Ability Wielders

Abruptly, his eyes opened, but he remained unmoving. "What the h.e.l.l? I can"t move!"

Panicking, Daniel used all of his strength to try to move even a single of his digits, yet failed. At that moment, a wisp of golden light appeared in front of his eyes.

"Is this…?" Daniel recalled the dream he had when he awakened. It was the same light that wrote the words "G.o.d Eyes" "I"m finally evolving?"

A few seconds later, his a.s.sumption was proven as the light slowly wrote G.o.d Eyes, the name of his Ability. When the light finished writing, Daniel was teleported in the middle of his room.

The next moment, three people made of shadows materialized upfront at the other end of his room. Two of the shadows charged towards Daniel.

Not knowing what to do, Daniel simply stared at them, watching what they were going to do. Suddenly, they stopped moving, not halt, but stopped. It was quite a wacky sight, two shadow people that still had their bodies in a running position.

Then, the two shadows were teleported back to their former position. This time, the three charged at him simultaneously, however, before they could reach him, as if losing their target, the three looked around.

Instinctively, Daniel glanced down at his body and saw that he had no body! "What the h.e.l.l happened? Am I invisible?"

A realization struck him the following instant. "It"s the same as the first dream! Something or someone is showing me my newfound powers."

"First, movement restriction, second, invisibility. Those are my new powers? Wait, it seems that it hasn"t ended yet." Daniel thought.

Precipitously, Daniel"s body acted on its own, walking by itself to the window. In that instance, he continued walking towards the window, phasing past through the wall, and the next second, he was floating, "walking" on the air. He was looking downwards in astonishment.

Not giving Daniel any time to think, in an instant, the view before him changed. He seemingly teleported to the place he was looking at. "No, it"s not seemingly, I have been teleported!"

Shaking his head in disbelief, Daniel was stunned. Was teleportation a power of his evolved Ability, or did the environment in his dream simply changed. It was so bizarre that he can"t differentiate between his Ability and the dream itself! Plus, wouldn"t teleportation be… A little too much for his Ability? It already gave him so much powers!

If he knew of the existence and raw power of Black Devil and his Ability, he wouldn"t have thought along these lines. On the contrary, he would have shouted at the world for being so unfair.

The three shadows materialized in front of him again. Thereupon, one of the shadows walked over to him and collapsed. Daniel squinted his eyes, observing the shadow, it was somehow "injured," a huge gash on its chest.

A blue light started to originate from his hands. Unwittingly, Daniel kneeled and directed this blue light to the "injury" of the shadow, which closed, or rather, healed visibly the second it made contact with the light.

As if rushing for time, the dream world glitched, returning to how it was prior to the injured shadow walking to Daniel. In that instance, two of the shadows ran in his direction once more. With a peculiar gaze, Daniel watched the two run.

Soon, the two shadows… ran past him. Turning around, Daniel saw the two tripping. Were they blind? What the h.e.l.l is happening?

For a second time, the dream world glitched, returning to its previous state. Daniel felt a weird sensation on his hands. Looking at it, it was emitting extremely cold air or something!

Subsequently, the three shadows appeared in front of him, raising their hands as if attacking Daniel. Unconsciously, Daniel raised his hands, accidentally making contact with the shadow on his right, which froze perceptibly when he made contact with it.

Acting on its own accord, his body touched the other two, a spot of frost appearing on where Daniel touched the shadows. Consequently, the three shadows completely froze, transforming into three ice sculptures.

Respectively, the sensation of the ground he was standing on vanished. Looking down, he found himself hovering over the ground once more! He could actually fly!? The previous "walking on air," wasn"t some sort of dream world protection? Well, he could already somewhat fly long before this evolution with the help of his manipulation of air, but this one felt… different.

