"... Is this real?"
Lying on the bed, Ian, whose messy black hair covered his face a little, said as he looked at the blue screen hovering above his head in disbelief and wonder.
Stretching out his hands, Ian tried to touch the hovering screen above him only to have his hand pass through the screen as if the screen were nonexistent.
"How many times have I tried this? 50? 60?"
Since the moment Ian woke up in the school infirmary after the incident in the classroom, he had been watching this screen of the system, just wondering one thing.
'Have I finally lost my mind?'
That was the question swirling in his head as he looked at the so-called system screen.
'The Talent Replicator System'
Being an avid fan of web novels and anime, Ian was very familiar with the term "system"—the so-called cheat or "golden finger" in more sophisticated language.
The sugar daddy of protagonists that makes them overpowered while providing them with annoying quests to create cliché plots while threatening them with their lives.
They are overpowered items with shady origins that protagonists never question while never using them to their full potential.
"...And now I own one?"
Gaining a system can be said to be the dream of millions of weebs who have no lives at all, neither socially nor physically, and now he has gained this system, a fictional concept that has no connection with reality.
"How can a system exist—no, that's the wrong question..."
This is a world of magic where even zombies with half bodies can spew flames from their asses and the resurrection of the dead is possible. The existence of a system is also within the realm of possibility, no?
As Ian concluded, he looked sideways towards the desk where a young lady was sitting on the school nurse's table fiddling with her phone.
[Calm Mind (E)]
Above the lady's head hovered a similar system screen with some words written on it.
'What's this? Her talent?' Ian questioned inwardly as he looked at the school nurse, who wasn't paying any attention to him.
As Ian looked at the school nurse, the nurse, whom he called Ms. Jessica, also looked towards him, feeling someone's gaze, only to find Ian trying to get up while looking at her.
"Huh, wait, don't get up!" Seeing this, Jessica put down her phone and hurriedly got up from her seat, approaching Ian while advising him not to get up.
"Is everything alright?" the school nurse asked Ian with slight worry as she looked at him, knowing about the accident after which Mr. Richard and the school staff carried him over to the infirmary in a hurry for a check-up.
"Uh. Yeah, it's just... I wanted some water," Ian came up with a lie that popped into his mind while noticing the nurse not reacting to the system screen.
Like in almost all novels, Ian's screen was only visible to him, which he had already noted after watching how the nurse didn't notice the screen that hovered above him the moment he woke up.
This was also one of the reasons Ian thought he was hallucinating at first.
"Here, take this," Jessica said as she quickly gave him a glass of water, which Ian quickly gulped down, thanking Jessica, who looked at him with a kind smile.
"It's okay. By the way, we have run through all of the checks we can given your statement that you didn't use mana or your talent at the moment of the incident."
"Everything looks fine with your body, but just to be sure, please visit the hospital to have a complete check-up or consult a healer for it," Jessica kindly advised Ian while taking the glass of water and asking him to rest before they both returned to their previous positions.
"By the way, if you don't mind, can I ask you one question, ma'am?" While lying on his bed, Ian suddenly asked Jessica, who was taking her seat.
"Yeah, go ahead," Jessica replied as she smiled.
"Uh, do you have any talents?" Hesitating a bit, Ian asked Jessica, who kept smiling as she replied.
"It's Calm Mind, an E-grade talent that can calm me or others whom I target," Jessica replied, and the conversation lasted a few minutes before ending as they both returned to their previous states.
'So it's really true...' Ian said inwardly as he gazed at the system screen, confirming that it was real. Ian was unaware of the lady's talent, but after hearing it from Jessica's mouth herself, about her talent that matched the talent the system showed, he also confirmed the existence of the system, which was real and not something just in his head.
Ian's heart pounded as he stared at the screen. He felt a mix of fear and exhilaration. "This is insane," he whispered, half hoping someone would hear him and confirm he wasn't dreaming.
Everyone in the world is born with the ability to use magic, be it monsters or humans. With the ability to use magic, there comes a unique trait that both monsters and humans possess, called talent.
In all organisms' bodies, there exists a supernatural system similar to the digestive and other biological systems. This system is referred to as the mana circuit.
It's a kind of supernatural system that is not possible to check by scientific means yet but still exists and has mana running in it instead of any physical substances.
This mana circuit in one's body can be inherited by the offspring as it is genetically formed during birth where it can be similar in both parents and their progeny.
Running mana in this system is the basis of magic; consciously controlling mana in the system, making it flow in certain manners, can cause magical phenomena which can be controlled—this is magic.
Everyone has this circuit, but in most beings, the circuit takes a special shape in which even if the mana flows passively, it can cause them to gain certain unique powers, which they can use since the moment their mana heart matures without need to learn anything gaining an inherited knowledge of magic which all can be inherited by their progeny.
This supernatural ability, possessed by 55 percent of the human population, is called talent, which is graded by humans into different grades based on the number of concepts, mana efficiency, complexity, and whatnot into the following grades:
F, E, D, C, B, A, and S
The higher the talent, the rarer they are, and the more valued the existence of its possessor is. These talents can be innate or acquired through special and rare treasures found naturally in nature that can alter the gene and mana circuit, making one even without talents capable of gaining one.
As mentioned before, Ian also has a D-grade talent, Map, which is what you could call an average talent at best.
'So am I now able to see others' talents? Well, that's one of the things given, guessing by the name of the system.'
"Talent Replicator System"
Ian looked at the system screen that showed his personal information.
[Name: Ian Crown]
[Talent: Map (D)]
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