I Thought It Was a Dud

Gods exist.

It isn't a matter of faith or theology.

When notifications like that literally pop up before people's eyes, what room is there left to doubt? Of course, one has never popped up before mine.

"Dammit."

I sighed and scrolled down my phone screen.

First thing in the morning, the front page was plastered with news of someone else striking it big.

A blessing: supernatural might bestowed upon mortals by higher beings, including gods. If a hunter's skill is a technique acquired and polished through blood, sweat, and tears, then a blessing is quite literally the privilege of the chosen. A single good blessing could overturn a person's entire life overnight.

The only problem? Nobody on earth knew how to get one.

"'To draw the gaze of a deity of the Heroic domain, one must continuously challenge foes stronger than oneself...'" I scoffed, skimming through ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the article.

Right underneath, an expert analysis had been kindly provided:

Presumed.

It was always just a guess.

If you want the blessing of a Nature deity, protect the ecology of dungeons. If you want a blessing from the Celestial domain, uphold your sacred vows. If it's an Abyss deity, don't even think about catching their eye... and so on and so forth. The internet overflowed with every conceivable strategy guide.

"And how many people actually succeeded with that garbage?"

Zero.

To be precise, it was completely impossible to replicate. Two people could follow the exact same rituals, and one might receive a blessing while the other got jack shit. You'd see absolute scumbags receiving Celestial blessings, while lifelong saints who dedicated their lives to saving ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠others died without receiving a scrap of divine favor. Because of this, scholars arrived at a very simple conclusion:

It wasn't as if anyone could walk up and ask a god directly. They tossed out blessings, sure, but they were notoriously tight-lipped when it came to answers. In the meantime, academics continued churning out borderline pseudoscience—after all, that was the only way to secure research grants.

"Must be nice," I muttered, lingering on the photograph of the man in the article.

The exact effects of his newly acquired blessing hadn't been publicized. Even so, it was bestowed upon the seventeenth strongest hunter in the entire world; it was bound to boast power befitting his stature.

I slipped the phone back into my pocket. I wasn't seething with envy, just feeling a twinge of mild jealousy. In the end, that world had nothing to do with me. I wasn't an active hunter, after all.

To be perfectly accurate, I had awakened.

When I first laid eyes on my status window, my expectations went through the roof. The name alone sounded extraordinary: Blessing Codex. Whatever it was, it clearly had something to do with divine blessings, and even a three-year-old child knew just how precious those were. I genuinely thought my dreary life was finally about to turn around.

Then a month passed.

"..."

Tapping it yielded zero response. As for what an "Observed Target" even meant, I had no clue. I even paid a visit to the Hunter Association to have it officially appraised. The examiner stared at it for a long while before offering an apologetic conclusion:

"For the time being, it seems difficult to determine any practical application."

That was just a polite way of putting it. In plain terms, it was a dud.

Still, if there was any silver lining, it was that we no longer lived in an era where awakening forcibly dragged you into a dungeon gate. Without combat capabilities, there was no reason to go throwing my life away against monsters. And so, I continued commuting to work like any ordinary civilian.

Today was no different. On my way home, I stopped by the local mart to grab groceries for dinner.

"Eggs..." I muttered, hesitating before the price tag. "Why the hell did they go up again?"

Celebrated hunters lived like kings, while I stood paralyzed in front of a carton of eggs, counting pennies. What a life. In the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠end, I settled on a slightly smaller carton. I turned and headed toward the checkout counter.

Thud!

Right as I rounded the corner, my shoulder collided with someone.

"Ah."

The prepackaged bento box the other person was holding tumbled to the floor.

"I'm so sorry!" I said quickly.

"No, it's fine. I wasn't watching where I was going either."

I scooped the lunchbox off the linoleum and handed it over. Our fingertips brushed for a fraction of a second. In that fleeting instant, the Blessing Codex—which hadn't shown a flicker of life for an entire month—abruptly stirred.

"...?"

I froze in my tracks, wondering if my eyes were playing tricks on me. But the message floated vivid and clear right before my vision. The ability that had lain dormant like a corpse for thirty days had reacted for the very first time.

My gaze naturally drifted toward the woman walking ahead of me. I had no idea what this entailed, but after an entire month of total silence, a change had finally arrived. There was zero reason to decline.

The moment I willed my acceptance—

Pale inscriptions began to materialize above the woman's body. They weren't levels or numerical stats.

"..."

I blinked. Beneath it, another line surfaced.

