Chapter 466 The Weight of Secrets
466 The Weight of Secrets
Aron brought up Rina’s status screen. It was similar to the one his system generated for him, as he had used it as the core inspiration for the runes he’d used in its creation. It displayed everything that was known about her, like her name, height, and so on. It also included two entries showing whether or not she was awakened, and what system of magic she had awakened to. The field showing her individual magic system was blank at the moment, however, as it had yet to be discovered. novelb1n
But none of that mattered just then, because the most important and attention-grabbing field—at least for Aron and Nova—was the affinity section of her status, which read “Affinity: neutral”.
The excitement on Aron and Nova’s face couldn’t be hidden, prompting Rina, who had yet to understand the importance of mana affinities, to ask, “What’s got you two so excited?”
“Does that mean I can use the golden letters like you?” Rina excitedly asked, imagining herself as a perpetual motion machine with the aid of the refresh rune.
“Unfortunately, no. My awakening was... unique, and related to my physique. You can’t cast runes unless you have the same, let’s say, mutation that I do.” Aron snapped his fingers and a model of his runic heart appeared, with a section highlighted like an illustration in an anatomy textbook that showed a portion of the billions of submicroscopic runic sentences carved into his heart.
“We also suspect that, since your awakening was triggered, rather than happening naturally, it’ll be difficult for you to learn to use your blessing. Those who naturally awakened should be able to instinctively use their blessings, but have you felt anything like that yourself? Without that instinct, you’ll have to learn everything from scratch. Either way, it takes repetition and training, together with researching the mana you want to use, to develop new abilities. So for now, we have to wait until we can gather data from the naturally awakened on how they use, and strengthen, their blessings before we can come up with a system for you to put your blessing to work,” Aron finished. Though he said that, he was already planning to buy beginner magical knowledge from the system and upload it to her—and the other awakened, for that matter, to act as their “instincts”—but he needed a cover for it that wouldn’t expose the system or his ability to upload information directly into someone’s brain. That was another secret he could only share with Nova.
Still, he was absolutely ecstatic that Rina was joining him as someone who could also use magic. Keeping that ability from her was beginning to weigh on him and he knew it would affect their relationship, eventually. Secrets are the heaviest thing known to man, and no matter how healthy a relationship was, keeping too many would cause it to crumble under their weight.
“We’ll know more in the future, but for now, you need some natural sleep. Your recent bout of unconsciousness can’t be considered ‘rest’, after all.”
Aron initiated a forced logout for the two of them and held her in his arms until they disappeared from the simulation.