Assimilate All Talents

Sol lowered the Tynamo Cannon and yelled at Fabio, “That could’ve killed me!”

Fabio put his own cannon away and chuckled, “Heh. Nah, I doubt that. But as you can see, we managed to amplify the void root's ability to absorb energy and recharge itself with the help of the void metal. Now it can completely absorb energy based attacks even at the A-Rank level.”

“Do you mean it works even on law techniques?”

“Where’d you hear about that?”

Taliya and Fabio were a little surprised to hear him mention law techniques. For him to mention it without being an A-Ranker himself meant someone else must have told him, and depending on who it was, it could lead to trouble. This didn’t mean they would push him away or report him, but they were nonetheless worried.

Sol could tell by looking at their faces that they were concerned. “It’s okay, Commander Zaman told me.”

Fabio didn’t expect that the Commander of the Royal Knights had personally shared that information with him and was impressed. “Hoh? Haven’t you only been with them for almost two months and they're already trusting you to this extent? Color me impressed. But to answer your original question, yeah, it can easily absorb energy based law techniques like mine. You know, mana, fire, electricity, psychic, and the rest. There are some types of energy it can’t absorb like natural gravitational or electromagnetic energy, but it's immune to their effects…” He was about to go into further detail but realized he was losing Sol and Taliya again. Even in Sol’s confusion, there was something he found odd.

“Psychic energy? But doesn’t that also use magic? Why is it a separate category?”

He was sure it used mana, as even the minor psychic abilities he had used a decent chunk of mana for the simplest tasks.

Fabio shook his head. “Psychic energy is independent of mana. It doesn't appear in the status page, but everyone has it, and it rises with the increase of intelligence and vitality. While it's possible to use mana and convert it to psychic energy, it's extremely inefficient and only beginners do that until they learn to sense the other energy within them.”

‘Only beginners, huh. I guess I did siphon it off someone who barely practiced it. Maybe that's what I was missing.’

Sol finally knew why he found it so hard to raise his psychic skill. If he could tap into the dormant psychic energy inside him, he was certain his skill would improve by leaps and bounds. It also made him lament further, as it sounded like such a simple solution, but it was one he wouldn’t realize without a lot of trial and error until he stumbled into it by accident.

While Sol was thinking about dedicating some time later today for the skill, Fabio called out to him with a warning. “Oi, I just want to be clear: the Tynamo Cannon will only absorb energy, NOTHING else. Don’t try to absorb a sword or anything like that, and be careful of semi-energy projectiles. What I mean by that is stuff like your earth manipulation. It costs mana to move and compress it, but that rock and stone aren’t magical by any means. The most it will do is absorb the energy causing it to move.”

Sol nodded seriously. He had to be careful and couldn’t use the last function on everything that moved.

“Another thing you should keep in mind: please don’t ever shoot straight down for any reason.”

“Huh? Why?” It was an odd request, which didn’t make a lot of sense.

Taliya was the one who answered. “We… don’t actually know how long the void beam travels. The only way we can stop its beam is if we shoot it into the forge or one of us blocks it with our law techniques. If you shoot downwards, there is a chance it… tunnels all the way through to the planet's core.”

Fabio continued, “Honestly, we don’t know if it will go that far, and we have even less of an idea of what would happen if it hit the core. It could be nothing, or it could cause an unexpected chain reaction. Worst case scenario… bye-bye world.”

“What?! Isn’t that too absurd?!”

Sol was shocked to know he had been carrying a potentially world destroying weapon, and they were only telling him this now, after he had already shot it.

Taliya laughed at his reaction. “Hey, don’t worry about it. That's the worst case scenario, and even if you for some reason do that, many powerful forces won’t sit by and let it happen. Gods will definitely intervene as well. We’re just warning you because of what will happen to you afterward.”

It only took a moment to realize what she meant.

“I’m guessing the gods won’t be very happy with whoever caused it…”

Fabio nodded. “Yup, but remember, we aren’t even sure if it's capable of making it all the way to the core. There is a lot in the way from here to all the way down there—stone, minerals, magicinfused ores—there might even be a barrier put around the core to prevent such things. Who really knows? Plus, you're not the only one with world breaking capabilities, so you're not alone in that department. I’m not even talking about the gods; a few A-Rankers with crazy law techniques could do something similar.”

“I see… I don’t even know if I should feel better or worse at the fact that our entire world is one depressed A-Ranker away from destruction…”

Taliya laughed again but with a lower tone. “Haha... It’ll be fine. All those powerful A-Rankers are depressed already, and we’re all still alive and kicking.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

Fabio shook his head and placed his hand on Sol’s shoulder. “It’s a bad joke, don’t worry about it. Ah, would you look at the time! I have to head back and help Lisa settle in.” Fabio then handed one of the weird hats to Sol. “Here, you can borrow it for now, but give it back to me later.”

“Oh, thanks.” Sol nodded and took the weird hat, but he didn’t believe Fabio when he said it was a joke.

From the way Taliya said it, it didn’t sound like a joke, and something about the way her eyes changed for a brief moment made him feel like there was more to it. He wasn’t going to press them for an answer, but something was definitely up.

As Fabio began to make his way to the exit, Sol remembered something he wanted to try out the moment he arrived here.

“Hey before you go. Can you two let me borrow that guy over there to test a few things?”