To be honest, Jason had plenty of experience when it came to running away from people. They only took a few turns to completely lose the dock workers who chased after them, and there was no sign of any chasers after a couple minutes. Not that there would be anyone that determined. No one who worked in jobs outside of public security would choose to find fault in idiots who disrupted their work. In fact, some might welcome the change in the monotonous jobs.
No matter the case, Jason and his dad escaped easily.
The two of them jogged at a brisk pace through the open corridors of the floor. While it wasn't that long since they descended via the docks, it had been enough time to clear up from people who commuted to work. All that meant was that the two arrived at the Abyss Stone Appointment with time to spare.
The building was strictly different from a housing complex. Delvers were a caste of people who had laws built for them, and the buildings associated with them followed suit.
Unlike the faceless walls of the Blues or gaudy decorations that made up the outside of housing complexes in the Clouds, this building had been built with wood. They were like the large houses that expensive brochures talked about when someone moved to the Origin World. The Delver building was built on a wooden frame with polished stone that made up the bulk of its walls. Most intriguing were the odd scribbles Jason could see that marred the surface of both the wood and stone, but he stopped himself from breathing too deeply as soon as his heart twitched.
A mana domain? Jason pursed his lips as he studied the scribbles, wondering if this is how humans used the domain. Idly, he poked the wall, but when nothing came of it beyond the feeling of discomfort, Jason decided that it was slightly different. The walls felt more like the barrier he normally had to pass through to get to his home than the mana domain he breathed in from the Lyonire.
"No loitering." A voice chimed in from inside.
Jason jumped a bit, but reigned in his surprise. He passed another glance at the odd building. And it was odd from how it stood out from the faceless steel walls that surrounded it.
"We have business here." Jason said, stepping through the open doorway to the building. He had found it weird that anyone decided to remove the door to their place as only idiots who wanted to be robbed would do that. Though, he supposed only a bigger idiot would try to rob a Delver's place.
The inside of the building was simple, much like the outside. There were no furniture, decorations or really any large embellishments. It was just an empty, stone room with more markings everywhere. The only thing that caught Jason's eye was the oddly circular positioning of the markings in the back right corner of the room.
Jason's gaze eventually found the unremarkable desk at the back center of the lobby. It was square and, unlike everything else, made of metal. A man with heavy bags under his eyes stared at the two of them placidly as his hands typed away at a keyboard hidden in the desk. A holographic screen popped up in front of him, and he glanced at it, taking a moment to study Jason's face.
"You just barely made it on time. Congratulations." the man said in a way that Jason didn't really feel that celebratory. "Had you been a couple minutes later, we would have forwarded the Abyss Stone to a higher paying customer. I must ask that you keep any and all items obtained from any Abyss Gates outside of the testing room. If you must bring one in, then please consult with the Delver on site. Lastly, your…"
"I'm his father." The white and black haired man said after a nonverbal prompt.
"Your father cannot be privy to whatever questions you ask in the appointment as well as the appointment itself. He can learn about any, should you be a lucky enough bastard, recommendations or referrals to available colleges that suit your talents." Jason's eye twitched at how the man's emotionless tone broke for a minute, but he let it slide. "You can also fill him in on your talents as well. If you have no questions, then move to stand on the circle over there."
Jason looked over to the circle of scribbles, unsure. The receptionist gave him a dry look, but didn't move to speak or do anything with the teen's apparent indecision. If anything, Jason felt the man would have liked to just shunt the whole thing off to another.
"I'll be fine, son. Go and give them hell."
"Please do not give them hell. Just walk to the transport circle."
Eventually, Jason shrugged and walked over to the circle. Like with the scribbles on the building, the air felt different, almost like a swamp. He shuffled a little awkwardly inside the circle before the airflow changed.
His surroundings had switched to a long, stretched-out, stone hallway. Below him was a similar circle of scribbles, and he felt the mana in the air to be similar to the previous stone room. It was like he blinked without realizing it, but he found himself in a different area the second he opened his eyes. There were a couple of doors on either side of the hallway with different Delver organization sigils on each.
Suddenly, one of the doors opened up, revealing a skinny man. He wore a skintight, black bodysuit that stretched all the way up to his chin underneath a baggy long sleeve and pants. This close up, Jason could see similar scribbles along the surface of the exposed bodysuit, and the teen filed that information away for later. It wasn't like he could find anything important through the net.
The Delver offered Jason a lopsided grin, giving off a lackadaisical impression. He crossed his arms on the frame of the door, leaning on it.
"You the kid for the appointment?" The Delver pulled up a picture from the Holo on his wrist and then nodded his head in the direction of the room. "Let's get this over with."
"Uh, okay…"
Jason quietly followed the man. The room itself looked unfinished and uninspired. Perhaps that was the point, though. The entire Delver building wasn't really made for anything more than the management of Delvers, and Abyss Stone Appointments were only adopted as a side business that was sponsored by companies.
