Blake found himself in a small glade 100 meters wide. The glade was perfectly circular and he was at the center but despite the unnaturally perfect shape, there was no sign of damage or debris that suggested that something had caused it. The grass at his feet was a dark rich green and short enough that it looked freshly mowed.
The trees surrounding the glade were some type of pine and about 30 meters tall on average with hints of colorful flowers amongst the green leaves. Blake didn’t know much about trees but from his limited experience in city parks these looked stereo typical in every way. The green plants combined with the mild temperature and clear sky gave the impression of a late spring or early summer day.
Blake knew not to take the environment at face value. While the spirit realm often reflected reality it was not bound by the same rules. For all he knew it could always be like this. The sun might not even set as tier 0 realms were too small to hold an actual sun.
At higher tiers, the realms grew but at tier 0 each realm was at least 100 miles across and could be as large as 500 miles. That was about the size of the average size of a state in the former U.S. Everything beyond the boundaries of the realm was no more than an illusion to imitate reality.
As a breeze blew through the glade Blake shivered despite the warmth of the sun. Looking down he found himself completely nude. Not a stitch of clothing could be found on his body. He could feel warmth flood his cheeks as he looked around for something to cover himself with.
It was looking like he had messed up somewhere and was not in the village he was supposed to be at but he didn’t want someone to stumble on him and think him a creep. Unfortunately, his luck was in the dumpster for the day as there wasn’t so much as a conveniently sized plant to wrap around his waist.
Blake spent a few minutes circling the area making sure to keep the glade in sight at all times so as not to get lost. He was hoping to find some sign of… something. He wasn’t sure what exactly he hoped for but anything was better than nothing. Sitting down on the surprisingly soft grass of the glade he tried to decide on what to do. He had such a clear image in his mind as to his goal; him ascending through the tiers by slaying giant monsters for their body parts and then returning to Earth as a superhero.
As he thought about his ‘plans’ Blake realized he had no real plans. At best, he had vague ideas of what he wanted his future to look like. Focusing on the core objective in his mind he decided to start there. He needed to ascend to a higher tier. Everything else was dependent on that. The question was how. He had assumed he would learn how once he was here but now what?
Another breeze blew by reminding him of his current state of dress. Blake decided to put ascending on hold for a moment and focus on something else. Clothes. He couldn’t really die while in the spirit realm but he could be uncomfortable.
If he were to ‘die’ while in the spirit realm, he would just wake up on Earth with any power he had earned removed. It was supposed to be a horrible experience but Blake was confident he would be fine if it came to that. He just didn’t want it to come to that.
Since death wasn’t a concern he could focus on comfort before he ascended. Blake decided he would just pick a direction and walk in a straight line until he found something. His possible spawn location might have covered a huge area but it wasn’t infinite. Even if it took a few hours he would have to stumble on someone eventually.
Just as he was about to set off Blake stopped in his tracks and facepalmed. Talents! He was in the spirit realm, he should have a Talent now. He focused for a moment trying to recall how people were supposed to access their Talents for the first time. Sitting on the grass he crossed his legs and focused on meditating.
Each Talent came with an instinct on how to use it. Some people could tap into that instinct without a problem but most needed a bit of time. He could vaguely recall there being many different ways to approach the problem but normally he would have someone coach him through the process.
Diffrent types of Talents had diffrent optimum methods of connecting to them. Someone with a identification type Talent could tell him what type of Talent he had and then he could get specific training for his Talent. Being all alone he would have to stick to the one universal method he remembered. Meditation.
Meditation was universally applicable and could help him tap into any Talent he may have but there was one problem. The reason Blake remembered this method in particular wasn’t because it was some amazing all powerful technique for accessing one’s Talent. No. He remembered it as the exercise he struggled the most with in class. His brain liked to wander. Why focus on one thing when you can do hundreds? Meditation was the bane of his life.
In the end though, Blake had no other option. He didn’t remember any of the other methods and even if he had there was no guarantee they would work for him. No such luck for his lost, naked rear.
