"Hey, why are you getting so hyped up?" Aiden asked, his voice laced with dry amusement. He folded his arms and added, "Let me remind you—we're god relics. Did you already forget what we're capable of?"
"Huh? Oh... yeah. Thanks for the reminder, Aiden," Rey said after a pause, his expression brightening. He quickly opened his status screen, hoping for a miracle hidden among his dormant powers.
〘━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━〙[Zero]Abilities:Item Creation – Allows the user to create physical items using body matter and mana.〘━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━〙
"Hmm… wait. I don't have any mana, right? I remember in some novels and manga, you can't even hold mana in your body without a core. And Zero took all my body matter, so how the hell do I even…?" Rey muttered, rubbing his head as confusion began to swirl.
"Who told you we can't store mana in our bodies?" Aiden said, stepping forward. "Inside every person, there's a tiny core-like node in their heart. It lets you circulate a bit of mana safely. But try to push beyond that without a real core, and your heart explodes. Simple."
Rey blinked. "...Wait, what?"
"If your body wasn't reinforced to this degree, you'd need to reach at least F-rank to form a core. At that stage, you'd probably start getting minor heart pains from mana pressure. But because your body is already stronger, you can form it safely at E-," Aiden explained, tossing him a proud smirk.
"Ohhh, you guys are way more useful than you look," Rey said, his eyes wide with awe, lips curling into an amused "O" as he nodded repeatedly.
"Alright. Let's try this. [Item Creation]!" Rey announced, extending his hand dramatically like an anime protagonist.
Nothing happened.
"Huh?" He tilted his head. "Why didn't the skill work?"
A fist promptly collided with the back of his head.
"Ow! What was that for?!"
"You absolute moron!" Aiden growled, fuming. "This isn't some comic strip! You don't just shout the name and expect it to work! We don't have plot armor here, genius!"
Rey rubbed his head and muttered, "But it worked like that in the manga I read..."
"Boy, this is real life," Aiden snapped. "You only get one chance. Come. Let me show you the right way."
Rey, a little embarrassed but eager to learn, nodded quickly and closed his eyes.
After nearly an hour of fumbling through his inner world, Rey managed—with Aiden's firm guidance—to tap into the deeper layers of his consciousness. There, within the inner mindspace, twelve glowing orbs floated in ethereal silence.
"Wow… So this is what the inside of your ability space looks like?" Rey marveled, running toward the floating spheres. Two glowed freely, unbound. The others shimmered in the grip of translucent azure-blue chains.
"These are my skills," Aiden said. "Watch."
Mana flowed like a stream from Rey's heart to his mind and into the relic's soul. The space rippled—then cracked—and a powerful surge of mana enveloped the free-floating orbs.
A system notification echoed through his mind.
〘━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━〙[System Notification]
Description: Bestowed to those who achieve knowledge without the system's guidance. Reserved for self-reliant mavericks and outliers.
Effects:
Skill activation speed +15%
Skill creation probability +25%
Passive skill acquisition chance by observation +5%〘━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━〙
"Hehehe, thanks for the gift, Aiden," Rey grinned, rubbing the back of his head.
"What the—?! WHY did he get the credit?! I did everything!" Aiden yelled at the system, his voice echoing into the void.
"Maybe the system sees us as one being now," Rey offered, chuckling. "We're bonded, after all."
Aiden rolled his eyes. "Tch, forget the damn title. Focus on the skill use. Try my telekinesis."
〘━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━〙[Telekinesis] (God-Rank) [Rank 0]Allows the host to control objects via mental force.Limit: 5kg (Increases with level)〘━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━〙
"Cool…" Rey whispered, already imagining raising mountains or directing ten thousand swords. His heart raced, dreams exploding behind his eyes.
"Less daydreaming, more doing," Aiden snapped.
"Right, right." Rey focused. With a bit of effort, a book on the desk quivered, then slowly levitated. As he admired his progress—
Knock knock.
"Brother, are you done? Mom's been waiting forever!" Emmy's voice called from outside.
"Just a second! I dropped it under the desk. Tell Mom I found it!" Rey shouted. He heard her footsteps recede.
"Close one," he whispered, glancing at Aiden, who sighed with relief.
"Okay, now forget about my skill. Focus on Zero's," Aiden instructed. Rey nodded.
"But where do I direct my mana? Her matter's wrapped all over my body."
"Just guide it to your skin. She'll do the rest," Aiden said, and Zero gave a cheeky thumbs-up.
"Aye, captain."
With great effort, Rey began directing his unstable mana outward. Though it rebelled, Aiden helped him guide it into perfect control. The moment it touched the skin, his vision faded to black.
He found himself in another space—this one colder, darker. Silver particles floated weightlessly. Fifteen blazing orbs shimmered in the distance, five of them unbound.
"...Wait, are these the same as Aiden's?"
"Yeah. These abilities are sealed by the system too," Aiden replied calmly.
Rey didn't respond. He was too focused. His mana flowed like a tide into the orb marked "Item Creation."
As soon as it did, light flared.
When Rey woke, a glowing magic circle burned on the back of his palm.
"Hurry! Make a bottle! You're about to burn through all your mana!" Aiden yelled.
"R-right!" Rey gasped. He visualized a pill bottle from a cultivation manga. The spell flared to life—and instantly began draining his mana.
By the time it hit 85%, he collapsed, breathless, like he had just sprinted through a storm.
"You okay?" Zero's voice echoed softly.
"Y-Yeah… Just… give me a sec…" he mumbled.
A few minutes later, with shaky legs, Rey stood and saw the creation nearing completion.
98%... done.
He grabbed the newly formed bottle and bolted for the dining room. As he turned the corner—
Thump!
He crashed right into Emmy.
"Ah, sorry, sorry!" Rey said quickly, brushing past her.
His mother sat at the table, her brow furrowed in slight irritation from the long wait. Rey held up the bottle triumphantly.
"Look, Mom! Found it under the desk!" he lied, grinning.
His mother stared at him, her gaze digging deep—silent, intense, and unrelenting.
'Rey, keep it cool. Don't panic. She'll smell guilt from miles away,' Aiden warned.
Rey took a breath. And smiled.
--> To be Continued....
But can anyone truly escape the sharp intuition of a mother?That remains to be seen… in the next chapter.