Chapter 97: Talent Evolution
Kevin said in a low voice: "The power is only about eighty percent of what it would be if you enchanted it on a piece of equipment. If you had used that [Greater Purify] on a weapon or armor, it would have badly injured both Elite-level Serpent Form Mist Phantoms. But right now, it only pushed them out of your body. They’re not seriously hurt."
Amelia nodded. "Yeah, it’s weaker. But I can feel that the enchantment circuit inside my body is still there. It can be used again."
She reached up and touched her chest. The [Greater Purify] rune, which had dimmed, suddenly lit up again.
Amelia grinned at Kevin. "I can feel it. Every time I use this rune, as long as I wait about thirty minutes, it fills back up with energy. And if I use my own stamina, I can make it recover even faster."
As she spoke, the ’Greater Purify’ rune on her body had already recovered half its energy.
Even Kevin couldn’t help but praise her. "This is a huge discovery. Amelia, you’re amazing."
Amelia narrowed her eyes and smiled. "Next, help me test ’Greater Fireball’ and ’Exorcism.’"
She opened her hands, and Kevin saw that she had somehow already carved ’Greater Fireball’ and ’Exorcism’ runes onto her palms.
"Are you crazy? You enchanted [Greater Fireball] on yourself? Do you have a death wish?" Kevin shouted, trying to stop her.
But Amelia didn’t stop.
She pressed her right hand against one of the Serpent Form Mist Phantoms. The power of [Exorcism] flared up instantly.
The Mist Phantom screamed. Half of its body was torn apart by the violent energy, and it couldn’t regenerate for a long time.
Then Amelia pressed her left hand against the other Mist Phantom.
A terrifying wave of heat and force exploded outward. With Amelia’s left hand as the center, Kevin, the Mist Phantom, and Amelia herself were all blown backward by the blast.
Kevin didn’t care about the dirt on his clothes.
His stats were strong, and he had already activated the shield from his [Windwhisperer] set, so he wasn’t directly hurt.
He rushed over to Amelia and saw that her entire left hand was badly burned.
"You’re insane!" Kevin cursed. He pulled out two bottles of [Tears of the Goddess]. He poured one over Amelia’s hand and forced the other into her mouth.
Cough, cough!
Amelia coughed a couple of times and had a satisfied smile on her face. "Just like I thought."
Kevin rolled his eyes. "Can you remove that [Greater Fireball] rune? Carving it on your body is too dangerous."
Amelia grinned and shook her head. "No, I can’t remove it. Even though the [Greater Fireball] rune has its limits, it does let me deal some serious damage up close."
"Are you kidding me? If you cast [Greater Fireball] at close range, you’ll blow yourself up too!"
Amelia chuckled. "At least it’s useful if I want to take someone down with me. Anyway, not everyone has a [Windwhisperer] set like Kevin gave me."
She kissed Kevin on the cheek and said, "Don’t worry. I’ll keep working on how to reduce the side effects."
Kevin rolled his eyes again.
Even though Amelia was trying to comfort him, she wasn’t completely wrong.
The truth was, her ’Greater Fireball’ could be developed further.
If Kevin could build the kind of mech suit he had in his past life, Amelia’s ’Greater Fireball’ could be used as a way to charge the mech’s power system and energy weapons. As long as the charging was efficient enough and the protection was strong enough, Amelia wouldn’t end up hurting herself like this.
But to do that, Kevin would need to master enough mechanical blueprints. Even in his past life, with his ’Iron Heart’ talent, he only managed to build that kind of mech in the third year.
Thinking about this, Kevin stared at Amelia seriously and warned her, "Don’t try using this move alone when I’m not around. Trust me. I’ll find a way to improve it for you."
Amelia kissed his neck and smiled. "I knew you cared about me the most. Anyway, my clothes are already blown to pieces. Want to try something right here?"
Amelia reached her hand down toward Kevin’s pants. "The twin sisters didn’t satisfy you last night, did they?"
Kevin pushed her hand away and lightly patted her on the bottom. "Stop messing around. You’re still injured."
Amelia pouted and frowned. "Don’t act so reserved. My hand is hurt, but my mouth isn’t."
With that, she quickly unzipped Kevin’s pants.
She bent down and took him in her mouth.
Kevin felt a warm, wet sensation surround him and had no choice but to move behind a rock for cover.
Two hours later.
Amelia had changed into a brand new hiking outfit. Her face was red as she ran out from behind the rocky wall.
Kevin looked down at the wet sand beneath his feet, shook his head, and spread his hands.
He never expected Amelia to have a talent like that.
Maybe it was the thrill of being outdoors, but Amelia had actually let loose, and it kept going for five whole minutes.
"I have no idea if that was... or just..." Kevin shook his head and pulled a fresh set of clothes from his system backpack to change into.
Meanwhile, in the open space in front of the two-masted sloop, piles of equipment were stacked up like small mountains.
As Kevin walked over, Celula and Monchhichi grabbed his hands and asked, "Kevin, what should we do with all these Eldritch Artifacts and equipment?"
