Kaelen ran his fingers through his hair as he leaned his head on his hand
He was sitting, his legs crossed on the pavement, gazing with his eyes hazel facing forward, reflecting the vehicles that were moving in and the one moving out.
Inside the vehicle moving out Kaelen saw the young boy and his father—both were being led to the hospital as well as for counseling, where they would be interrogated too.
The gate had formed because the older son had failed the first nightmare and thus released the nightmare creatures and now they would need to interrogate them if they knew the son was infected
Not turning oneself in was considered a crime for a reason
And the reason was the carnage around them, the mother's corpse had been discovered in their basement where they had let their son sleep and so she was the first victim when he had failed
But the boy was too young to understand what had happened, which was why he waved bye happily towards Kaelen who had helped his dad
Kaelen tried to force a smile and waved back and judging by the kid's smile, his smile had succeeded
But once they turned and they could not see eachother Kaelen grimaced
He analyzed the hand that was used to wave goodbye; the skin on it was pale—not his usual white skin color but a pale white as if he had went into shock
'This flaw... this flaw is going to be a hassle to deal with.'
Of course it was.
He had just watched a being's entire life play out in front of his eyes; he may not have remembered all of it since it happened so quickly but he saw most of it and remembered most of it as well
There was also the second issue with his flaw, which was more a byproduct than the actual flaw—if he were to kill a regular human, he was not going to have corruption bloom in his soul - the same would happen if he were to kill something that was not corrupted like an echo or something
But he did not plan to kill humans—sure, there may be a situation in which he was going to kill a human but he would try to avoid that as much as possible
Meaning his pain growth path was hunting nightmare creatures and so he was going to be forced to watch their entire life as a corrupted being and so he would be corrupted as well.
He was very right to be happy about loving the attribute [Flame of Profanity] but that love also spread to [Flame of Divinity] because even if it was an extremely painful process, he was not going to become a nightmare creature
'But thats exactly the damn problem!'
He groaned and fell on his back, stretching his leg out
The flashback itself took a second at most and that was already bad enough—even a single second in a battle was already asking for death or, at best, an injury
But the mental pain and drain was there as well and paired with the cleansing of his soul, it took another 5 seconds to readjust to his situation and that too was excluding the headache he currently had
'Well... the headache is going away slowly so it's not that bad.'
In a battle a headache was not going to be a problem but the time from immediately after he saw the memories and his soul purification was going to be a problem—a huge problem
But thankfully like most flaws there was a workaround.
Most awakened had a workaround for their flaw in one way or another.
Take the main trio for example
Sunny lacked the ability to lie, but he did not lose the ability to deceive entirely. not only that but if used Weave's Mask, he was able to tell a lie, though that made him loose his ability to tell the truth
Nephis had to experience the pain of being burned alive to make use of her flames, but in the early stages she was able to make use of just her swordsmanship to kill her enemies, and as she ranked up and her physical strength increased, she was able to use just her physical and swordsman prowess to dispose of certain enemies.
Cassie also gained the ability to 'see' using her awakened ability of foresight as well as her ability to use her marks to see through the eyes of others
Just like them Kaelen had a workaround as well
Flaw description: [You will see the life of any being you kill with your own hands play before your eyes.]
There were 4 words there that described the work around
'With your own hands'
Thinking back on it, he had already used the workaround—the use of his pet and possibly other echo-like beings could bypass the flaw since he was not killing them by his own hands; no matter how intimately connected they may be, they still were not him
Which meant that in order to not suffer the mental and physical strain of his flaw while also growing, he needed to make use of his pet and similarly, the use of echoes would also negate his flaw
But even that came with an issue as well
Kaelen pulled up his runes and started to analyze them.
Soul Shards: 40/2000
The 40 shards are a result of him killing the devil and unlike Sunny who had absorbed Fragments directly from the kills, his was for a different reason
[World's Blessings]: The world takes back what belongs to it and more—unmoving and impartial. You will receive more essence, memories, and echoes from those you kill yourself.
The attribute seemed to act like a multiplier, which was his special way of gaining fragments and shards that made him different from regular awakened and made him similar to the generation of monsters
Sunny got shadow fragments directly from his kills and they would increase depending on the rank and class of the creature and also similar to his own rank; for example, killing an Awakened Devil as a sleeper would give him 8 fragments
Nephis on the other hand was a lot more fortunate with regards to gaining shards than both Sunny and his own ability; her innate ability, [Half Breed], granted her a tenth of the essence of whatever being she killed, provided she used her flames. For example, killing an Awakened Devil with fully saturated cores as a sleeper would give her 800 shards, but that also meant the shards would become useless since she absorbed the essence
Mordret had a monstrously fast ability to gain shards that Kaelen did not know.
Kaelen's own ability seemed to be somewhere closer Nephi's ability, just pathetically weaker
He would absorb a tiny fraction of the essence dissipating into the world, roughly half of a percent—that was why killing an awakened devil gave him - 40 shards.
But unlike Nephis who was absorbing essence directly from the cores he was absorbing the essence that was returning to the world—since it was not from the cores it did not effect what was in the shards that came after the opponent's death.
So he could simultaneously make use of shards and would also get great amounts of essence
But similar to his flaw the attribute required him to make the kill with his very own hands
That was why when the pure abomination killed those 12 dormant monsters, he did not get any shards from the kills directly
He allowed a small smile to appear on his face
'Well, it's not all bad.'
