Unique Ability and First Skill

In a small building in the village,

A large crowd of people filled the building. At a glance, it could be said that the building was full of people randomly mingling with each other, but on a closer look, the crowds were separated into groups.

At the west end, a group of kids were holding wooden swords and swinging them about in a trained manner. In the northeast corner, a small groups of children were going through some sort of body training.

Everyone was doing something at their respective places, except a small 6 year old sitting on a wooden beam overlooking everyone else.

'Tch! To think that the village is so poor we can't even afford an esper trainer. Well that's to be expected. I don't want someone invading on my training time.'

Seemingly bored, the child got onto the beam before running along it. Jumping onto the next beam, he grabs onto the support before sliding down the pillar into a small stack of hay nearby.

'The woods behind the orphanage seem good enough.'

The pitter patter of kids' feet rang out in an alleyway as a small figure sped over to the hillside where the orphanage lay.

Approaching the wooden fences, Cern shot a glance at the door, avoiding Oedigal and the children, before taking a turn into the woods behind the orphanage.

Arriving at the edge of the woods, Cern cast a reluctant glance at the orphanage in the distance, before taking a step into the woods. Finally at a clearing, Cern stopped to catch his breath.

'Jeez! It seems my 6 year old body is still much too weak for strenuous exercises.'

Taking a deep breath, he steadied himself while taking a look around the area he'd arrived at. After a few minutes of searching, he looked at the system panel;

[Name: Cerbrian Nox] [Age: 6 years]

[Race: Forsaken Human] [Level: 3]

[Title: All-seeing Tactician (+2 others)]

[Profession: N/A]

[HP: 720/720] [MP: 500/500] [EXP: 23/80]

[Attributes: Null, Dark]

[Stats:]

[STR: 19] [AGI: 34] [STM: 21] [VIT: 72]

[WIL: 17] [WIS: 35] [INT: 50] [CHM: 25]

[Skills:]

[Racial Skills] [Generated Skills]

[Equipment:]

[Old Cloak, Wooden Sword]

[Leather Gloves, Leather Boots]

His thoughts raced back to the conversation he'd had with the system after his attribute testing;

'Why do I have to pick between Esper and Mage? Can't I do both or something??'

[Host should understand that normal individuals cannot have the null attribute and any other attribute simultaneously. It is only due to the nature of your race that you can make use of two magic attributes.]

'Damn! What's up with my race then?!'

[Host must find out on his own.]

'Tch! Typical. You come in with a bomb and just leave me hanging. Why do I feel like you're leaving something out though?'

[It is all in host's imagination.]

Espers were different from mages in many ways. Espers are said to have a variety of elements in their mana core, but due to the limits of human constitutions, they cannot access these elements and as a result are compensated with an abundance of spiritual power of the neutral attribute.

Espers are said to have at least a variety of three elements, however due to weak constitutions, it is impossible for them to draw on these attributes and as such, they can only utilize the insane amount of spiritual power through other techniques.

Espers are said to be a rare class or profession to be in. However, seeing as they lacked attributes, they were considered to be less important than mages. Espers normally have special positions during wars, or even in daily lives, due to their special nature.

Some rare and powerful espers develop unique abilities. It is said that only 1 out of a thousand espers develop a unique ability. It may not sound rare, but considering how espers could only be found in capital cities and very rarely in villages like Birchwood, it can be considered a significant amount.

There was once an esper who developed a unique ability called [Analyst] which allowed him to develop a ton of battle strategies. He became the special strategist of the kingdom. At least until he was murdered because of his ability.

Cern mentally focused on the esper profession and as expected, more information appeared.

[Please check Esper-Related Skills]

Cern focused on the racial skills, before mentally sorting out the esper related ones. Information appeared before him;

[Due to the nature of your race, your ability has mutated.]

[New Unique Abilities Detected;]

[Analysis]

[Reverse Analysis]

'Wait! Hold up! Mutation?!'

[Affirmative. Due to host's race, host's original ability has mutated into new unique abilities.]

'Damn! Okay so what's the deal with these skills?'

[Analysis:]

[Able to view information]

[Reverse Analysis:]

[Able to observe other esper abilities.]

If anyone was near, they would have seen a small child jumping out of happiness and frolicking around.

Although the ability didn't sound amazing, the implications made him the strongest out of all the espers. As long as he had enough time to develop, he was confident he'd be able to crush every other esper out there.