The metal seat noisily scratched against the stone floors as Jason sat down at the table. There were other chairs pushed against the walls of the room that the older Delver had to move past to seat across from the teen, and Jason took notice of the thick, bomber jacket with a company's sigil stenciled across one of its sleeves that draped across the back of the man's chair.
He sighed and pulled out two small metallic tablets from one of the jacket's pockets, one no bigger than the Holo on their wrists and the other the size of someone's head. Sliding the smaller one closer to Jason, the man began to speak, "Alright, all you have to do is fill the Abyss Stone with your mana. It'll react without any other input, and be careful, too. Even normal humans can break these."
Jason glanced at the larger Abyss Stone, question on his lips. He had read that the size of them changed some of the information gained, but the answers were not that specific.
"Stones this size won't give you that much." The older Delver said as if he had expected the response. He gestured to the smaller Abyss Stone. "This is just to tell us how many Innate talents you have. Ah, they're also called Innate skills over the net, but they're basically what tells Delvers how much potential you have. Hence… well, you get it, right?"
Jason nodded. To be completely honest, he didn't really care much for the specifics on the how or why when it concerned the appointment. He just didn't want to be scammed when he couldn't help it.
Carefully, he pulled mana from the channels near his heart, filling up his right arm with the energy. Too much, he knew. This much mana would crush metal easily, so he stemmed the flow and reigned in the mana that wanted to flood his limbs. It was like trying to stem the flow of water from a broken dam with mud. Still, he pulled back the mana till there was only a sliver of it within his pointer finger.
Before he touched the Abyss Stone, a myriad of thoughts rushed through the teen's head. From his encounter with the Lyonire to his talk with his dad, Jason wondered just what he wanted to do as a Delver. He never really had a plan beyond doing what his dad did, so he never really cared what his Innate talents were. It wasn't like he had a grand plan to go into a random company's Delver college and become a lackey for someone high up only to spend the years climbing up the ranks.
He was fine with the job of a hunter. He was fine living a life outside of the spotlight. And yet, his dad believed in him. The Delver in the Hunting Grounds, Adam, believed he had a talent to make it. Jason… all he knew was that he was stronger than others, better but only just.
"Oh? Congrats on winning the lottery."
Jason blinked. He had blanked a bit after he touched the smaller Abyss Stone, and the Delver had pulled it back to read it. The man tossed the stone into a corner and it shattered with a sound like crackling glass.
The Delver's expression quickly changed from slight annoyance to amused. He pushed the larger stone towards Jason, failing to hide the intrigue on his face. At the same time, he pulled out a metal prism no bigger than his palm from another pocket on his jacket.
With a flick of his wrist, a screen extended out from its side and a stylus popped out from the other side of the prism. The Delver deftly plucked the stylus from its perch before Jason finally found the courage to question him.
"What happened?" Jason asked.
"Hmm? Oh, the test showed you have two Innate Talents. Which, since its not really public knowledge, is the max amount a Delver can have when they awaken." The man said, twirling his stylus between his fingers. "Most Delvers have zero, some have one and the luckiest ones, which is you, have two. Don't really know why that is since my college taught us other shit, but well, two is what top tier Delvers normally have. Hell, its the basic requirement to apply to the big four colleges."
Jason took that information in easily. Or well… he ignored it in a way. The idea that he had a bright future ahead of him as a top tier Delver hadn't even crossed his mind. Instead, he focused on the small fact he noticed.
"So, if I didn't have any Innate Talents, you would have just thrown away our appointment?"
The man frowned as he leaned back in his chair, kicking his feet up onto the table. He placed the metal prism on the table and waved his stylus in Jason's direction with a wry smile. "You're smarter than you look, kid. The thing is, we get a bunch of these appointments pretty much daily. Its either you, some rich cog who wants their little Delver to make it big or some other idiot with ideals of grandeur. Abyss Stones are sourced from companies like mine," he pointed to the sigil of three red eyes on the arm of his jacket. "And trust me, they don't come cheap. It's a pain in the ass to get them, too. We can't be using bigger pieces on those that don't even have anything to find. Make sense?"
"Yeah… I guess I didn't think about it like that."
"No big deal. You've got other things to worry about. Like the Abyss Stone in front of you."
Jason sighed heavily, sagging in his chair. A part of him was curious about the Innate Talents he had since they didn't seem all that apparent, but the larger part of him wondered why he seemingly had talent. He knew any other Delver would kill to be in his position. Even so, he felt a little stifled by the sudden unknown his future had become.
Perhaps that is what stalled him the longest. Jason never thought of himself as anything other than a hunter's son, and now he had the opportunity to turn his life around. He was just overwhelmed by the choices that swam at the back of his mind.
Delver companies and groups would desire his supposed talents. The teen had seen how some Delvers worked within the Hunting Grounds; they were bitter and quick to start fights because they knew they would win against ordinary hunters. Jason wondered how they would react to someone who supposedly was more talented than them.
He pursed his lips, brooding on the topic longer than he normally did. Things were dangerous. However, wasn't that what he wanted? A life of high-tension? Though, there was always the fact that he could implicate his family.
Jason didn't take too long to settle his thoughts. No matter what decision he made, he would always see it through. It didn't matter if he made it now or later. He had time to deliberate.
