Awakening (part 2)

All was quiet within the room.

Aden stood with baited breath waiting for some kind of response from Joseph to let him know he was okay.

He didn't quite know what to make of what he had just seen, Joseph's body had literally been rebuilt from the ground up, and only Joseph could tell him what exactly had changed. He was acutely aware of the difference in Joseph's outward appearance, the many scars he had accumulated throughout his years of training were gone. Replaced by pale smooth skin that seemed to reflect a golden shimmer when light struck it. His hair was slightly longer now reaching his mid back and had completely changed color, it was now a violent shade of white that appeared almost blinding. His body also appeared more sturdy, his muscles being more defined and denser than they were.

All in all it looked as though the reconstruction had fixed every flaw that could be found, and now presented a body that was the peak of physical perfection. Or at the very least as close as a 17 year old could possess.

Joseph himself was amazed at the difference he could feel, he felt light and energetic, completely free from shackles that he didn't even know he was carrying before. It was as though his body was capable of anything he could think of, and he could hardly wait to see what he could do with it given his immense amount of training.

He then abruptly stood and faced Aden, his movements were quick and fluid appearing as if they took no effort at all. One moment he was sitting and the next he was facing Aden with a huge grin on his face.

Aden was shocked for a moment, not because he couldn't follow Joseph's movements, but because they were not his usual movements. Joseph usually moved deliberately and powerfully, taking the shortest and most efficient rout from A-B he could. The way he moved now looked as though he was flashing from point to point, floating through the air like a miniature bolt of lightning.

"How is it boy?" Aden queried, deactivating the formations as they were no longer necessary.

"It's beyond amazing." Joseph replied happily, he was practically bouncing off the walls with how excited he was.

Aden shook his head and placed his hand on Joseph's shoulder to keep him in place before asking, "And what about your abilities? Have you looked at them yet? We will need to discuss what exactly we can reveal and what needs to be kept secret."

Joseph shook his head, "I was so enthralled by my new body that I forgot, give me just a minute and I'll pull it up for us to look at."

This was a unique function of the system, two or more individuals who formed a party could share their system screens with each other. It was a big time saver for everyone, and usually helped newer delvers get familiar with its functions as older delvers could walk them through it.

It took only a moment for Joseph to send Aden the party request which he quickly accepted. Taking a look at Joseph's screen he nearly passed out from the sheer absurdity of what he was seeing. "This kid is gonna be a god's damned monster." He thought before refocusing on the screen to thoroughly examine what was shown.

[ Name: Joseph Thornwood

Race: Half-Angel

Grade: F

Level: 1

EXP: 0/100%

Health: 180/180

Mana: 180/180

Ability: BLOODLINE- Archangel of Vengeance (SSS)

Skill 1: Bloodline armaments (You tap into the divine power of your bloodline, allowing you to manifest the artifacts granted to the Archangel of Vengeance upon its ascension. There are nine in total and you may permanently manifest one item per grade. One at F, two at E, so on so forth. These items are divine in nature, but their abilities and bonus attributes will be capped by your grade.)

Skill 2: Divine potential (You are the progeny of the divine, your potential is truly limitless. For every level you gain each attribute will increase by 1, and you will gain 5 additional free attribute points per level.

Skill 3: White lightning (Your blood flows with holy lightning, You are immune to all lightning based attacks and debuffs of your grade or lower. You are also able to manipulate the lightning in your blood for attack and defense. The greater amount you use and the more complex the manipulation the more mana it will take. This ability also improves the speed at which all of your physical and mental abilities perform by 10% per grade."

Skill 4: Bane of the wicked (You are a vessel of holy wrath, dealing extra damage on each attack against evil aligned beings. You will be able to sense evil within a certain range and will gain additional experience points when killing evil beings.)

Skill 5: Wings of Vengeance (locked)

Skill 6: Crown of Glory (Locked)

(please note that the average for an unawakened being is 5 for physical attributes and 1-5 for mental/spiritual attributes.)

Attributes: (STR- 18: Increases the force produced by the muscles raising physical damage, carrying capacity, and provides a slight buff to physical resistance.)

(DEX- 18: Increases muscular coordination and flexibility, improves mobility, reflexes, and balance.)

(VIT- 18: improves physical health and resistance, providing bonuses to resisting disease and poisons. Also improves the body's ability to heal and recover stamina.)

(INT- 18: improves all mental capabilities, memory, learning, perception, reaction, thought, deduction, etc.)

(SPR- 18: improves all magical capabilities, mana manipulation, storage, recovery, etc.)

Equipment: (Head- None)

(Chest- F grade leather armor)

(Legs- F grade leather pants)

(Feet- F grade leather boots)

(Hands- F grade leather gloves)

(Accessories- None)

(Weapons- F grade Iron short sword)

Description: You are a descendant of the divine, but your power is still in its infancy. ]

It was incredible, just the divine potential skill alone would qualify as broken. To have all your attributes grow with each level was unheard of, generally abilities focused upon either physical or mental attributes and gave only 1 or 2 free points to be distributed. With Joseph's bonus points alone he would outclass every other ability Aden had ever heard of, including his own A grade ability.

But that wasn't all, a major point of contention for a lot of delvers was lack of high quality gear. They were just to rare, it was incredibly difficult to clear higher grade towers and not many people risked it. But this wasn't a problem for Joseph as with his bloodline armaments he would always be able to have appropriate equipment for his grade. The only caveat to that was the fact he had to rank up to get more piece of it, but that shouldn't be a problem for him.

The icing on the cake wasn't his inflated attributes, which were significantly higher than any newly awakened being ever before, it was the fact that he would deal bonus damage and get extra experience from fighting evil beings. Pretty much every tower ever was filled with evil beings, so it was basically like giving him a permanent damage and exp buff.

The only questions Aden and Joseph had were about the locked abilities, this was something very rare to come across. The grade or rank of the delver determines how much of their abilities potential power they have access too. A grade F delver with a grade F ability has access to all the power their abilities will ever possess. While an F grade delver with a C grade ability has extremely limited access, with each increase in grade unlocking more and more of their abilities power. Sometimes in the form of additional passive or active skills, or perhaps just a better version of skills already unlocked.

To actually be able to see skills but be unable to use them meant that they were unique, and probably had a very specific activation key that you would have to figure out for yourself. While annoying these skills were always incredibly powerful, and could be considered Aces in the hole for anyone who had them. It would just take time for Joseph to figure them out and by the looks of things they would be absolutely ridiculous.

"Congratulations boy," Aden said wryly, "You are probably the most perverse awakened person I've ever seen." Joseph couldn't help but feel both good and a little apprehensive when Aden said this. It was a wonderful thing that he had so much potential, it would make his goals much more achievable, but the prospective danger if anyone found out would be terrifying.

"So what do we do now?" Joseph questioned while looking up into Adens eyes.

Aden was slightly taken aback by the fierce golden color of Joseph's eyes but quickly shook it off. He replied simply but gravely, trying to impress upon Joseph how little time he had. "We do as we have always done, we fight and prepare because believe me…bad things are coming."