Lucius, who was glued to the cell phone, floated on behind Delton and asked, “How are you feeling?”

Delton had just exited the apartment complex, when he looked back at Lucius, “It’s like I just came back from a summer vacation.” He looked up at the overcast sky and continued, “I’d like to go back as soon as I can though.”

They went on their way to the bus stop. Delton tapped his temple to look at the news and found that none of them mentioned him. “Looks like the news cycle had finally passed me.”

“Ho. People in your world are fickle just like everywhere else.”

“Your world?”

“Yes.”

“Putting that aside, yeah. There’s much more news about more manufacturers’s insurgencies now, especially those in Mom Sol.”

“Hmm. Will your coworkers be alright?”

“None of them were close to me, except Jade. Probably less so now. So whatever happens to them won’t bother me.”

After arriving to the bus stop, Delton sighed with relief when no one had noticed him or had called out to him.

Sitting on his usual seat at the bus, he stared at the window, but instead of looking at the news articles, he was visualizing the mother-son image and the training exercises. Only after visualizing did he let out a slight smile.

He had arrived to the manufacturing place as early as possible, so there was no one in the lobby when he opened it. After he took a couple of steps inside, he heard the automatic sliding doors open. Looking over his shoulder he saw Micko, who looked back at Delton then snorted. Delton simply ignored him, then walked to his room and started to assemble parts.

…

After finishing his maximum amount of hours, he left his assembly room. He ran into Boss Bopa, who was waiting for him in the lobby. As he finished as early as possible, the only ones who were in the lobby were those who were taking their break. Boss Bopa spoke, “So you finally showed up?”

“Yeah, I just finished my break. Remember. Laying low.”

“Yeah, I don’t know whether you’re doing a good job or not.”

“I don’t either. I tried my best to lay low, but I guess fate. Well. I’m planning on heading back now. Excuse me.”

“Hold up, Delton. Do you want to join us for dinner in an hour?” Boss Bopa motioned with his head, causing Delton to turn around to see Polte and Auntie Rocca talking to each other during their break. Noticing Delton look at them, their faces turned sour.

Delton chuckled, then turned back to Boss Bopa, “I don’t think I’d be welcome there. I just want to live a boring life, and associating myself with people like Jucor will stop me, so I’m gonna pass.”

“I didn’t say anything about Jucor.”

“Yeah, but he’ll probably be going, too.”

Boss Bopa wrinkled his eyebrows and sighed, “Alright, kid. See you around.”

Delton headed back home before the sun had set. After performing the soldier’s exercises, he laid on the couch with sweat all over his body. He tapped his temple to prepare dinner.

While he ate dinner, he watched his shows with Lucius, who was lazing on the couch. During this time, he was messaging Filian about what was going on on the show.

After finishing up, Delton tapped his temple to ask for a bottle of strong liquor. This time, it was of a cheaper variety.

He shared the bottle with Lucius, and after downing a whole glass, spoke, “Phew. I honestly can’t tell the difference except for the price.”

Lucius sipped and nodded, “You’re right. All trash tastes the same.”

After a moment of silence, Delton asked, “Can I survive a whole life like this?”

Choking on his drink, Lucius laughed then responded, “Isn’t this the life you wanted?”

“Yeah, but I still don’t have a family, so not yet. I thought this was the kind of life I’d wanted. I didn’t think it would be so boring, hehehe? Goes to show how much I knew when I was younger.”

“Suddenly you think you’re an old man after living more than a month in a different world?”

“Yeah! About that! I’ve been looking up any semblance of your memories online, and there wasn’t any.”

“You’re a pretty smart kid. Not!”

With the alcohol making him bolder, Delton responded, “Fuck off, old man! Hahaha! Tell me, how many worlds are out there?”

“Let me ask you. How many do you think there are?”

“Based on my understanding, there shouldn’t be that many worlds. The ingredients of life are vast and the recipe for it must be incredibly complex. Since, we haven’t found any signs of other life, even without the ability to go out to space, I’ll say no more than a hundred.”