Kevin smiled and gently pinched their noses. "Keep whatever is useful to you. Trade the rest for resources we actually need."
He took out a piece of paper and a pen, wrote down a long list of raw materials, and handed it to Celula.
Celula glanced at the list, and her eyes went wide as lanterns. "Kevin, do you even know how much good stuff we got this time?"
"There are more than ten B-Tier items — weapons, armor, and Eldritch Artifacts. Add in the eighty-plus C-Tier ones, and we have over a hundred pieces of loot in total. All of it dropped from those Eldritch Entities. You don’t want any of it?"
Kevin smiled and nodded generously. "Split it among yourselves, sisters."
"Really?" Celula looked at him with excitement.
Kevin nodded, then turned to Raphael and Toti. "You two get a share too. If there’s anything you can use — weapons, armor, or Eldritch Artifacts — feel free to take it."
Raphael was startled at first, then quickly waved his hands. "No, we can’t. You took us in, and you saved our lives. We can’t just take your loot."
Kevin waved his hand. "Don’t talk about ’yours’ and ’mine.’ We’re all on the same boat now. You need to be strong enough to keep up with the team."
Raphael felt a surge of emotion in his chest.
[Affection +10]
"Okay, Captain. But Toti and I will only take the equipment that’s useful to us. The rest can be split among the other sisters." Raphael blushed, then turned and walked over to Celula and the others.
Kevin didn’t push it any further.
His real intention was to gear up Toti and Raphael as much as possible, so they could get stronger.
Even though Toti couldn’t become his covenant-bearer, Kevin had already decided that Raphael was one of his people. Investing a little equipment in her ahead of time was nothing to someone like Kevin, who had built up quite a stockpile.
Sure enough, just by showing a little generosity, Raphael’s Affection shot up to ninety points.
With a bit more effort, Kevin might be able to win her over completely before the rest period ended.
Thinking about that, Kevin decided to stop getting involved in the girls’ resource distribution.
He found a quiet spot on the shore by himself and sat down on the sand.
Then he took out his biggest prize from this trip: three Low-Quality Talent Sources.
In an instant, the entire beach was covered in a dark mist.
[Sanity -20]
[Sanity -30]
...
Kevin listened to the constant Sanity loss warnings in his ear and let out a sigh.
He had originally planned to give the three Low-Quality Talent Sources to Nova, and use the reward reimbursement rate to exploit a bug and get even more Low-Quality Talent Sources in return.
But ever since he took out these Talent Sources, they had started to mutate.
A massive amount of Eldritch energy and curse power was gathering around the three Talent Sources, growing thicker and thicker, to the point where even Kevin couldn’t hide the aura anymore.
If he gave them to the girls now, they would probably pass out before the reward even came back.
In his past life, Kevin had never used a Talent Source himself.
He had no idea if this kind of thing would have side effects on other Survivors.
To be safe, Kevin decided to test the three Talent Sources on himself.
Once he was sure there were no problems, he could hunt more Eldritch giants during the next storm and help the girls upgrade their Talent levels.
So, without any hesitation, Kevin picked up the three Low-Quality Talent Sources and shoved them all into his mouth at once.
[Sanity -100]
[Sanity -100]
...
"Damn it!"
Kevin cursed under his breath.
Before he even realized how serious this was, his Sanity had already been locked at 1 point by the [Lance of Condemnation] Talent.
Soon, a wave of violent, impulsive, and insane thoughts flooded Kevin’s mind.
He knew he was about to go crazy.
Thanks to the [Lance of Condemnation] Talent, he could stay on the edge between madness and sanity. But even so, he was still more crazy than sane right now.
"Fuck! These three Talent Sources almost killed me." Kevin grabbed bottle after bottle of [Tears of the Goddess] and chugged them down like crazy.
But every time his Sanity went back up to 100 points, the negative effects from the Talent Sources would drag it back down to 1 point again.
Kevin downed seven or eight bottles of [Tears of the Goddess]. His stomach was so full it was round, and he even started burping. "No wonder this thing is called a [Low-Quality Talent Source]. The side effects are insane!"
"Whatever. I can’t die anyway. Go ahead, keep lowering my Sanity if you can!"
[Sanity -100]
[Sanity -100]
...
And so, the warnings kept ringing in Kevin’s ears for a full ten minutes before finally stopping.
To keep himself calm, Kevin forced himself to count every warning sound.
The result shocked him.
If it weren’t for the [Lance of Condemnation] Talent locking his Sanity at 1 point, eating those three Talent Sources just now would have drained him of a full 100,000 Sanity points.
"Damn. If my Talent wasn’t so overpowered, I would have died a hundred times over." Kevin let out a loud curse. Then, suddenly, three powerful surges of energy erupted inside his body.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Three strange sounds rang out, like glass breaking.
The three Talent Sources inside Kevin — representing [Covenant of the Saint], [Lance of Condemnation] and [Mechanical Sovereign] — had actually evolved.