This time, it didn't take as long to siphon a small amount of his mana from the channels near his heart, and Jason tapped his mana-filled finger against the surface of the large Abyss Stone. The surface of the stone was oddly rough despite its river-smooth look. Though, that took only a second of the teen's attention before he saw scribbles being carved into the surface.
Like a child who dragged his finger through wet sand, familiar scribbles seemed to appear atop the stone. Jason glanced back and forth between the scribbles and the same ones that were on the older Delver's body suit. The man had been too focused on the scribbles carved within the Abyss Stone to see Jason's attention, but the teen had already put together a vague idea of what those scribbles were.
He had seen them along the outside of the building, and he had noticed that the circle he stood within had a specific "flavor" of mana that seemed separate from everything else. It was a language, Jason thought excitedly. A language that seemingly could be used to control someone's mana in more applications than Jason's physical boosts.
Suddenly, his previous apprehension started to melt away. Maybe he could learn whatever it was that they did? It would certainly be more interesting than hunting the same thing over again.
"Damn… that's cool." Jason cut himself out of his musings as the man exhaled, shaking his head. He glanced at the brown-haired teen and straightened in his chair. "Well, I got good news and concerning news. First though, I am contractually obligated to offer you a contract with my company. They offer free tuition, with good results, for their sponsored colleges as well as other benefits that don't really matter too much."
Jason raised an eyebrow, slightly amused. The older Delver chuckled amiably. "Yeah, I think you know what I mean. To be honest, one of your talents is a fairly common one, but its one that is the best to have. Its highly sought after for Delvers, and I'm sure you could do well with just that. By the way, that's your good news." He paused to run a hand through his hair. "The problem and also concerning news, is that you have an Innate Talent that hasn't been registered yet. Which is good, since there's plenty of people who like to gamble on new Delvers like you. The concerning bit is… well, here."
Jason took the Abyss Stone as the man presented it to him. On it were two lines of scribbles that went down vertically on both the left and right of the stone. The man pointed at the right one, the smaller one.
"For Delvers who have two talents, they tend to split up into a main one and an auxiliary one. It doesn't mean one is better than the other, but more like one is clearly there to support the main one. Like butter and toast; you can have toast by itself, but the butter makes it taste better."
Jason blinked, staring at the man. He chuckled awkwardly. "Anyways, this one is your auxiliary talent. The common one, which is fairly important. Its called Mana Furnace, and it basically just makes your mana more forceful as well as enables the Delver to not be as affected by foreign mana domains. You'll learn more about that if you ever go to a Delver college."
"So, what's the problem?"
"Hardly something you can call a problem." The Delver laughed. "The concerning thing is its name. See, there was a chart that went through a bunch of Delver orgs a while back that gave a good idea on how certain Innate talents stacked up; basically what's good together and what auxiliary talents would imply a strong unknown talent yadda yadda. Bunch of technical stuff that Abyss Researchers talk about. The key take away that I'm trying to impart to you is that they agreed that Mana Furnace was normally an auxiliary Talent to some top tier stuff. And what I am getting at is that your main Talent, despite how concerning its named, is top tier."
"Can you just tell me its name?" Jason asked, getting more and more disinterested as the Delver spoke. They seemed excited to talk about their knowledge, at least. Though, there was only so much the teen could stomach before getting bored and antsy.
"Dragon Eater."
Jason felt a feverish thrill go down his spine at the name. Most Delver knowledge was kept behind a confusing degree of lock and key, but dragons were synonymous with power in every context. He had even heard tales of how the Origin world proclaimed them as gods in some sense. And to be fair, when humanity first found evidence of so-called "dragons" they might as well have been gods.
Throughout all of history, from the beginning of the Great Fall till today, there had only been seven dragons killed. The number that humanity had seen was estimated to reach upwards of thousands. If those numbers weren't daunting enough, then the crisis of Death World Khan would always be a reminder of why dragons should be feared.
Because humanity used to have seven worlds populated. Due to the singular dragon who caused the crisis in Khan, there are only five. It was such a drastic change that no one forgot it even hundreds of years later.
Jason now could understand what the Delver meant when he said the Talent was concerning.
"You see what I mean?" The Delver asked, getting a silent nod from Jason. "Its a shame this Abyss Stone is too small; I would have liked to read how your Talent worked. Though, with a name like that, its pretty self-explanatory. Even if the effects are unknown."
"So, what happens now?"
"Well, my now friend,'' the Delver said with a confident smile. "I am Julius, a member of the Scarlet Eyes Corporation. You will probably get a bunch of offers in the following days, but what happens now is whether you accept some. If you need help, you can contact my Holo here." Julius took out a metal card from his pocket, sliding it beside the Abyss Stone. "Oh, and you can keep the Abyss Stone. Its already attuned to your mana, so it'd break if anyone else used it."
Jason wordless took the Abyss Stone, looking over the scribbles that were his Innate Talents. While it was a brief, childlike thought, Jason wondered how interesting it would be to hunt a dragon.