What is this? It was as if her most humiliating, closely guarded insecurities were being forcibly laid bare. And that wasn't the end of it.

One after another, phrases kept bubbling up. They weren't noble or pleasant; on the contrary, most were raw, bitter, and dark.

Jealousy. Inferiority. Fear. Regret. Guilt.

It felt distinctly uncomfortable, like I had peeled open the back of a stranger's skull and was snooping through their unfiltered psyche.

What on earth is going on?

I opened the Blessing Codex again. The interface that had remained blank for an entire month had transformed.

Available Materials? Don't tell me...

I looked back at the woman. Focusing my consciousness onto one of the floating phrases, a detailed description unfurled before me.

"...Holy shit."

A quiet curse slipped past my lips. Human emotions were the materials for divine blessings? I checked each entry one by one. Sure enough, every single one was marked as a crafting material.

Suddenly, the woman stopped in front of a shelf.

I flinched and quickly averted my eyes, pretending to inspect a nearby product. Fortunately, she hadn't noticed me. She was staring intently at a display of hunter-grade energy rations—notoriously overpriced and infamously foul-tasting bars packed with mana nutrients.

"..."

She checked the price tag. After a brief, agonizing moment of hesitation, she walked past without picking one up.

Wait, she's a hunter?

Only then did the subtle details register. Peeking from beneath the cuffs of her worn hoodie were rough, heavily calloused hands. The thick skin on her palms and fingers wasn't something an ordinary desk worker could ever develop. A faint metallic click caught my ear: pinned discreetly to the side of her backpack hung an official Hunter Association badge.

She really was a hunter. But judging by her apparel, she was scraping by at the very bottom of the food chain. She certainly wasn't a high ranker.

I examined the first trace that had appeared over her.

Seven years. If someone had risked their life as a hunter for seven long years and still had to agonize over the price of a discounted grocery store dinner, it wasn't hard to guess the kind of life she had lived.

Just then, another trace slowly crystallized above her head. This one looked noticeably different from the others.

My breath caught in my throat.

She feared death. She desperately wanted to run. She burned with jealousy toward those blessed with talent, fully aware of her own mediocrity. And yet, through all of that, she had kept moving forward for seven grueling years.

Why? What kept someone like that going? Was it the urge to protect her comrades, despite knowing she possessed neither talent nor strength?

Almost instinctively, I tapped the text.

Just like the earlier traces, there were no biographical details about her past—only the distilled essence of what her soul had endured. And then, a screen I had never witnessed before sprang to life.

"Crafting...?"

I pulled up the Codex. A brand-new page had unfolded where nothing had existed before: a pristine, snow-white canvas. Beside it hovered the list of soul traces I had just witnessed.

"Holy shit..."

The curse bubbled up completely unprompted. For an entire month, I had believed this awakened ability was pure junk.

The Blessing Codex isn't a passive log... it's an ability to craft blessings from scratch.

Even seeing it with my own eyes, the sheer absurdity was hard to swallow. My heart hammered wildly against my ribs. After a tense moment of contemplation, I reached out with my mind and touched one of the options.

{Desire to Protect Comrades}

The text shifted smoothly. Like black ink seeping into absorbent parchment, the letters began to bleed into the stark white page.

"Whoa—"

Startled, I severed the mental contact. The motion halted immediately, and the phrase snapped right back to its original position in the list. I narrowed my eyes, glancing around the supermarket.

The woman from earlier had already vanished down another aisle. For a brief second, I worried I had lost the opportunity to test the craft, but a quick glance at the interface proved otherwise.

Even though she was nowhere in sight, the indicator remained rock solid. The harvested soul traces and the crafting interface were completely intact. Was there no distance limitation? A strong intuition told me there wasn't. After all, a blessing was something bestowed by transcendent beings akin to gods—a mere few supermarket aisles wouldn't break the connection.

Still, this was hardly the place.

"Yeah, sweetie, Mom's picking up dinner right now," a middle-aged woman said into her phone as she pushed a cart past me. Near the exit, barcode scanners beeped rhythmically as cashiers rang up groceries. The mart was packed with evening shoppers. It was definitely not the venue to experiment with an ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ability whose full scope I barely understood.

I closed the Blessing Codex.

"Let's do this at home."

Blessing creation. The true function of my awakened power had finally revealed itself after a month of silence. An unfamiliar thrill stirred deep in my chest as I wondered what I was truly capable of creating—and how drastically my life was about to change.