Chapter 2: Innate abilities
Nero shifted his gaze from his mother to his father. In comparison to his mother, who was eye-catching in every way, his father was plain in almost every conceivable way. The only distinctive feature he had was his hair, which was as golden as the light of the rising sun.
Besides that, he looked like a very ordinary man. Although he was actually quite tall, at 1.9 metres (6 feet 3 inches), somehow looking at him did not give the same impression. In one's mind, they would always imagine him as short. He had some stubble growing, showing that he hadn't shaved yesterday, and while his features made him slightly handsome, he remained forgettable.
If they stood side by side, even Nero would look more muscular than him - though admittedly Nero was quite well built for someone his age.
But his plain appearance, laid back attitude and general persona were an elaborately crafted facade. In truth, just like everyone else in Kolar, both his parents served in the military.
But unlike everyone else, his mother was an elite soldier with exceptionally high commendations. The only reason she was discharged was because of a severe, nearly fatal injury that crippled her cultivation path. She had spent the last 6 years recovering from that wound.
His father... well, his father was another story altogether. He had what was called a Whisper Guard. That basically meant that his father had joined a secret wing of the Kolar military. What that wing did, what fell under its purview, anything about their operations and personnel, all were a secret. The actual name of the wing itself was also unknown, so people just called it by the same name as the badge, Whisper Guard.
That basically meant that Nero did not even know if his father was even still in the army or not. For all he knew, his father had been discharged years ago, or was still actually serving. There was no way of knowing. Of course, he had a regular job that was publicly known, but even that could just be a front.
In summary, his parents were not ordinary folk. He did not believe he could keep his intentions secret from them. But even so, some things just could not be said. Besides, some part of him believed that his parents had the same intention as him on some level.
"I'm going to enter the hostel, starting today," he finally uttered, as if that was the big revelation he had been contemplating for so long. "I need to maximise my training time now that I can become a Neophyte. There's only a year before I can be eligible to apply to Kolar Military Academy(KMA), and I'm already behind most of my peers, so I have much to catch up on. I'm sorry, I... I thought I'd come up with a better way to tell you..."
"Hush, child," Marilyn said, still playing with his hair. "If you think we didn't know, then you're mistaken. Everyone has seen the way you've been training these past few years. It's only natural to assume you'll do the same once you can access aether. You take a shower. I'll prepare a duffle bag for you. It's an important day for you, so don't think about other things. We'll visit you at school, or call you over on weekends if we're missing you too much."
Nero felt a tremble in his body. He knew he had lied, but even so, it felt like what he had said was true. Well, there was a measure of truth to it. But regardless of what it was, the result was that he was moving away from his family. Considering how close they were, moving away would perhaps be the hardest thing he'd do anytime soon.
He hugged his parents again once more, before he pushed away all his feelings of hesitation and restraint.
An excited grin painted his face and an energetic gleam filled his eyes. No matter what, today was finally going to be the day he accessed aether, and his excitement about that couldn't be faked.
"Okay, I'm going to go take a quick shower. You guys get ready too. I can't wait to go to AAB (Arcane Affairs Bureau)!" he yelled the end of his sentence as he retreated into the bathroom and shut the door.
He grabbed his phone and excitedly opened his group chat with his friends. They were still discussing his one friend who was ditching them to watch the Green Hurricane fight with a girl.
He sent a message in the chat with a wide, teasing grin.
"Not going to the fight either. Heading to the AAB to synchronise my aether!"
After that, he exited the chat and found someone else in his contacts who simply had the name Redhead and sent him a message as well.
"I'm synchronising today."
Nero did not wait for a reply, he knew he wouldn't get one. He also didn't look at his friends' group chat, otherwise he'd be replying for half an hour. He simply turned on the water and stood under it.
This time, he purposefully opened the cold water before getting in. He did not hesitate or tremble, and simply treated it as if it were nothing. In this life, until he fulfilled his goals, he could not allow himself the luxury of comfort any longer. He read in a book that comfort made one weaker, and though he didn't necessarily agree with that, he could not afford any weakness.
