章節 11: Talent Awakening
"Welcome! Welcome! How may I help you?" said an old and weak man. With his bald top and bony frame, the old man seemed to have one foot in the grave. But surprisingly, his voice did not show any sign of his old age.
Alex entered the old shop and saw an old man welcoming him from behind the counter. He was confused. The voice that called out to him was not his. Then what was it?
"Um, excuse me but is there anyone else in this shop?" Alex wanted to find and ask the owner of the voice the reason for calling him.
"No, young lad, I am the sole owner of this recluse shop and there is no one beside me in here. To be honest, there have been ages since a customer has visited this shop," said the old man in a downcast expression.
'How come there is not one? Then, whose voice did I hear?' Alex shook his head. 'Anyways, since I have come here, let's see what does the shop can offer.'
"Hi, my name is Alex. What do you sell in here, old man?"
"Hehe, we are a special shop in the sense that we conduct an affinity test and sell the items accordingly."
"Hmm? What do you mean?" (Alex)
"Well, just as I said, the customer first goes through an affinity test and depending on his affinity we sell him stuff. This means, the stuff that you buy is only exclusive to you and no one else can use it."
"But why do you perform a test? I have already been through the awakening ceremony, so can't you just showcase the items? What wrong with that?"
"We have our customs and I can't break them."
'We? Didn't the old man say that he is alone? What do I do...?' thought Alex.
Alex took hold of his chin with his hand as he seemed to focus on something. It was at this moment that the old man started questioning.
"Well, young lad, how did you come into this shop? There must be a reason." (Old man)
'I just heard someone calling me from here. But I feel that I should not tell the old man this. Though I don't know why,' pondered Alex.
"I just happen to pass by here and found your shop quite...um, different from the surroundings. So I decided to have a look." (Alex)
'Take a look... huh. Not even talking about coming in here, it's already difficult for commoners to take see this shop. But what makes this kid different from his peers. Gotta find out,' thought the old man.
"Okay, how about we take a test and then, you can see the items?" asked the old man.
Alex gave it a thought and seeing that there was no harm in testing his affinity again, he nodded. He already had been awakening ceremony once, and once the talent got awakened, it did not change no matter what. And even though it could, Alex had next to no talent or he would not be so sidetracked in his own house. So it did not matter that much.
Quickly, the old man leads him into an inner room of the shop. As Alex went inside, the door closed in on him and a small room came into his view. The room looked almost on the verge of crumbling and seemed to hold it up until now. In the center of the room, there was an ancient cauldron placed which seemed to be illusory.
The cauldron was filled with a translucent liquid and only a quarter was remaining. It had a golden surface and polished so well that it revealed Alex's handsome face when he took a look.
Even though the ceremony was a very important event in one's life, the process was quite simple. One had to throw in a drop of his blood and the color of the liquid would show the talent affinity.
Red color for the fire element, blue for water, brown for earth, yellow for lightning, and gray for air element.
Similarly, the shade of the color determined for the talent grade. If the color shade was light, it meant low-grade talent. Normal shade meant for mid-grade and dark shade represented high-grade talent.
Of course, there were cases where people came out with no color which represented no talent grade and thus, they would remain talentless for their life.
Before when Alex (previous body owner) attended the ceremony, he was one of those people with no color and hence, even being from a mayor's family, he was deemed as trash of the nation.
Alex knew that one's talent was affixed from the awakening and another one would not be able to change it. Still, he was unable to calm down his anxious heart which wanted a better talent affinity.
With a fidgety heart, Alex dropped in his blood into the cauldron. And... the cauldron did not respond.
The old man shook his head as he whispered underneath his breath, "Hm... you don't seem to have any talent affinity! Hah... wasted my precious time. Anyways, let us get going."
Alex felt disappointed but did not give it much thought as he already knew the result. He hung his head in a downcast manner as he followed the old man towards the front of the shop.
But just as Alex and the old man turned their back and left the room, the color of the liquid inside the cauldron turned jet black.
"Sorry young man, but you don't seem to be fit for any items that could be sold to you as you don't have an affinity to any particular element." sighed the old man.
"Yeah, I expected that much," Alex replied though his head hung low. "Well, thanks for helping out anyways, Goodbye old man!" he replied and walked back to the entrance to leave the shop.
"Yeah... wait," exclaimed the old man, "Here take it."
Alex turned back as and caught the item that the old man threw his way. Taking a look, he saw a jade slip which read, "Basic Spell Casting Manual! Old man, what is this?"
"You see, it is not every day that I meet customers. And since you came around, I thought of giving something to you. And since you don't have an affinity to any element, it means that you have the same affinity with every element. On the outer surface it may seem to be bane but who knows when it might turn into a blessing. It was of no use to me and so I thought that it might help you a bit." (Old man)
Alex looked at the old man's eyes for a few moments. Seeing the sincerity within them, he smiled as he accepted the slip.
"Thanks, old man. If there is ever a time when you need my help, feel free to ask." I gave a slight bow as I offered him my sincere thanks.
"Yeah, yeah. As if I would ever need it," shaking his head, the old man continued, "Now hurry up and leave. Let this old man rest a bit."
"Take care, old man," Alex waved to him as he finally left the shop.
The old man calmly closed his eyes as he sat down on his chair.
"Basic spell manual, huh!"
Alex thought for a moment after coming out of the shop. He placed the slip in his pocket as he murmured something and took off to his room.
Unknown to Alex, the shop he entered surrounded itself in smoke as it finally disappeared without leaving any trace of its existence beforehand.
每周推薦票狀態
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榜單 
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