“I reiterate. You. Are. A. Pretty. Smart. Kid. Not! Come with me.”

Lucius flew up and went through the roof. Delton thought for a second, then placed his arms to his side and looked to the roof, as he waited. Lucius appeared back from the roof and pointed at Delton, “Hahaha you actually fucking did it. We’re in reality, kid.”

Blushing with embarrassment, Delton tapped his temple causing the roof to change to show the outside night sky, which was slightly hidden behind an opaque layer of clouds.

Lucius then pointed at the sky, “Tell me, kid. How many stars do you think are out there.”

“Easily thousands.”

“Try billions.”

“Wow! They didn’t teach that in school, hehe.”

“And that’s only for one galaxy. And the universe holds so many of these galaxies.”

“Man and here I thought a hundred was already an optimistic estimate.”

“There’s so many worlds out there. Wouldn’t you want to go out there and see them.”

“Ha! I’m too much of a coward. I don’t even want to explore what’s in my own world. Besides, technology hasn’t reached that level yet here. I’ll just live it in your memories. I bet you’ve seen so much.”

“Some would say too much,” Lucius laughed.

Delton then went to sleep and dreamed about Lucius’ memories.

And so Delton dreamt of a year of Lucius’ life. As his soul and physical body improved, Delton was able to increase the time in the dreams to a week per dream. The toddler Lucius had mainly been training with his father. When the father left to hunt, Lucius simply trained with his brother.

Sometimes, Delton followed Caelus who attacked several small draconian and birdmen camps. Lucius always forced Delton into Caelus’ mind, constantly thrashing his body into meat paste. However, Delton got used to it because he had no other choice. But with great pain, came great gain as his soul body’s growth accelerated at an alarming rate every time he possessed Caelus.

In reality, only about 2 months had passed. After his morning training routine, Delton could feel another surge of power flowing into him. As the energy surged through his muscles, he slowly performed the soldier exercises from Lucius’ memories.

With each move an internal explosion resounded through his body. Delton breathed out hot air with each movement. As if something unlocked in his mind, Delton continued his exercises with higher intensity, only stopping until he’s completely out of energy.

After recuperating his energy with the mother-son image, Lucius turned his head from the phone towards Delton, “I guess a congratulations are in order.”

“What the hell just happened?! It’s like I went though another Awakening. But it wasn’t a Second Awakening. It’s the same feeling I felt with my First Awakening.”

“Isn’t it obvious?! You awakened another Talent!”

“What the hell are you talking about, old man? I’ve already awakened my predetermined talent…Unless…I’m one of those rare Dual Awakeneds!”

Veins surfaced on Lucius’ youthful face as he yelled out, “You need to learn how to appreciate the amount of knowledge available to you!” He then quickly searched something up on the cell phone and threw it at Delton.

Delton saw a book from twenty years ago by researchers from the White Shield Company. It was titled An Essay on Talent. Lucius continued his tirade, “Since you’re probably too lazy to read it, I’ll summarize it for your ungrateful ass. There are many books related to this, but due to a lack of evidence, these theories aren’t widely accepted, except for some corporations. I’ll now truly explain your cultivation path, which I’ll call the Talent Cultivation Path.

Lucius conjured a cup of water and after drinking it, continued speaking, “The cultivation in this world are dictated by Talents. Progressing your Talents is how you progress through the path of cultivation. These Talents are subdivided into Physical, Mental, Spiritual, and Life. It seems that the creator of this system had some insights to the origins of humans.

“A Physical Talent corresponds to talents related to the body such as Flexible or Hawkeye. Another example is the one you just awakened. Judging by the reactions to your body, it’s most likely Muscle Controller.

Delton gave a quizzical look to Lucius and asked, “How could you possibly know that?”

“Hehe, I hacked into some of the databases of the various corporations. Some of them filmed the First Awakenings and since Muscle Controller isn’t a particularly rare Talent, I saw multiple kids awaken them.”

