The Weight of a Unique Ability
As soon as I entered my room and shut the door, the tension drained from my body, and I collapsed onto the bed. I had barely managed to start thinking about my ability when the priest grabbed my parents and began making a fuss all over again. It took several rounds of enduring exhausting, draining conversations about how "a sight like this is rare in the history of the Empire" and "a blessing upon the family" before I could finally escape.
My parents hadn't been able to hide their joy, and simply playing along with them felt like it had drained more energy than a full day of sword training.
"Finally, some peace and quiet."
I lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. I finally had time to myself. I needed to organize the starlight that had embedded itself into my brain back in that cosmic space, along with the words spoken by that mysterious figure. I had brushed it aside earlier, swept up in the atmosphere, but this wasn't a problem I could just ignore.
Lying there, staring blankly at the ceiling, I replayed that voice in my mind. "What on earth was that unknown entity?" It had accurately pierced through the fact that I was a "changed existence" who had entered Cassian's body, and it had even expressed a deep, weary fatigue, calling this my "final connection." Was it a god? A spirit? Or something else entirely?
The most rational thought was that it was Aillan, the god worshipped by the Aillan Church, but it differed from the descriptions recorded by the saints. "It said it was a woman." That was why it was ambiguous. Perhaps it appeared differently because I wasn't a saint, or perhaps it was an entirely different entity. As I had thought before, it wasn't a problem I could solve. So, I shifted my focus.
What I heard at the very end: "It depends on you, then..."
If I were to follow the words of a transcendental being, it meant that the ending of this world was not fixed. But the more I thought about it, the more it felt like walking through a fog. The more I tried to grasp a clue, the more questions piled up, and in the end, I was just spinning my wheels. It felt like being lost and stranded in the depths of a vast forest.
"Why are there so many variables?"
Did some massive gear slip out of place when I transmigrated into this world? Or was this situation, which they called a "trick," the very reason I was brought here?
"Ha... how should I know!"
I spat out my inner thoughts in frustration, but that didn't solve anything. I shook my head to clear my cluttered mind. I couldn't afford to be buried in worries that had no immediate answers. I knew it was an important issue, but I wasn't foolish enough to cling to problems that offered no solution right now.
"Right, let's think about something else. Reality, placed right here in the palm of my hand, is more important than an entity I have no way of knowing right now."
I forcibly pushed aside the questions about the mysterious entity and decided to focus on the unique ability that had taken root within me. My unique ability was truly, quintessentially "romance fantasy"—an emotional and strange power.
Longing, Understanding, Love
The bewilderment I felt when I first encountered that name in my head... Usually, when you think of a male protagonist in a romance fantasy, they're given some cool, impressive ability. Something like "Space Severance" or "Absolute Magic"—names that might seem a bit childish, but are at least intuitive. "Did it change because I transmigrated?" Furthermore, there's a famous saying that "longing is the emotion furthest from understanding," so I wondered if it was even possible for these contradictory keywords to be bound together.
However, as soon as I checked the detailed information that flowed in afterward, I could immediately understand why the priest had made such a fuss and hailed it as "top-tier." The priest must have measured the rank based on the phenomenon that appeared at the Selection Ceremony. To summarize my unique ability:
Longing: I randomly copy one of the unique abilities of the person I long for. However, it starts in a degraded state. It's a subtle stage that feels like a mix of "gacha" and "copying." That must be why I was able to use Kalia's unique ability. I realized it only now—I had copied Kalia's unique ability.
Understanding: As I empathize with the target and understand their essence, the copied ability regains its original power. In other words, "empathy," not training, is the key to strengthening it. This felt like a romance fantasy, yet also like a dating sim.
Love: When I reach a complete bond with the target—the stage of "love"—the ability goes beyond a perfect copy and assimilates into me as if it were my own.
