After a few minutes, Northern came back with the herbs, he mixed the leaves together and ground them with pebbles. Then he applied on the surface of his father's wounds.
The leaves were almost sinking into the wounds. Shin gritted his teeth and sucked up the stinging pain as the leaves made contact.
After that, Northern took the skinning knives and began tearing apart the monster's viscera. It was harder than usual and blood occasionally splashed on his face.
But he persevered through it. As his father said, it had three cores.
'It really was a calamity beast…'
Once again, Northern was at a loss for words to express how he felt. He considered calling it a miracle, but no - he preferred the word "luck."
However, that luck was brought by his father's experience, effort and trust in him.
If Shin had not decided that last minute to send throw his sword to him then Northern was sure he'd be dead right now.
The cores were whitish and full of soul energy.
Shin grinned as he saw Northern retrieve them.
"These are money son! Money!!"
Despite his wounded state, Shin's eyes gleamed eagerly. But then the light faded as a thought struck him. He looked at Northern questioningly:
"Since you have awakened your talent, you should be able to absorb the cores. Do you want to do that instead? It will give you a great boost. I'm assuming you got like my talents. It won't be easy nurturing it but all is still left to the second awakening." Shin explained.
Northern looked at the cores with a thoughtful expression. He didn't know a lot about himself yet or this strange powers he had received. Would he even be able to absorb the energies in the cores if he tried?
And would there be a second awakening for him?
Northern felt like he knew the answer to that question.
He closed his eyes and smiled innocently.
"How about we just get home first?"
"Ah, yes, right, we can get home first. Your mother would be so worried about us."
Northern helped his father up and passed his arm around his neck. He wasn't of a comfortable height to support Shin but he wasn't that short either.
Slowly both of them made their way home.
—
Eisha waited anxiously. It was late into the night and her husband and son still hadn't returned from their hunt. The other villagers tried to reassure her:
"Don't worry, you know your husband..."
"That man was a renowned drifter. He'll be fine!"
"Shin's the strongest in the village. No need to fret."
But she couldn't shake her unease. As the night dragged on, her patience wore thin.
Finally, she heard footsteps. She raised her hand, conjuring a ball of fire. With two fingers, she directed the flickering flame, squinting to see who approached.
When she made out their familiar faces, she opened her palm. The fire softened from a weapon into a gentle light.
"Shin? Northie?" she called out.
The flames brightened, revealing Shin's numerous injuries. Terror seized her and she rushed to them.
"My dear, I would never—"
He froze mid-sentence as Eisha strode past him and hugged Northern tightly instead. Shin huffed dramatically.
"I'm the wounded one, yet you go to him! I'm perfectly fine, can't you see?"
Ignoring her husband's theatrics, Eisha inspected Northern, relief flooding her face. Then she turned to Shin sternly.
"What happened?"
Shin sighed. "I forgot... the full moon. A calamity beast attacked us."
Eisha paled, eyes wide. "A calamity beast?! Shin, you could have died!"
Shin gave a bitter smile.
"It's not like I didn't know. My survival was by luck and your son."
He looked at Northern. His wife also turned to do the same.
Northern frowned a little bit and shook his head to deny it, knowing very well what his father would say.
"Yes. He killed the beast."
"No. I did not awaken…"
Both their words came out simultaneously then a grave silence followed. Shin and Northern stared at each other cluelessly.
Eisha looked at both of them and then belatedly drew back what she had heard. She turned to her son.
"Wait? Did you just say you awakened?"
'What part of 'did not' did she not understand'
Northern cringed internally. How could he explain that he hadn't awakened at all? As his parents beamed with pride, he felt a twinge of guilt.
As he beheld their happy faces as they heard he had awakened, it became even harder to correct them.
Eisha caressed his cheek, then grabbed Shin's ear.
"Now, let's go get you treated."
"Ah ahhhhh ahhhhhhhhhh!!"
Shin yelped as they headed inside.
—
After all that had happened, Northern laid on his bed, staring at the dull ceiling. It all felt surreal, as if he hadn't just narrowly escaped death, as if he hadn't just copied his father's talent.
Maybe it was all a hallucination.
But it wasn't. He sat up abruptly, confusion etched on his face, silent for a few moments.
"Hey..."
He wasn't sure how to address this phenomenon, this thing that had granted him a powerful ability.
""I know you can hear me. I need an explanation. Tell me what's going on," Northern demanded. But minutes passed, and still, he received no response.
It was frustrating. Why wouldn't it talk? How could he make it communicate?
Then it dawned on him; what if he gave it a command?
"Copy talent."
{System Notice}
{Invalid command}
"Whoa!"
Northern almost jumped back in surprise, he didn't actually think the trick was going to work. But now that it did, his hopes spiraled.
"Show me my talent"
{System Notice}
{Access granted}
{Would you like to see your entire profile or just the talent section?}
Northern felt very accomplished as he saw the system progress in communication.
"Yes, show me my entire profile."
{System Notice}
[Profile]
Name: Northern Lougguard
Soul Rank: [Walker]
Talent Fragments: [650/1000]
[Copied Talents]: [1/1]
Seeing the black panel bring out these runes, a lot of thoughts ran through Northern's head.
When the first awakening commences, every potential drifter is called a 'walker' it's also the first rank of their souls. At this state, the soul cannot resist the call of the rift. Ul constantly beckons on the soul of the newly awakened to enter the rift.
After entering for a first time and coming out alive, their soul gains a new rank - drifter, they become fully awakened. Although they now have a fully formed core and in rare cases, a dimensional name, they still cannot resist the call at this stage.
The next rank after becoming a drifter - nomad. At this point the call becomes bearable and can be ignored without worrying about subconscious walking into a rift. But for the Ul's call to completely disappear, they needed to become 'Vagrant' at this rank, they become masters of their own soul and are popularly referred to as such.
Right now, Northern was the lowest and was prone to subconscious walking. But he feared if that was going to be possible. As far as this goes, Ul did not awaken any talent in him or form a soul core.
Which sort of means there was no first awakening... or better still it was a failure.
He looked at the runes that displayed his talent fragment, his face contorted by confusion.
He had gotten the part where he can absorb the talents of monsters he slays and convert it to talent fragment which are spent as expenses to copy other drifter's talent.
However, what about their soul energy. Usually drifters gain soul energy from killing monsters, that's how their soul core grows and enlarges but he does not have a soul core and cannot gain soul energy does that mean he is stuck as a walker for the rest of his life.
At this point Northern felt like he was beginning to overthink it.
'I should rest...' He thought so but it was rather hard when he was faced a strange thing that could change his life forever.
Northern felt exhilarated at the thought of it.
There was just one thing he felt he needed to do before going to sleep. Northern focused is command on the talent section, immediately another holographic panel appeared beside the main one.
[Copied Talents]: [1/1]
Talent: [Advanced Cloning]
Class: [A]
Talent (True) Name: [Many Of One]
Description: [I am one, I am two, I can be three... four or five. My persona are limitless and only limited to my imagination, in my hands all objects are more than one]
Talent Ability: [Self Clone]
Attribute: [Your soul rank is too low to access this information]
Talent progression: [0/600]
{System Notice}
{Talent fragments can be used to grow and evolve copied talents}
Northern's mouth fell... turns out he didn't just copy the talent's ability but the true essence of the talent within one's soul core. Down to their dimensional name and attribute.
His shoulder shook as his mouth curled into a delighted grin.
'This is good... this is so good'