"And one last thing, if you can find her, you can trust one person 100%. Her name is Shin Yoo-na. Last I saw her, she was on the planet Karael in Haven Forest, but she lives in Elysi…" Austin's voice got cut off after that.
"Austin's alive!?!?" Xander said out loud, hoping someone would have the answers to all his new questions.
"I can't believe it. Austin is actually alive! He didn't die!!" Xander's emotions started to get the best of him, and his eyes started to tear up; his face started to flush red.
"Wait!" He remembered the artifact spirit.
"Please, artifact spirit, can you please tell me where my brother is? Is he okay? Is he alive? Where did you send him? And why did he have to run? Who was he running from? Why…" Xander began to barrage the tower's artifact spirit with tons of questions before he was finally interrupted.
"Stop!" the odd-sounding voice said.
"I have nothing to tell you. If you wish for more answers, find this Shin Yoo-na your brother spoke of."
"Oh… okay."
"Umm… can you please send me to the planet Karael to where she lives?" Xander asked, hopeful.
"Hmm… well, I can help you out a little bit, I guess, and I wouldn't be infringing upon the rules, but I can only help so much."
"Thank you!! Thank you!!" Xander began to try and bow, but he was just awkwardly floating in an odd space, so his body wouldn't move correctly.
"Don't thank me just yet. I can only promise to get you as close as I can, so you might end up on planet Karael, or you might end up a planet or two away. I just don't know."
"So are you ready?" the artifact spirit asked.
"Yes! Yes! Please!" Xander hurried.
"Okay, I will set your teleportation coordinates for when your real body enters the tower."
"Thank you so much!" Xander was so excited. If he could just find this girl, he would finally get some more information on his brother.
"Okay, it will begin now."
[Analyzing…]
[Error!]
[Error…]
"What!? What's going on!?" Xander began to panic. What did this mean? Was he not going to be sent close to Shin Yoo-na?
"Hold on, this happens; it's rare, but it happens," the artifact spirit said.
[Link being created…]
[Link established]
"Wow, you're pretty lucky," the artifact spirit said.
Before Xander could ask why, he got another prompt.
[Second trait found]
[Unlocking second dormant trait]
"What? What is this? Please tell me what this is," This sounded like a great thing, but Xander had never heard of it, so he had no clue if this was good or bad. Would this help him, or would it mess with his divine trait that he already had… somehow mixing the two together and lowering its rank, or something worse?
"Don't worry, this is good. This is not exactly unheard of, especially between siblings, but it is extremely rare. This is one of the few ways someone can unlock a second trait." The artifact spirit began.
"Basically, you and your brother Austin have just had your traits linked together, so you will now gain his trait, and he will gain yours."
"Wait, really!?" Xander was beyond excited. He was actually getting a second trait, and it was definitely a good thing. Not only that, he was actually helping his brother out by giving him a divine trait.
"So my brother just got my divine trait?" Xander asked.
"Yes and no. He did get your trait, but the way the link works is you only get the trait rank that you're currently at, so since you're dormant again, your new trait will stay dormant until you upgrade to G-rank. And since Austin was an E-rank when he left, and likely still is, he will only get an E-rank version of your trait."
"Damn, that kind of sucks," Xander began to think, but then he cut that idea out of his head, trying to only think about the positives.
"However, there's another thing to it. The trait will upgrade with you as long as your brother's trait rank allows it. For example, your trait rank is divine, so your brother will be able to upgrade your trait all the way to divine if he can make it that far. But if your trait rank was, say, only D-rank, then your brother would only be able to upgrade it to D-rank, so once he hit C-rank, it would no longer upgrade with him and stay at D-rank."
"Oh… okay, I see, I think?" It was a little confusing, but he thought he got the gist of it.
[Second trait acquired]
[Trait name: Mirage Realm]
"Mirage Realm?"
"I guess that seems pretty cool," Xander wasn't sure what it did, but it sounded interesting.
"Hey, can I ask what rank my brother's trait was?" Xander asked the artifact spirit.
"Well, that's the thing. This is crazy to even think about. It's already rare for this to happen, but to happen to two extremely talented siblings is beyond rare."
While he still didn't know his brother's trait rank, Xander was starting to get excited.
[Analyzing link…]
[Second trait current rank: Dormant - Unlocked]
[Second trait max rank: Divine]
"Divine! My brother also has a divine trait!? That is amazing. I'm so happy he has something that strong to rely on. I was worried he would be stuck with a sucky trait, but he actually has a divine trait." Xander, in this moment, didn't even care that he also now had access to a version of his brother's divine trait. All he cared about was the fact his brother was safer due to having a divine trait of his own to rely on.
After some of his excitement wore off, Xander finally thought to check his status.
[Second trait: Mirage Realm]
[Second trait current rank: Dormant - Unlocked]
[Second trait max rank: Divine]
[Second trait ability description: Enter the realm where mirages reign, where the seen is unseen and the known is unknown]
'Enter the realm where mirages reign, where the seen is unseen and the known is unknown,' Xander repeated the description, trying to piece together what the ability does.
'Where the seen is unseen.'
'I guess this probably means I can hide from people in the mirage realm,' he wasn't sure if this was correct, but if he had to bet, this would be what he bet on to be right.
'And the known is unknown.'
'This one seems a little trickier, but maybe this has to do with illusions? Mirage, illusion, they seem to go hand in hand. I don't know,' this one he was less sure about.
'But whatever it is, it seems like another great survival trait, which is great, but I was kind of hoping for a killing trait this time. But it's fine; I can work with this. Besides, being able to jump into another realm seems like it could also be used for killing. It's just not exactly a killing move.' Xander still wasn't sure exactly what his new ability did, thanks to the vague description, and he didn't know how to use the ability, but he was still happy to have a second trait, and he was even happier to have a piece of his brother with him.