"To see your talent, you would first need to summon your system interface. Try calling out to the system loudly in your head," the man said patiently, trying to guide Damon through the system.
'System.'
[Name: Damon Aldridge]
[Talent: Adaptive Evolution (Ex)]
[Skills: 0/10]
"You should see a blue-colored interface hovering in front of your eyes. Can you see it?"
Damon just nodded in response as his eyes went through his status.
"Good, this is your status screen. For now, you can only see your name, talent, and skill slots."
"First is your real name. I don't think there's much to explain about that." The man chuckled before continuing. "Second is your talent, and the final line would be your skills."
"Currently, it should only show zero out of ten. Yeah. Skills are similar to talents, but instead of being innate, they are acquired abilities that one can gain, awaken, and upgrade. In the future, you will know more about it, so I won't dwell much on it now."
"Our main focus is your talent for now."
"Try focusing on your talent's name for a bit."
[Adaptive Evolution]
Grade: Ex
Grants the ability to adapt and evolve to any force or condition, gaining new abilities, resistances, and increased strength with each exposure, improving the bearer continuously under stress.
•Secondary Effect: Extreme Regeneration
Bearer's overall regeneration capabilities have been boosted to extreme levels.
"By focusing on the talent a bit, you should see the screen change and the description of your talent appear before your eyes."
Damon merely nodded as he went through the description. Only God knew how hard he was trying to keep calm in this situation as he read about his talent, controlling the urge to just jump and let out an evil laugh.
Adaptive Evolution. Reading the description, one could easily understand the effects of this overpowered ability. As long as the bearer of this talent is under any kind of unnatural stress, the talent would autonomously evolve the aspect of the bearer to a higher level, continuously evolving without any limits.
This was an absurd talent, and those familiar with these types of abilities would know how high the potential of this skill truly is.
'It's overpowered! Not to mention the secondary effect of extreme regeneration! It's just amazing!'
"Now, can you see your talent?"
As Damon was going insane over the possibilities this talent introduced him to, the man's voice brought him back to reality.
Cough "Um, yeah."
With a light cough, Damon answered as he nodded his head, to which the man just smiled, pulling out a sheet of paper and a pen.
"That's great. Now tell me the name of the talent you see and its description."
Damon's face hardened a bit at the man's request. He sighed as he looked at his status screen, feeling frustrated. What should he say?
He couldn't just reveal his talent, could he? Come on, only an idiot would do that. Just imagine being in his shoes and saying that he possessed the strongest and most overpowered talent of all time.
How absurd does that sound? This revelation could bring him some benefits but would do him more harm by putting his security at risk.
He couldn't just reveal the full extent of his talent.
'So, what should I do? Lie?'
Lying sounded like a better option than revealing his talent to others. He would have lied without hesitation, claiming another talent. But that would be the wrong thing to do and could lead to serious legal consequences if it was ever discovered that he was lying. Well, with his talent, he was sure that in the future, he might become someone who could bypass the law, but still, playing with the law at this stage wasn't something Damon wanted to do.
Damon recalled the contents of the novel, where a similar situation arose. Unlike him, though, the protagonist was completely unaware of the grade and reality of his talent.
The protagonist didn't know what the Ex grade symbolized and was utterly confused. In this world, almost everyone would be confused since nobody knew about the existence of Ex grades, so there was no clear idea.
But still, the protagonist, being a dumb one, thought it was a weak talent, and when he mentioned the grade, the registrar got confused and registered the talent as grade E.
'That was dumb…'
Damon frowned as he looked at his status screen. Getting up slightly, Damon sat up while his eyes remained fixated on his status.
He knew the full extent of his abilities and also the importance of registering a high-grade talent, which would have many benefits for him.
He couldn't follow his protagonist self's example and register as an E-rank hunter, which led to some humiliating face-slapping events in the novel. He also couldn't give a proper description of his talent to others, as he didn't want to fully reveal it to the world in any form.
In the future, the grade of his registered talent would be crucial for him to get recruited or to present himself to the world. Among non-awakened people, the grade didn't matter and everyone would be treated with respect, regardless of their talent. But among the awakened, it was a big deal and could result in serious discrimination, just like in the novel Damon had read.
Looking around the bed, Damon's gaze landed on a plate filled with fruits beside the table. Reaching for the knife placed nearby, Damon grabbed it, under the curious eyes of the registrar who was waiting for him to reveal his talent.
"My talent, huh?"
Damon muttered as he looked at the sharp knife in his hand. A smile crept onto his sickly face as he took a deep breath before steeling his mind and slashing the knife across his finger on his other hand.
"What are you doing!?"
The man, watching Damon play with the knife, screamed as Damon cut his finger. He wanted to scold Damon, but his words were stuck in his throat as he watched the wound instantly close itself up.
The cut, which had run deep into his finger, began to heal rapidly, the skin knitting back together faster than the eyes could keep up, until it was completely closed without leaving behind any scars.
"Extreme Regeneration… Grade B."