Some time passed before Blake let out a yell and stood up. It could have been five minutes or five hours he wasn’t sure but his focus was only becoming more scattered as time passed. If he was being honest he knew it was closer to five minutes, if even that, but concentrating on one thing for any period of time not letting any other thoughts in went against his very nature.
Sitting still and staring into space for hours on end as his brain ran wild? Sure he did that all the time. But sitting still and not thinking? Too hard.
Blake gave up on it for now. He would be back in civilization soon anyway. He could find a more suitable method then. Also clothes. He really, really wanted clothes. A sense of disgust overcame him at the thought of getting clothes from someone else. It was so sudden and visceral that he stumbled back for a moment.
It faded away just as quickly as it had come making Blake doubt his own memory for a moment. Not sure what was happening he retraced his thoughts. He was thinking of finding a village. Then about clothes. Getting clothes from a village? The wave of disgust returned.
Blake was very confused. The disgust was his own, he was sure, but also not? The only reason he felt any separation from the emotion was because it contradicted his pre-existing feelings on the matter. However, was that true? He wanted clothes but was that what the disgust was aimed at?
Blake let his mind wander for a bit. He imagined what would happen over the next few days. He thought about how his trip to a village would go, what he would do once there, and so on. After a few minutes of studying what thoughts triggered the disgust, he had narrowed it down.
If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
It triggered at the idea of taking or using anything crafted or harvested by others. Disgust overcame him at the idea of eating food prepared by others or fruit harvested by their hands but if he was the one to pick the fruit that seemed fine.
Blake groaned. If this was Talent like he thought it was then it might be one of the most embarrassing ever. His Talent was that he was introverted. There was no other explanation he could think of. Talents made someone good at a specific skill. A Talented cook would know how to work with ingredients they had never heard of before just by sight and smell. A Talented fisherman could tell you where the best places to catch fish are without having seen a fish a day in their life. There were always other powers that came along with the practical ability but those could shift more with time. The innate skill, while not immutable, was the core of who and what you were. Blake was an antisocial, introvert.
He couldn’t imagine what sort of ability might fall under that category. Maybe some sort of invisibility? Despite having come into contact with his Talents instincts on accident he didn’t have a true connection with it so he didn’t know what the ability was yet. Despite the slight success he was not motivated enough to try meditating again so he began to walk instead.
As he walked Blake swore he would pay attention to his surroundings and try to find a bush he could rip out of the ground and hide his nudity behind. Within minutes he had broken his promise as his mind drifted to potential powers he might have.
Invisibility was not unheard of and a stealth Talent would fit with wanting to avoid people. It wasn’t necessarily the best option for stealth, though. A general stealth skill that only muted his impact on the senses rather than erased it entirely might be better.
One thing the NER schooling system made sure to drill into his brain was that all Talents are equal. Some saw this as propaganda to make weaklings feel better but there was something to what they said even if it was a rather shallow interpretation of reality. The impact any Talent could have on reality was indeed equal. A stealth Talent that impacted vision could indeed be full invisibility while one that covered sound and sight would only be half as effective on each.
According to NER teachings that meant they were of equal strength. In reality, invisibility meant nothing if you were easily located with another sense. A full stealth ability, one that erased someone from the very concept of senses, will barely impact anything at all. According to the NER, it was equal strength sure but they would also say it was wasted. Who cared if they had the same amount of power if it was spread so thin as to be useless? Anyone who was really into power crafting, the term for the study of Talents, and how the abilities interacted would notice a massive hole in this logic.
Blake had always loved learning about the variety of Talents out there, although he had focused on magic. It was generally seen as useless as you could only have one Talent so why care about the others? It was because of this attitude that many missed what should have been an obvious observation.
That weak and useless stealth ability? It was only useless at tier 0. Each tier strengthened your Talent allowing for a larger and larger impact. Invisibility could only get so invisible but suppressing your existence from every sense? That could be upgraded much further. An invisibility power could of course be stretched and evolved to encompass other senses but that took time, effort, and resources not many had.