A copy ability is a broken, overpowered ability in any creative work. But my unique ability seemed to have quite tricky restrictions. The biggest problem was that the criteria for "longing" were ambiguous. If any ability could be copied in a degraded state just because I thought, "I long for them," it would be a balance-breaker. But reality wasn't like that. I already had my "father"—the ruler of the North and a massive wall—right in front of me, and while I certainly thought I longed for him, none of his abilities were copied into me.
"Is it not enough to simply admire his strength?" Perhaps this "longing" was a very fickle emotion that only activated when my subconscious truly craved something I lacked, and the other person possessed it.
And there was another problem. The final stage, "love." What on earth did this love mean? I had no way of knowing if it meant only the burning affection between lovers, or if it included deep trust between family or friends. The emotion of love implied far too many things.
"That's a homework assignment I'll have to figure out slowly later."
The ability itself was ambiguity incarnate. Perhaps that was why the skill levels of unique ability users in this world varied so wildly. It was because the value of an ability changed drastically—like heaven and earth—depending on how one interpreted it and in what direction one manifested it. It meant that just because the label "top-tier" was attached didn't necessarily mean it was good. On the contrary, the more high-level and difficult an ability was to handle, the more it could become a burden worse than a common, low-level ability if the user's understanding was low.
Just look at Rona Scott, whom I fought earlier. Rona was a unique ability user with at least mid-tier value. But because the user didn't contemplate her power and just swung it around as it was given, she couldn't even draw out half of her potential. In the end, a unique ability's quality changed completely depending on the user's "interpretation" and "will." Even with my ability, [Longing, Understanding, Love], which was judged as top-tier, if I only regarded it as a "tool to copy others' strength," I would remain at the same level as Rona Scott.
"Rona Scott's ability could have become an entirely different power depending on how she interpreted it."
That's why I thought about it back then. That she had neglected her training. I won because Rona Scott's mental state was shattered and she was out of her mind, and she had neglected her training, but her unique ability itself was clearly threatening. If she had deeply contemplated her ability and added bone-grinding training, I wouldn't have been able to seize victory so easily, no matter how bad her condition was.
"No matter how good the ability is, the problem is the one using it."
Rona Scott's case was a very good counter-example for me. If I got drunk on the "top-tier" title and didn't dig into the mechanics of my unique ability, I, too, would show my lack of substance at a critical moment. [Longing, Understanding, Love]. These three stages were not just a means for "copying," but a "process of interpretation" that I absolutely had to go through to handle the abilities I copied far more efficiently and lethally than Rona did.
Even if it was an ability copied in a degraded state, what if I understood that ability more deeply than the original owner and could wield it in the right place at the right time? It would no longer be a degraded knock-off, but a new "genuine article" optimized for me as the user. Just as luxury goods are produced in "that country's" factories but come out into the world with labels like "Made in Korea" depending on the final process or brand value, I felt my ability was the same. The main body might be a "degraded copy" borrowed from someone else, but the process of refining and interpreting it to complete it as my own was mine alone.
"Thinking about it this way, it's like re-labeling..." But then again, the person I long for wouldn't neglect their training, so maybe that's a slightly wrong explanation.
And another problem was that the unique ability sometimes activated as a "passive" regardless of my will. Kalia's ability was like that. So it was actually fortunate that it was copied in a degraded state. Thinking about it this way, it wasn't necessarily good to just copy any ability.
"No, if there's a risk like this, you should have told me before I brought Kalia's ability."
To realize it only after copying it—this world was harsh to me even regarding my abilities. "I don't know if it'll work, but I need to copy one more ability that can neutralize or control Kalia's ability." Kalia was someone I had promised to keep by my side for the rest of my life. If I couldn't keep her away, I needed an ability like a neutralizer to balance out the copied ability that would continue to grow by Kalia's side. In the end, I had one more thing to do when I went to the Academy. Just thinking about it made me feel tired. And I hadn't even gone to the Academy yet.
"There's the Grand Banquet before that, too..."
Now that the Ability Selection Ceremony was over, the only big event left before going to the Academy was the Grand Banquet. As far as I remembered, that was the case. "This is going to be exhausting, too."