Hearing that his was not a rare talent, Delton drooped his shoulders. However, his eyes lit up then looked at Lucius, “But I’m still a rare Dual Awakened.”

Ignoring Delton’s reaction, Lucius continued, “Let me finish. I'm on a roll, right now. Next, Mental Talents correspond to talents related to the mind, such as Quick Calculations or Inference. A Spiritual Talent corresponds to the user’s affinity with the laws of the natural world. These Talents are significantly rarer, but you may have heard of them, Kissed by Fire or Raised by Air.”

Delton took a sharp breath and mouthed out, “Jella.”

Lucius talked on, “But the rarest are Life Talents. These Talents corresponds to a user’s natural ability, such as Pressure or Foresight. Even your Jack of All Trades falls under a Life Talent.”

“So I really did have that amazing Talent that I hoped for when I was younger?” Delton’s eyes grew wider.

“Again, let me finish. While it’s true that Life Talents are some of the rarest. It’s only because awakening them is much more difficult than others, mainly because of the lack of knowledge and examples of awakening.”

After pausing to drink water and to smack his lips, Lucius spoke, “Ugh. I’m not used to speaking this much. Now, let’s talk about why you just awakened a second Talent. Each human is born, not just with one Talent, but all four types of Talents. Those rare Dual Awakeneds you see are in actuality a human who’s awakened 2 of the ‘god-given’ Talents.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, you would’ve come to know this if you were placed under the WVW Corporation. They’re the ones who are specialized in Dual Awakening the Physical and Mental Talents. In fact, they’re focusing on their next generation of Dual Awakeneds. Right now, they’ve increased their percentages to 5% meaning that 5% of the recently graduated will have awakened both their Physical and Mental Talents. However, since you had a Life Talent, which most corporations have no clue to evolve, you were placed here with other Firsts who had no hopes of progression in the future.”

“Unfortunately, Mom Sol Corporation only focuses on Physical and Mental Talents, so you would also have no hope of evolving without external factors.”

“But I should be able to progress faster with my Physical Talent, right?”

“Yes, but would you want to? Do you want to become a Second?”

Delton had no answer to that question.

“Since I’m telling you all this, might as well illuminate how people actually evolve their Talents. This is where the path becomes vast and wide. While the original Talents are determined by Fate, how you can evolve them is determined by the human.”

“What do you mean? Isn’t it a set path?”

“It’s not. From going through all the data that these companies have, I’ll give you actual examples. Let’s go with a slightly above average talent like Sixth Sense, the evolution for it can follow this path. If you work your senses in tandem with the sixth sense, it can evolve into Heightened Senses, which can then evolve into Awareness. Being able to grasp your senses into an external attack, this can evolve into Sensory Overload, where you can overload others’s senses and allows the user to tap into the Fifth Awakened stage for very brief periods of time, which in this sample case would be Omniscience.

“If you focused on unlocking the human body’s extra potential rather than hidden potential, the path taken could be. Sixth Sense -> Heightened Senses -> Seventh Sense -> Eighth Sense -> Ninth Sense. So in exchange for power, you gain depth and breadth.

“One more evolution path you can take is as follows: Sixth Sense -> Extra Sensory Perception -> Telekinesis -> Body and Mind as One -> Full Synchronicity.

“So with a god-given Talent, even with the same Second Awakening, the evolution of the Talent is extremely unique. Even if you started with a Physical Talent, you can evolve it into as close to a Mental Talent as it can be like Omniscience, evolve it to a physical extreme like Ninth Sense, or a combination of the two like Full Synchronicity.

“Also the subsequent evolutions may not be significantly better than before. Hence a Third or even Fourth Awakened may not be much better than a Second. It all depends on how the human evolves it.”

Lucius then stared into Delton’s wide eyes and asked, “So knowing all this, and knowing that you’re one of the rare Dual Awakeneds with a Life Talent. Knowing what the rest of your life will be like from these past 2 months. Do you still want to keep your life as a First?”