Kaelen was not an actual warrior; he just adapted to his situation and became a killer—this meant that he lacked any formal training in a battle style
But looking into the past of a creature allowed him to see their entire life and simultaneously see their training and moves—meaning with enough practice it can become his own, provided he made sure to remember the moves
Now, he was not Sunny who had Shadow Dance but he still had the ability to learn—it would just be a lot more difficult
Kaelen was pulled out of his thoughts as he heard a voice calling him. Pulling himself up from the ground, he saw the Awakened man who was fighting the Devil calling him
The man's name was Alex
The women who had been killing and preventing the monsters from entering the civilian houses and escaping into the streets was Malisa
And the man who was putting pressure on the dying man's wound was Jim
They were all Awakened who worked under the government
"Hey!" - The awakened man called him while standing a decent distance away, waving.
Kaelen took the signal and stood up with a groan and walked over—the headache was all but gone now.
"Are you okay?" The woman—Kayla—asked.
"Yeah, I'm good." He managed to squeeze a smile out.
She looked at him curiously but decided to let it go. Why would she—a stranger—pry into his life?
"Can you give us your details? We can send you credits for your assistance, and also, here are the shards from the ones you killed, though the awakened shards will be split amongst us four.
Kaelen nodded and took the shard summoning the satchel and opened it
He placed the dormant shards into his bag—12 of them—and then he was handed the awakened soul shard by Jim.
He slipped it into the bag as well
"This is fine—I don't have an account for you to transfer credits into, so we can forget about that."
Alex, the one that he was fighting with, looked at him confused. "What do you mean you don't have details?"
Kaelen turned to him—"Oh, I'm from the outskirts, and I haven't been registered in any government databases yet. I plan to register when I go to the academy."
It was the women—Kayla spoke this time—"You plan to become one of the awakened staff of the academy?"
Kaelen now had the confused expression—"You can apply as a sleeper?"
There was a strange silence that permeated the air around them
"You aren't awakened!?" - The 3 of them exclaimed
Kaelen began to laugh—"No, I just finished my first nightmare like yesterday."
"What?!" The woman's calm demeanor shifted completely
"I thought you were an awakened—wait, no—you used two abilities. How can that be a sleeper's abilities?!"
Kaelen rubbed his neck—"My dormant ability is unique."
It made sense why they thought he was awakened—his aspect ability was very versatile and had many applications; aside from that, his physical appearance alone was great
His parents, both of them, had good genes which were passed down to him—he had his mother's deep black hair that was the perfect texture to rock a wolf cut
In fact, the majority of his facial features were like her button nose and her more sharp eye shape as well—though unfortunately he had inherited his father's blue eye color and skin color too
Even when he was on the street, he had tried working odd jobs and was able to feed himself, such as pulling weeds and such so his body, which was decently athletic, was kept at a good definition
Now, after completing his first nightmare as well as forming his monster core, the muscle structure had grown slightly.
They looked at him strangely for a while—"Well... you want a ride to the academy? "It's the least we can do..."
Kaelen shook his head, and as he did, the spark went off in his mind—"No, but actually, do you know any shops around here?"
"Shops?" The three of them asked curiously
"Yeah, I want to buy some stuff before I go to the academy."
Alex put on a thinking face and then raised his finger and pointed—"There's a supermarket there."
"Thanks, it was nice to meet you," Kaelen said as he began to walk away
"Wait, how are you going to buy stuff?" Jim asked
"What do you mean...?" Kaelen looked at them curiously
"You said you don't have any account, so no credits, right? The shop wont take shards as payment; that's usually reserved for the dream realm."
"Damn, I didn't think about that." Kaelen sighed—maybe he could ask Jet and pay her soul shards when they are on their way to the academy
"You can use my card and buy stuff, but you have to pay me some shards." Jim waved his credit card.
"I thought you said it's useless in the waking world?" Kaelen said confusedly.
"Useless for shopping, soul shards are used in a few government machines and unless a master or saint—or in rare occasions an awakened with a storage memory such as your own—shards don't come here often, so we can trade these in for credits."
Kaelen nodded in understanding—soul shards were a good source of essence and after all these ages in the War Realm certain technologies had to have developed to use them
"How many credits is an awakened shard worth?"
"About 100 credits" Alex replied
"And how much would something like bread cost?" Kaelen asked curiously.
"Well, bread would be 10 credits."
'Damn, that's actually not that bad.' Kaelen was from Earth—inflation was something he knew well.
"Okay, so if I give you shards, can I use your cards to buy stuff with the amount?"
Jim nodded and handed him the card. Kaelen took it but before Jim told him he could give him the shards once he brings out the receipt, Kaelen took out shard after shard and left, placing it on the seat of their open PTV
One, Two, three—eventually he had left 50 awakened soul shards in the vehicle, some falling to the base of the vehicle—that was all the shards that he had on him
Everyone looked at him with wide eyes that shone with more shock than when they found out he was a sleeper
"How...you said you were from the outskirts and you just finished your first nightmare." Malisa spoke with a shaky voice
Kaelen didn't look into her eyes, giving off the impression that he did not want to talk about it—"My trial was... difficult."
They turned to him and their gazes softened
They all knew well how difficult a first nightmare was and that was given the fact that they had all been to a school and educated on survival and fighting—Kaelen did not have that as an outskirts rat
"Well, your aspect seems to reflect that—as a healer you will be very sought after."
Kaelen smiled and nodded. "I'll be as fast as I can."
Alex nodded—"Take your time; we will help place these creature corpses in the trucks."
Kaelen nodded and turned around walking towards the shop—he saw an alleyway close by with a bunch of crates and a large bin
He walked over there quickly and put on his clothes—they had fallen off when he became air but thanks to his brain working before he materialized, he summoned the [Life Seal]
Now he was back in his own clothes and immediately rushed into the shop
He nodded towards the guard at the front of the store, whose eyes widened as it landed on him—he must have seen Kaelen fight
Kaelen put his finger to his lips and walked in.