While the entire world thought Aurelius was a waste and disgrace, it was all a ploy to hide his potential and protect the family.
Let me explain.
House Astrea, a Duke family in the Ravenheart Empire, had been on a decline for nearly the past three centuries.
While all the other dukedoms had between two to three Exalted, the Astreas only had one, who was far past their prime.
The Astreas had not produced any great talents in over two centuries, until the birth of Anastasia, and then Aurlius. Two talents that can be considered once in a millennium and could shake the empire!
How talented am I and Anastasia exactly?
Well first, I'll need to explain the power system of the world.
People first enter the Core Formation stage and begin developing their magic core at around age nine. By learning to slowly absorb the ambient magic energy in the world, they slowly form their core.
When the magic core is complete, mana begins to produce within their body as they enter the Awakened realm—the first realm of cultivation.
This occurs at around age 15-16 on average. Nobles, with their superior techniques and mentors are usually able to awaken 1-2 years earlier. For me and my sister, we awakened at 11 and 12 respectively, shattering the competition.
When forming the magic core, cultivators also awaken their Arcanum—a special ability that grows and evolves with them.
Arcanums are extremely important, typically the biggest factor in determining a cultivator's talent.
Some of you may believe cultivation aptitude/speed would be the most valued aspect, but no. For example, if someone's main ability revolves around growing pubic hair, it doesn't matter if they can rank up faster than others—they'd still be useless.
For me, I possess an incredibly high aptitude along with a potent and versatile Arcanum: Abyssal Hands.
It allows me to manifest and control up to three hands that can be phantom or physical within a certain radius.
The phantom hands can pass through all physical objects and turn physical in a fraction of a second. The physical hands share my exact strength and can transform into many different forms—including claws, tendrils, and blades.
Those that are touched by the hands are slowly drained of their mana and energy, like it's being swallowed by an abyss.
This essentially forces all close range fighters to end the fight fast, only go for quick fights, or just don't get close and run away.
Most try the first two options once they figure out my ability, but they all eventually choose the third, if they can still run of course.
On the other hand, Abyssal Hands don't offer much in terms of offense towards long distance fighters. It can only diminish their attacks, granting slight ranged defense which will pair extremely well with my physique as you'll see later.
Then there is Void Mending, my Arcana—the complimentary ability to the Arcanum unlocked when reaching Adept realm.
It allows my hands to use the drained energy to heal themselves, feeding into the cycle of blocking attacks and regenerating.
That wasn't the only thing I gained reaching Adept realm though, the number of hands I can summon and the radius I could manipulate them in both increased—from 1 hand to 3 and 2.5 meters to 4 respectively.
Additionally, my increased control over them also let me alter their form, granting me the ability to reshape the hands into claws, blades, tendrils, or more.
That was how my Arcanum grew and evolved with me when I reached Adept realm at 19, a few months before my sister, and 3-4 years over other high nobles and gifted commoners.
How do you advance through the stages and realms though?
To progress, cultivators must push their magic core to its limits—absorbing more magic energy despite already being full to the brim with mana. Then, they must use techniques to fracture the core's boundaries, forcing it to slowly expand, increasing mana capacity.
At the same time, their mana must be refined to a higher purity; only dense, well-tempered mana can exert the pressure required to break through the core's boundaries.
As the inner walls are fractured and thinned, time is needed for the core to recover. Constant pressuring can strain the core, and forcing it while vulnerable can cripple the cultivator.
How rapidly their core recovers from strain, along with factors like rate of mana refinement, and core boundary fracturing skill, are all important contributors to a cultivator's aptitude—how quickly they can advance the realms.
Aptitude, combined with the strength of the cultivator's Arancum, defines a cultivator's talent.
For most people, at least.
To stand out as a once-in-a-millennium heavenly talent, something more is required: a physique. A constitution that grants complementary powers, amplifying one's Arancum, appearing in only about 1 in 25 million people.
As for me, my physique is the Aether Reaper Vessel, though I am kind of upset with it—you'll find out why soon.
While it sounds incredibly cool and badass, it isn't as awesome as it seems.
Its ability is to reap the aether, the magical and physical energy of the world, converting it to mana and vigor.
Poisons, curses, environmental ailments, and the like—my physique is capable of completely nullifying these magic 'status effects,' converting them into mana if they reach my body.
Of course, there are limits.
Anything Adept and below, Aether Reaper Vessel completely nullifies it. Against Ascendent afflictions—it will likely only lessen the burden and perhaps just barely prevent me from dying. Exalted or above… best not to think about it.
My physique doesn't just cull 'status effects' though, it also passively harvests ambient magic and physical energy surrounding me.
Because of that constant absorption, my mana and vigor are always being restored, letting me fight far longer than most.
