. They all held a bit of meat and fruits to feed the tentacon to keep it happy and try to tame them both. A bunch of people holding strangely deep spoons and goggles with a few glowing gems in them was studying the tentacles. Soon a huge swarm of people had crowded around the tentacon, studying various things about it like its blood and the path it took, checking to see why the defenses didn't work. Besides, it wasn't every day that people got to get so close to a tentacon and check it, especially not two of them of such size.

Zeeth and they worked until around 4:30, saving about 60 people and found over 120 dead bodies that they had to carefully lay somewhere for someone to identify and add to the list of dead people to tell their relatives. Each new dead body that they found was like another stab to Zeeth heart, he was the one that brought the tentacon here and he was the one that had them killed.

Page realized his pained expression before any and tried to reassure him, "it's not like you were trying to cause this. Besides, you stopped the guy before it killed anyone else. Look at all the people we saved that could've been killed if not for your help?"

"Yeah, but they wouldn't need my help had I not been here."

"Come on, Zeeth. Snap out of it. We have to go to Emma." They made their way over the rubble, entered the Vasaleus, and walked upstairs, to her office.

When they entered she directed them to a bench on the side as a man was telling her,

"Our scientists have taken a look at both of the DNA and they aren't relatives at all. Their closest relative was their great times 15 grandparents. They should have nearly no connection, they even come from opposite ends of the forest. There should be no reason for them to fight for each other."

"Are you saying it was led here for something else?"

"Well, we found traces of a curse in its head. We think it was led here by someone. And that same person must've messed with our defenses, turning off our sensors and cannons. I just have no clue how. All of the workers are fine, but we think they cursed their minds as well although we can't find any traces of curses."

"Alright, bring me a more detailed report later."

The man turned around and walked away. Emma looked at them and told them to tell her the story, starting with Kelle.

They all took turns explaining what happened, "we tried to show it Kanna-"

"That's the baby tentacon-"

"But that didn't work so we launched Zeeth up and he can explain the rest-"

"I just got really calm and it calmed down too."

"That was all you needed to calm it down? Hmmm." Emma rubbed her chin, "I guess that could work for such a large creature. This just about tells us the skill level of this guy. Alright, you guys can leave." they silently got up from the bench and left the room. When they got to the bottom floor a massive group of people was at the bottom, waiting for them.

"Those are the kids! The people to score us a massive tentacon!"

"What's going on?"

"The massive tentacon was successfully tamed. Our very own taming master tamed it and it is totally docile to us. She said it can be another layer of defense for us for hundreds of years and the baby was also tamed as well."

"Who was able to tame such a beast? How many points would they need?" Zeeth was shocked, he knew it would require a lot of points and even Afir had less than him.

"We have a master with taming as a talent so she has a basically endless amount of points. The only problem is that her taming is rather weak in exchange for quantity. The creatures that she tames have to be incredibly docile and feel really safe around her before they can even be considered for taming. If she fails, they can never be tamed by her again and if the creatures think she is trying to hurt them, they can easily break free from her taming and run away. It's a really hard talent to use, but the trade-off is that she can own and control a thousand creatures and not have a problem if they are easy enough to control."

"You seem to know a lot about her, Kelle."

"Of course I do. The tamer is Emma. There are stories all about her."

"Emma?! Really? Woah, I had no clue."

"Yeah, all of the eight have incredible skills. I think this makes her 1987th creature tamed. All of her creatures are incredibly well cared for and treated as if they were our most sacred creatures. The two hounds by the entrance are also hers. This is why we respect her so much, she is incredible. She has so many skills related to calming and treating animals that her body is weak, but that doesn't matter. Her creatures are far more powerful than us and when working together, they become almost unstoppable."

"Holy cow, I totally understand why she's so respected. She is amazing."

"Zeeth," Page whispered to him, "maybe you should ask her for some tips? It could help."

"Yeah, but how do I ask her?"

"Go to her office and tell her about your real skill. She could seriously help."

"Didn't you want to leave as soon as possible?"

"Oh, you're on board?"

"Yeah, I guess. I really want to get stronger faster so that this kind of thing would never be a trouble anymore. Also, I need to collect my memories and I doubt god put them all in Jarlon. I need to scour every inch of the planet. I was intending ongoing, but I got so comfortable here I thought it would be fine to just forget about my past and keep living here, or just go later in life. But I think it would be better for everyone if I left. I'm sure people would blame me for the death of their relatives and I don't want to remind them of it every time they see me."

"That's great! I think you should ask Emma for some quick tips and we can leave tonight, while they're sleeping. I find that a lot easier than saying goodbye's, they tend to make me sad or stay."

"What are you guys whispering about over there?" Will came over to ask as the rest were greeting the huge crowd. They didn't know Page or Zeeth very well, but Will, Norman, and Kelle were more familiar faces, many of their friends were among them so they were greeted more.

Even so, Zeeth was congratulated a lot because his deeds were spread all around. The video showed him jumping on Its head and eventually calming it down. But all the congrats and thanks were meaningless to him, he felt too guilty knowing that none of them knew that it was probably him that lead it here. As he walked back to their room he saw many people crying on a bed or children crying for their parents and each sad person struck his chest like a sword piercing his heart.