Afterwards, he plummeted down. Thankfully, this was a dream, thus, it didn"t hurt. When he stood up, his arms started to be engulfed by some sort of amber-colored matter. A few seconds later, the amber-colored matter covered him fully, acting akin to an armor. He could sense that he is capable of manipulating the shape of this armor to different shapes. Unfortunately, he could not see the actual armor on the outside as he was inside the armor, disappointing him a bit. "Nine powers…"

In that very second, before he could even think, much less get excited, of his newfound powers, water filled his lungs without a warning and drowned him.

…..

In his room, Daniel sat up swiftly, gasping for air and coughing. "Jesus Christ! Is that always necessary? I mean, there"s not even a single warning sign prior to drowning me!"

Complaining of the Origin Crystal"s manner of awakening a person, Daniel shook his head, touching his head. Grabbing his phone, Daniel saw that it was only two in the morning.

Putting his phone down, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and made his Origin Crystal reemerge. "I have a lot of questions for you, don"t let me down."

Touching the Origin Crystal using his right hand with a question on mind, Daniel"s brain was flooded by information. It appears that he did evolve!

Pre-evolution, Daniel merely had nine powers a.s.sociated with nine colors of his irises. Red allowed him to control and produce fire and heat, blue for water, light blue for ice and frost, gray for air, brown for earthen materials including metal and crystals, black for darkness and shadows, white for light, yellow for electricity, and green for nature, such as wood and plants.

Meanwhile, the pa.s.sive of his Ability gave him the power of absolute blindness immunity, peak-human vision, limited night vision, and practically invincible eyes that would regenerate upon its destruction.

He could manipulate two elements at a time. This time, Daniel actually possessed 18 powers! He could use any two powers at the same time

For the first one, orange allowed him to fly as fast as his maximum running speed, double his speed if both of his irises were orange! Purple allowed him to heal people, if both irises were used, the healing power is stronger. Pink granted him the power to phase through objects but not people and smaller matter than him, when two irises are used, he can phase through people, but still not smaller matter, thus, he is still vulnerable to attacks from weapons.

Arranging the information up to here, Daniel took a deep breath. Those powers alone were incredibly useful already, and to think that he had six more additional powers? It was not that he was ungrateful, it was that it was too unimaginable!

Continuing on, silver allowed him to restrict the movements of up to two people. The effect of this one will persist as long as the targets are in his line of sight, the second he looks away, ten seconds later, the two people would be able to move. The limitation of this is that the restraining power is equivalent to Daniel"s physical strength, which meant that if the target is significantly stronger, they will be able to break free of the shackling of the silver iris. If two irises are used, up to five people can be restrained, with the restraining strength multiplied by 1.5 times.

Maroon conferred him the power to blind people with eye contact. That was the limitation of the maroon iris, and the fact that it had a limit of ten seconds once used, plus a cooldown of five seconds per person. If two irises are used, the effect would last up to 20 seconds.

Switching to golden irises made him invisible. The difference of using the golden iris from using light manipulation to make himself invisible was that Level 3 wielders wouldn"t be able to see, nor sense him at all. Daniel was not given enough information by the Origin Crystal to know what this meant. Despite that, from this information alone, he concluded that the invisibility was true invisibility.

If Hayden was here, he could"ve explained that Level 3 wielders had the power to sense essence energy, so what Daniel"s golden iris could do was that he could totally become invisible, even to the sensing of Level 3 wielders. What more, when Daniel uses two irises, the invisibility power could elude even Level 4 wielders. The downside to this two-iris power is that Daniel was solely completely invisible when he is at least five meters away from the wielder.

Moving on, peach irises granted him teleportation. The teleportation power worked by staring at the place he desires to teleport to, having a range of ten meters with a single iris, and 25 if two irises are used.

Lastly, amber irises covered him into an organic armor that has toughness akin to that of a tank. Furthermore, if he uses two irises, he could change the shape of the armor, turning it into weapons, a shield, anything, with the exception of wings, not that it mattered.

Going to the bathroom, Daniel checked himself in the mirror wearing the organic armor. He observed that it was an amber-colored plant-like exoskeleton that protected him, it was not as simple as organic armor. "Interesting…"

With that, Daniel has partially understood this evolution of his. His reaction? "f.u.c.king awesome! These nine powers are going to be such a huge boost to my strength!"