The harvesting of ambient energy effectively increases my mana regeneration speed by around 2-2.5x and stamina by 3x. While sounding incredibly overpowered, in practice, it is quite circumstantial.
Cultivators below Exalted usually recover their mana in about eight to ten hours. With fights usually lasting no longer than 20 minutes, they will only regenerate around 4% of their mana during that time.
Even being able to regenerate over triple that will not be very useful in standard fights. The same applies to restoring vigor.
In a typical one-on-one fight, most cultivators have more than enough stamina, so a stronger technique to end the battle quickly is far more preferable than having more endurance.
Yes—in certain situations, like a zombie apocalype—it will certainly help, being overpowered even.
However, how often would I find myself in that type of situation?
Being faced with a considerably stronger opponent I feel is far more probable, and no amount of mana regeneration and stamina will be of much help against that adversary.
Though, there is one aspect of the physique which circumstantially helps me with stronger, weaker, or equally matched opponents.
When the surrounding magic/physical energy is highly concentrated—like if I'm being attacked—my physique kicks into overdrive, fiercely harvesting that concentrated energy to lessen the impact.
Typically, the more dispersed an attack is, the more effectively it's mitigated.
A rushing slam or wide flame burst could be cut by over 50%, whereas a precise strike—like a spear thrust or lightning lance—would only lose maybe 15% of their force.
This pairs extremely well with the energy absorption aspect of my Abyssal Hands, cutting damage from very wide attacks by essentially 100%—about 70% of the energy from the attack is absorbed while the remaining 30% power spell just gets tanked, with Void Mending using that drained mana to heal itself.
From testing, I was able to completely stop an attack from an upper stage Adept and remain standing with minimal injuries from a full powered peak stage Adept's attack—four stages above me.
While extremely powerful, the usefulness varied wildly as not all cultivators have wide attacks. Not to mention, it didn't offer me any way to fight back.
This, along with what I previously mentioned like increased mana/vigor regen and curse immunity absolutely infuriated me!
'Why are all my abilities so circumstantial, just not working against some people or helping in certain situations!!! Why are they defense oriented? I want offense!'
Ahhhh…
Though, thinking about it more rationally, defense is definitely the better option. I'm not playing a game or reading a story now, this is my life—my only one…
I'm just salty and dissatisfied because I have always been a glass cannon/unstoppable force kinda guy, rather than a tank/immovable object person.
I would've much preferred a physique like Hawks 'Vitalis Ignition' that he brought from his cheat system shop.
"What does it do?" you may ask.
Oh, nothing… Only gives him enough power to aurafarm in a battle against a middle stage Adept when he was only a peak Awakened.
This power gap is typically so vast that a fight normally wouldn't even last five seconds.
Thankfully, the physique has a drawback—it needs to burn the person's life force, decreasing their life span.
How much?
Like half a year… Yeah, a godly power boost that breaks the laws of this world removed not even 1% of his lifespan.
Oh, and you've probably guessed—the system obviously has potions to restore life force, and no, they're not mind bogglingly expensive. This was because of the hyperinflation of system points due to the author's terrible planning.
Early in the novel, the prices of some items looked absurdly high, like a physique costing hundreds of grand.
With the MC making maybe 30 points on a normal day and 150 on a good one, when would he be able to afford the hundred grand items?
When the author realized they boxed themselves in, locking Hawks from getting a physique until maybe a thousand chapters in, they cranked typical point rewards all the way up to the thousands every single time.
For example:
Chapter 10: Kill an initial stage Awakened Thunder Wolfling (as an initial stage Awakened); Reward: 150 system points.
Chapter 200: Kill a peak stage Awakened Thunder Wolf (as a peak stage Awakened); Reward: 5,000 system points.
Obviously, rewards need to ramp along with progression, however 33x? From initial stage Awakened to peak Stage Awakened?
Quite literally what the fuck.
In the established economy of the world, the difference in value between those two stages of Awakened would be about double.
Thinking in a game setting because it's a system, I can see rewards ramping differently—more exponential—perhaps 3-5x, not fucking 33x though.
As a result, the 100 grand items that seemed mystical and unattainable previously, just became filler items as 20 million point items were added in the shop upgrade from the system update.
Yes, that's right. 20 million.
I was wrong before. I believed the author just made a mistake early in the novel, but their entire life was a mistake. 'Big number = neuron activation' type shit thinking.
Ahhhh… fuck. I got sidetracked really badly.
Back to my physique—despite my constant downplaying and critique, it still is a physique, a constitution only around 1 in 25 million have, granting me great power.
All in all, the combination of my high aptitude, potent arcanum, and physique marks me as a heavenly talent. The same for my sister.
Obviously, she doesn't have the same physique or Arcanum, but they're just as strong.