Using [Analysis], he could view information on items, plants, animals and even people and using [Reverse Analysis], he could observe other esper abilities and make them into his own.

Of course he wasn't so arrogant as to think he was the strongest, it was merely just a speculation. He had learned to keep a cool head in any situation.

'Alright! That's out of the way. There's no other esper in the village for me to try it on anyway. Let's move on to the actual mage techniques.'

Staring at a small shrub, Cern channeled the mana in him. Of course while it sounded easy, it actually wasn't. He stood for a full seven minutes without feeling anything.

'Nothing?! Alright!'

Slumping down dejectedly in front of the shrub, Cern closed his eyes and began to seriously channel the mana which he couldn't feel.

One minute, seven minutes... forty-five minutes, an hour flew by without him moving. All of a sudden, everything disappeared. He lost feeling to everything, the grass, the shrub at his back, he couldn't even feel wind where he was. It was only a black sinkhole where nothing existed.

His body floated endlessly through the space. The overwhelming darkness covering him up and making his limbs feel stuck. His body was heavy and his eyelids were clamped shut. None of his body parts could move.

Then as the darkness began to wash over him, his body began to flow with it. Slowly, he went from being limp, like a log in water, to being flexible and changing with the tides, like a fish.

He tried to push himself along the waves faster and faster, until he was fully one with the river made of darkness. Slowly, he felt himself return to where he first arrived and his limbs began to regain feeling. His eyelids opened slowly, as a black shadow filled his view.

Jolting upright into reality, he realized that the shrub he laid under was now burning with black flames. It didn't seem to burn, more like it disappeared as the darkness came over it.

[Generated Skill:]

[Dark Flame: Creates flame that burns anything]

[Grade: Medium-level]

[Duration: 30 seconds]

[Cooldown: 72 days]

'What the hell?! Cooldown of 72 days, that's at least 2 months!'

Cern walked a few meters away from the bush before tripping on his feet.

'What?! I can't feel my legs. What's going on?!'

[Host has created a medium-level spell. Host is suffering from over exhaustion of mana. Host needs to recuperate.]

'Oh! I thought over exhaustion wasn't a real thing.'

[...]

Cern crawled into a small bush nearby and lay down. Lying there for a few minutes, he decided to try out his esper ability.

"Analysis"

A small panel appeared above his eyes;

[Item: Grass (Shrub)] [Age: 3]

[Functions:]

[Photosynthesis]

It was a small shrub, nothing special about it.

'No lucky halo, huh?'

The MP bar was regenerating slowly.

'Looks like I need to focus on my mana regeneration this time'

In 45 minutes, his MP bar was completely refilled and he sat upright.

'Lets try out some other spells'

He spent the rest of the time trying to cast some spells. But he only came up with three inferior-level spells;

[Corrode: Degrades the target]

[Duration: 1.5 seconds]

[Cooldown: 10 seconds]

[Blind: Temporarily halts target's sight]

[Duration: 1 second]

[Cooldown: 7 seconds]

[Cloak: Can hide host in darkness]

[Duration: 3 seconds]

[Cooldown: 60 seconds]

'I guess I spent all my luck in that medium-level spell. That's fine too I guess. But I can only use that spell once and all my mana drains instantly. I have to increase my mana capacity now.'

Making his way out of the forest, he noticed the sun had start to set, giving the sky an orange glow.

'This is beautiful.'

He stopped and stared at the sky as the sun set.

"Cern! There you are. Everyone was waiting for you."

No one really worried over Cern because they were used to him sneaking out to the woods and coming back late. Of course, it didn't mean they completely neglected him and Vinnie and Talen always went to look for him once the sun set.

Talen and Vinnie dragged another child up the hill as they approached Cern. The child had spiky orange hair and his topaz eyes glistened just like the sky.

Gale trudged slowly behind Vinnie and Talen and avoided eye contact with Cern. His fingers were scrunched together and his brows were creased together. He seemed to be a making a hard decision.

"H..He..Hey Cern, I..I..I think yo..you..your new profe..."

"Okay Gale. Let's wait till Cern gets back to the orphanage okay?"

It was obvious that Gale had something to say. But for the first time, he seemed stumped. Talen and Vinnie seemed to be in on it, but Cern was obviously not too interested.

The quartet walked back to the orphanage, with Talen holding on to Vinnie and Gale and Cern walking behind them.