A few minutes, Daniel celebrated the fact that he has officially become a Level 2 wielder. In that instance, a matter surfaced in his mind. Examining his body, he nodded.

"Indeed, I do feel stronger…" Daniel flexed his arms to see a much fully developed bicep. Taking off his shirt, he noticed that his muscles were denser than ever. He was not Hayden, so he could not fully know what the limits of his strength was. "One thing I do understand is that my physical attributes have doubled…"

Daniel nodded. He was training his body for the past six months along with Hayden. At first, he was competing with Hayden whenever they exercised together. A few days of compet.i.tion later, Hayden has already improved leaps and bounds much faster than him, it was as if Hayden was superhuman, or rather, a tireless exercise machine. This destroyed his fighting spirit in competing in terms of physical improvements, accepting that Hayden was too much of a monster in terms of physical abilities.

Instead, he focused on honing his true edge, which was the control and utilization of his Ability. For the past six months, in spite of losing to Hayden in terms of physical strength and skill, his combat ability put him on par with Hayden"s with his ingenious usage and rapid unpredictability in the battlefield.

This was also the reason why Daniel preferred direct confrontation, with the example of their fight with Bakunawa, choosing direct battle over covert-ops operation. If Hayden was more of a tactical battle master, then Daniel was a rampaging war machine.

That was why the two was evaluated to have the same amount of combat capability during their stay as Trainees in Puting Araw. Nevertheless, this all changed when Hayden fought a Level 2 wielder alone and won.

Once Daniel heard of this matter, he was dejected to the point that he unknowingly developed an inferiority complex with Hayden. His confidence was completely crushed the next few days after that matter, blaming himself for being incompetent, someone who was partying inside the school, while Hayden was fighting for his life, protecting them. To make it worse, it was thanks to Hayden that his actual combat prowess was at this stage, giving him useful hints through the observation of his usage of his own Ability; one reason that Daniel treated Hayden as his best friend.

However, he took another blow when Hayden was revealed to be Supremacy and that he was promoted to First Rank Special Agent in such a short amount of time. Combat power, athleticism, intelligence, money, appearances, what else did Hayden not lack? Naturally, Daniel did not take Hayden as a person to be jealous of, after all, he considered Hayden as his best friend as well, and half a mentor. It"s just that… He couldn"t help but think that the world was so unfair.

Daniel was here, trying his best to make friends, and study absolutely hard just to keep his position as the second smartest person in the school, which was also downgraded to third as Hayden has taken the t.i.tle of the smartest. In addition, he needed to train hard only to master one single martial art, while Hayden was there, accomplishing feats that he deemed impossible in a mere six months! What more, he even afforded the time to train with Daniel!

Becoming a master of 10 martial arts in one go, becoming a skilled sniper who can move whilst sniping, defeat 10 geniuses at once without them even touching a single strand of his hair, what more, in a timeframe of 10 seconds. Achieving world-cla.s.s fame for his basketball skills and gaming skills, and evolving earlier than him? Hayden"s skillset grew by the minute, as for him? He was stagnant, doing repeated actions for his Ability. How could he ever compete with Hayden?

He spiraled down on a path of depression as he saw Hayden as someone unreachable, a person that he cannot defeat no matter what. However, everything has changed when he attained the status of a Level 2 wielder.

"I now have a way to restrict his movements, rendering his Divine Perception useless," Daniel mumbled. "He can"t be that strong in physical abilities, right? At most, he would be stronger than me by a smidgen. If that"s the case, I can defeat him in one fell swoop!"

Daniel has completely recovered from his depression with this evolution, gaining back the confidence he had. "At least I have one field that I am superior to you, Hayden."