Blake tripped over his own feet and face-planted. Yep, future assassin of the year right there. Blake grumbled to himself as he got to his feet. Apparently walking through an alien forest was not enough to keep his attention on the surroundings. Granted for an alien forest it looked remarkably mundane. Outside the rather lacking fauna, this could be anywhere on Earth. At least that’s what Blake assumed. He had never left his hometown of Frenton City so his experience with nature had been contained to parks.
Blake frowned as he looked to the sky. The sun was beginning to set. On the one hand, it was nice to see that this realm had a functioning day-night cycle, assuming the sun came up in the morning, but on the other hand, he had been walking for hours with no sign of people. He might have missed something in his daze but it was unlikely, humans were no longer suited for traverversing wilderness and any passage would have been obvious.
Unsure as to what to do Blake stood frozen. If he sped up a little he could maybe make it back to the glade before dark but then what? He could also keep moving forward but he decided to go with option three, stay where he was. His spirit body, the body he inhabited while in the spirit realm, did not require food and water the same way his normal body did but he still grew tired. Especially mentally.
So much and yet so little had happened in the last day that he didn’t know what to make of it all. His mind felt like it was squeezed dry after his panic attack in the void and he hadn’t had a chance to really calm down since then. Sure the walk had been peaceful but the uncomfortable sensation of being in the nude combined with the persistent questions in the back of his mind about what was going on made it impossible to fully let go. A nice night’s rest was exactly what he needed.
Blake tried to remember anything about comfort in a survival situation. Maybe camping was a better way to look at it? He wasn’t sure. Either way outdoor living wasn’t much of a hobby anymore when Talents allowed people to live in comfort no matter where they went. What use was knowledge of how to start a fire when a pyromancer could make one with a thought?
He came up with nothing. There had probably been some infomercial or blog post he had read at some point about it but nothing that stuck in his head. He decided to just try and make a pillow out of leaves. There weren’t many dead so he spent time picking them off of branches. As he worked his instincts kicked in again. Surprised at first he forgot what he was doing and lost focus on the instinct. It took him starting and stopping his pillow project three more times before he could feel what it was telling him to do. Nothing. It was telling him to do nothing different.
That wasn’t wholly accurate. It didn’t want him to act any different but instead wanted him to think differently. As he plucked leaves off of tree branches he focused on his actions and his goal. Despite having connected to the instinct he struggled to follow it. This wasn’t mindless meditation but it still required a level of focus he struggled with. At one point he tore a branch from a tree in irritation. His embarrassment at his own actions ended up being an amazing way to focus as his thoughts didn’t drift again after that.
Once the leaves were gathered he began to dig a little pit with a stick. He would fill the pit with leaves and use it like a bed. Once again his Talent did not push him to change his actions just focus on them. He focused on the end goal, the bed. As the last leaves settled into the pit a wave of information and energy rushed into Blake.
The information on the other hand was painful. His mind, already tired from the day, was stretched as new information filled it. At first, it wasn’t anything new. Everything he had done to make the bed became crystal clear. It was as if he was doing it in that moment and he knew he would never forget how to make this crappy little leaf bed even if he forgot when he had done so. After his previous memories and thoughts had been clarified more information came. He knew everything about his new bed from the amount of leaves to the density of their placement. Without even laying down he knew exactly how much give it had.
Before Blake could fully adjust to the information a second wave of information hit. This time it wasn’t about the making of the bed but rather the use of it. It was strange. In a moment it was like Blake had spent a few days training all day every day with a professional on how to… sleep. There wasn’t much information more ingrained muscle memory. Clearly, this was not the intended purpose of this part of his Talent but Blake couldn’t help but laugh. He expected he could shave an hour or two off his sleep and wake up perfectly rested despite sleeping in a subpar bed.
Warmth then suffused Blake’s body like a warm blanket. It was the same kind of warm energy he had experienced in the void between reality and the spirit realm. Despite being hot enough that he felt it should be able to harm him it was only comfortable.
Mid laugh Blake cut off and collapsed into the leaf bed. He was exhausted. Even in his half-asleep state, he rolled to position himself just right in the leaf pile. He cupped some of the leaves shifting them around to better fit the shape of his body. He wasn’t even conscious of his actions by this point.
