Chapter 167: A Terrible Hypothesis

“Yes, but you can only see the number of Talents and their types.” The woman swung her hand.

Beneath Gao Yang’s feet, there was suddenly a giant circular stone tablet, divided into twelve parts by ancient symbols. It looked somewhat like a sundial.

Gao Yang gave it a quick look and immediately recognized the familiar rune symbols.

The eye for Psyche, the hourglass for Time-Space, the sea urchin-like irregular shape for Damage, the book for Knowledge, the world tree for Life, the fist for Strength, and the shield for Guard...

Wing, wing, wing.

Twelve beams of light came down along the edge of the circular tablet. Gao Yang immediately noticed colorful clumps of particles within the beams, shifting and swirling without a stable shape like fetuses of energy.

There were a few clumps of particles in some beams, and none in others. The beam for Time-Space, for example, was empty.

Realization dawned on Gao Yang. “These are Talents?”

“Yes, but not their true forms, but—”

“The projection of my rationality, emotions, and imagination,” Gao Yang cut the system off with an eye roll.

He looked around roughly and said, “There are thirteen clumps in seven beams.”

And in the beam for Guard, there was only one lone clump of particles.

After a pause, Gao Yang turned to the woman. “Is this Old Wang’s Iron Skin?”

The woman responded with her perpetual smile, “No comment.”

Gao Yang fell into thought, his head lowered.

There was something that had been bothering him. To his knowledge, it seemed that Talents were exclusive; at least he had never seen two awakeners with the same Talent.

If that was the case, there could be no more than 199 awakeners according to the number of entries on the Talent list. No, some awakeners had two or even three Talents, which meant that there were less than 199 awakeners in the world at this time.

There were less than 15 people in the Twelve Zodiac Signs, about 40 people in the Qilin Guild, and less than 100 people in the Hundred Rivers Union, which made up the bulk of awakeners. Added to that the individual awakeners that made up the minority, all awakeners would be more or less accounted for.

Then could it be that awakeners didn’t exactly acquire Talents through comprehension, but were assigned them at random by the Heavenly Way?

Every time an awakener died, their Talent would return to the Talent Pantheon.

The death of all nine members of the second team of the Hundred Rivers Union returned 9 Talents to the Talent Pantheon. Combined with the Talents that hadn’t been given out, there were currently 13 unassigned Talents in total.

Newly awakened awakeners would each receive a Talent from the Pantheon. The luckier ones would go on to receive the second or even the third Talent.

Yes, that made sense.

That was why no one had ever figured out a way to learn Talents, because there was no method in the first place.

When Gao Yang used up a large amount of Luck points to ‘comprehend’ a new Talent, he was effectively drawing the lottery again and again to increase his odds of getting a prize. That was why the cost grew exponentially after every success.

Although he didn’t know where humans came from yet, the truth of the matter was that while old awakeners kept dying, the number of humans stayed somewhere around 400. Every now and then, some among the regular humans awakened and were randomly assigned Talents to replenish the number of awakeners, creating a stable closed system.

Suddenly, a possibility occurred to him, and he shuddered.

What if all but one of the existing awakeners died, and the unawakened humans were unable to awaken without contact with existing awakeners? In theory, the Talent Pantheon would then have in store every single Talent!

Then wouldn’t the only surviving awakener acquire all Talents sooner or later?

Would the Heavenly Way allow for that to happen? Or was the Heavenly Way aiming for it to happen?

Or perhaps the Heavenly Way was but an onlooker, and this was nothing but a game to Them?!

The thought alone was bone-chilling.

Gao Yang took a deep breath. Perhaps other awakeners had made the same speculation, only they lacked the means to confirm it. Gao Yang was able to solidify the hypothesis because the system allowed him to enter the Talent Pantheon.

And what a terrible hypothesis it was. Once spread, a civil war would break out sooner rather than later.

Frankly, Gao Yang wished for it to never happen. He would rather everyone work together to open the Gates of Closure and escape the Mist World, if it was at all possible.

Well, let’s put that aside for now. It’s still in the very distant future.

“System.” Gao Yang looked at the woman. “Since I can see the number and types of Talents, does that mean I’m allowed to specify the type of Talent I want to comprehend in the future?”

“Yes.” The woman smiled. “However, that doesn’t change the success rate of comprehension or the cost of Luck points.”

“Got it.”

Gao Yang nodded. It was good enough that he could specify the type. It would allow him to direct his development with more preplanning and control.

If he wanted to become a warrior, he would pull for Damage-type Talents. Wizard, Element-type Talents. Sage, Wisdom-type. And Healer, Life-type. So on and so forth.

“Captain Seven Shadow.”

From the distant fringe of the universe came the voice of his teammate.

Shit, I’ve been inside the system for too long.

“Let’s call it a day. Let me out.”

“Understood.” The woman nodded with a smile and picked up her blue whistle to blow it.

Beep—

When Gao Yang opened his eyes, everyone was looking at him.

“Did you actually fall asleep, Captain?” Can asked with a lollipop in her mouth, staring at him with big round eyes.

“Yeah,” Gao Yang said. “How long have I been asleep?”

“A few minutes?” Can wasn’t sure.

It seemed that the flow of time was faster in the Talent Pantheon. Although he had stayed there for quite a while, it was only a moment in the real world.

Can said with envy, “You’ve got quite a strong heart, Captain! You can fall asleep even in this situation!”

“Ha, that’s called mental fortitude!” Gray Bear said from the driver seat, smoking a cigarette. Then he added, “You all should learn from him.”

“Power is everything,” Lithe Snake disagreed. “Even the strongest mind wouldn’t save you if you don’t have power.”

“Geez, my knee hurts[1].” Can stuck out her tongue and got back to what they had been talking about with a smile. “Captain, Xiran wants your advice on dating.”

“No, I don’t!” Xiran flushed red, nervous.

Can burst out laughing and shot Ronnie a look.

Ronnie smiled and said, “Captain, Xiran does have a question about love to ask, you.”

Gao Yang maintained a poker face, but he was flipping an imagined table in his head.

Do I look like someone with a lot of romantic experience to you? What gives you the impression?

Gao Yang thought they were joking and was going to drop it with a laugh, but after a moment of hesitation, Xiran volunteered, “It was an online friend of mine.”

Online friend?

That piqued Gao Yang’s curiosity. “From where?”

“The A City.”

“Haha, A City[2]!” Gray Bear chimed in. “Why didn’t you meet up with your online friend?”

That was a joke, of course, but one Gao Yang didn’t find particularly funny.

Any awakener with the most basic common sense would know one thing: the A City didn’t actually exist.

1. There’s a famous quote from Skyrim, ‘I used to be an adventurer like you. Then I took an arrow in the knee.’ Once spread to the Chinese circle, it develops into a common expression that means a comment has hit the nail on the head/hit a nerve. It can go, ‘That’s an arrow in the knee,’ or simply, ‘My knee hurts.’ ?

2. It is a common practice for Chinese authors to use the English alphabets when referring to a city in real-life setting, whether to avoid controversies or maintain a distance from reality. In some cases, the terms may be referring to an actual city by using the initial of the pinyin name; for example, S City is usually Shanghai. ?