His muscles tensed as the cool water flowed down through his brown hair, down his neck and onto the rest of his body. Soon, his hair colour would also change, but he wasn't thinking about that.
In his mind, he was only reviewing the steps that would come next. He had to go report to the AAB, where his synchronisation process would be initiated.
This world was cursed, and in this cursed world, humans were at the bottom of the food chain. That was not an exaggeration, as humans had no redeeming qualities compared to the creatures that inhabited this world at all.
Humans were completely incapable of wielding aether in any meaningful way. Even the stabilisation of aether in their bodies, which is what he experienced today, was a result of a mutation occurring in their bodies due to long term exposure to aether. Or at least, that's what the experts thought. So basically, they weren't even born with the ability to wield aether, they mutated into it.
The stabilisation of aether resulted in each human unlocking an innate ability. But originally, according to nature's design, that was the complete extent to which humans could wield aether. That was not much of a boost at all, to be honest.
Innate abilities were not always very useful, or at least in the way the user may wish. The abilities could either be active or passive, and each of those could either be external or internal.
Active abilities, whether external or internal, could be turned on or off, whereas passive abilities, regardless of internal or external, could never be turned off, though the user could control the scale of the ability. Nevertheless, passive abilities drew some of their power from ambient aether, as if to offset that drawback.
But that was it. Even if one unlocked the most impressive ability, that was all there was to it. Compared to beasts, which could actually form natural habitats in this cursed world, or even monsters, cursed beings, abominations or anything else, humans were pathetically weak.
But despite that weakness, humans carved out a massive part of this world out for themselves. That spoke a lot about the strength and tenacity of humans.
So how were they able to do it? Through the use of Eldrim cards, of course.
Nero sighed and gathered his thoughts. All of that didn't matter right now. At the moment, he could only hope to unlock a decent ability. If his ability was helpful, it would be a huge boost towards his goal.
Obviously, due to the use of Eldrim cards, what ability he got did not entirely matter, but he still hoped for a decent ability.
Abilities were hereditary, but could also be affected by one's environment. His father's ability was a golden flame, which sounded impressive until you found out that the flame had no heat at all, and couldn't even hurt a microbe. Nero was destined to never know its actual use was, as that was also forbidden information as per the rules of the Whisper Guard.
His mother, on the other hand, had a snowflake through which she could control the surrounding temperature and make it colder. That was a very powerful ability, with numerous uses. In her current job, she had a very important role in some massive industrial complex. The details were, again, a secret, but she made 10% of all the costs she saved the company through her ability. That might not seem like much, but his mother was extremely rich. The only reason they didn't live like that was because his mother used all that money to pay for her medical treatments. She still hoped to achieve a complete recovery from her injuries.
His older brother, Patrick, had- has an internal passive ability. His ability allows him to harden his body using the cold. He could only increase or decrease the extent of the hardness of his body, since it is a passive ability, but he can never deactivate it. Although, absorbing cold, or giving off heat, to strengthen his body had an interesting effect on the surrounding temperature as well. Plus, it was impossible for him to get frostbite.
Nero wouldn't say that he would find that ability to be ideal for himself, but it was a useful ability, nonetheless.
Generally, humans are able to stabilise their aether at any time after the age of 8. The amount of time they take is directly affected by two things: the potency of the ability, and the ability of the user's body to tolerate aether, or, in other words, how skilled they were in wielding aether.
The more skilled they were, the quicker they would unlock their ability. But unlocking the ability quickly was not always an indicator of great skill, as a weak ability could also allow one to stabilise quicker. Generally, the more powerful or versatile the ability, the longer it took.
So when someone unlocked their ability was a combination of these two factors. Nero stabilising at 15 was not unordinary, but he was slightly older than the average age for unlocking it. That either meant his aether wielding abilities were average and his ability was average, his abilities were great but his skill was also extremely complex, or his skill was just bad and his ability was anywhere between average to great.
He wasn't hoping for any handouts. He didn't want an amazing ability handed to him on a silver platter. As long as it was just decent, he would handle the rest. After all, he had every confidence that he could achieve his goals himself. The only thing he hoped for most was that his aether wielding ability wasn't abysmal. That would make things... challenging.