What Daniel didn"t know is that Hayden can already stand toe to toe with people such as Christopher, aka Kidlat, who doesn"t need to move from their position to defeat Daniel at all. If Daniel knew of the true power of Hayden, a literal unkillable killing machine, that would allow him to stand there and take all of his. .h.i.ts no matter what, Daniel would have ceased comparing himself with Hayden right then and there and moved on.

Accomplishing sorting the information inside his mind, Daniel has already been invigorated. He recalled the lecture of a Level 2 wielder regarding Level 2 wielders. Testing his strength and speed, Daniel was delighted. His mind was clearer than yesterday, his senses much sharper, indeed keeping true to the word "evolution."

"Origin Limiter… Infusion… I don"t use equipment so that"s kind of useless…" Daniel mumbled all of the feats that a Level 2 wielder can perform. "Circulation… Let"s activate that… Wait, if I remember correctly, I possess greater compatibility with essence energy…"

Stroking his Origin Crystal, a surge of data streamed into his brain. "Ahh, I can shape essence energy? That"s interesting…"

On that note, Daniel held out his hand and willed essence energy to form a spear. Abruptly, white light shone out as a transparent white spear with a sharp tip slowly materialized in his hands. A few seconds of admiration later, he willed the essence energy to disperse.

"Well, I can"t exactly go out currently…" Daniel was itching to try his powers by accepting missions in Puting Araw, but couldn"t as it was presently 1:30. He didn"t want to leave the house at this time as his trip may be long. He wouldn"t want to be not present when his mom comes barging into his room. "I guess we have no choice…"

With that, Daniel sighed, staring into the moon, playing games with his phone to pa.s.s the time.

…..

4:30 AM, Hanam-si, Eun-ha"s house. Hayden woke up overflowing with energy. When he touched all over him, he felt a blanket and a hand on his chest.

Staring up above him, he saw a white chin, an aromatic fragrance wafting into his nose. Moving his head around, he finally realized what his head was resting on! It was… Eun-ha"s thighs!

"You awake?" Eun-ha noticed Hayden"s squirming and chuckled, caressing his cheeks. "You must be pretty tired. Why don"t you sleep more?"

"No, I"m good. A pa.s.sive of one of my Abilities makes it so that I need less and less sleep, plus the evolution." Hayden rejected the offer, sitting up. "G.o.d… Did I inconvenience you? I"m so sorry I slept on your thigh… Did you sleep?"

"No, it was nothing." Eun-ha waved her hand, placing down a cup of tea on the coffee table. "As for my sleep… I don"t really need to sleep. I can go for five days without a wink… Don"t forget I"m a Level 4 wielder."

Hayden nodded. Checking his phone, he saw it was already 4:00 AM. "Don"t you need to go home? I texted my parents that I won"t be back till morning, so I"m good… How about you?"

"They won"t notice that I"m gone," Eun-ha softly whispered, snuggling her way to Hayden"s arms. "Seriously, why is your body radiating so much heat?"

Snorting, Hayden tightened his hug, kissing Eun-ha"s hair. A few minutes later, Eun-ha kissed him and stood up. "Are you hungry?"

"Want me to cook?" Hayden imposed a question as he turned to Eun-ha. "I mean, it"s the least I can do considering that you saved me and let me sleep on your lap…"

"You can cook?" Eun-ha went back to him with wide-eyes. She mumbled dispiritedly, "I was simply going to buy take-outs…"

Smiling wryly, Hayden stood up, walked to the kitchen, and checked the fridge. "d.a.m.n, you don"t have anything here!"

"I don"t cook… Plus, I don"t even use this house that much… It"s merely a hangout place for us CHORUS at times…" Eun-ha gloomily said. "I"ll buy things on the grocery store nearby…"

"No, I"ll go…" Hayden made Eun-ha sit. "It"s the least I can do, you sit there and relax yourself. Let me take care of things."

"Oho, a dependable young man…" Eun-ha couldn"t resist laughing. Seeing Hayden"s departing back suddenly turned back she asked, "What"s wrong?"

"Eh," Hayden scratched his head. "Where"s the grocery?"