The ability I had awakened did not seem like a typical one. Not by a long shot.
I did not know if it even was a gift to be honest. I had read about vampires and how they had racial abilities and powers. My gift resembled them more than it did humans.
It had stripped me of my humanity, at least it claimed to. I concluded that after my heart attack earlier was also its doing. It had used that opportunity to change me completely.
When I looked at the status screen, a few doubts did emerge in my mind. Like why the word 'Incomplete' was written alongside my race. Did it mean I wasn't completely a monster yet? Or was it fundamentally a different thing I had yet to understand?
My other question was, what is a monster? Aren't all non-human magical creatures referred to as monsters? Even vampires are called monsters by humans. It never occurred to me that 'monster' was a race of its own, it just felt strange.
Then there were my stats, I saw that the system used 10 stat points for a normal human adult as reference to make things easier to understand.
From the information displayed, I got a general idea of my strength. Although not as impressive, they were still better than before.
Lastly there was the skill area, this area caught most of my attention. I knew a typical gift had various applications but the skills in the skills tab all felt too distinct from each other. It was as if they were different gifts all together.
'Another strange occurrence. This system is not a normal gift after all.'
'Will I maybe get more skills in the future? Is a possibility.' It was not out of question, after all I wasn't even human anymore. Anything was possible with this strange system.
I pushed all these thoughts to the back of my mind and decided to give my skills a shot, I had yet to see how they worked.
I decided to go with the coolest sounding one first.
[Shadow Tendrils]
With just a thought, I suddenly felt the shadow beneath my feet stir. Then suddenly, many zig-zag black tendrils burst forth from my shadow. I felt a deep connection with them; it was as if they were my very limbs.
Just with a thought, they moved around. I used them and gently grabbed my hand. It felt as if I was touching a cold stone.
Even though I was doing this for the first time, controlling these shadow tendrils felt like second nature. I stretched out a tendril and sent it to the kitchen, then I grabbed a mug there and brought it back.
'The range is excellent, I feel like they can easily reach up to 30 meters. Defensively they also have great potential, but their durability needs testing.'
Satisfied, I dispelled the shadow tendrils, and they sank back into my shadows.
On to the next one. [Force Control]
I had a general idea of this ability.
In this world, many Awakeners exist and all of them can use gifts. But the energy to use gifts comes from an energy located within an individual. This energy is called Life force. Some individuals who are immensely talented can use this force to do a lot more than just power their gifts.
Some individuals can use a portion of this force and take it outside their body. This is called Aura. 'Aura' is a power mostly used as an offensive tool; it can coat your weapons and unleash destructive arcs that can destroy opponents even at a distance.
Some individuals can use a deeper portion of their life force and heal others with it or even themselves. This is called 'Prana' and Prana can also be used to create prana tools and weapons out of thin air. Prana has mostly defensive, and support uses.
Then some individuals use the third segment of life force, called mana. Mana can only be manipulated by scholars who are adept in the knowledge of magic runes. Using certain syllables and symbols, Mana users can unleash destructive elemental attacks. They are the most feared of all Awakeners.
The system told me I had [Force control], however my force was inherently different from Life force. The system had termed it 'Monster Force' after all.
'But it should behave the same way as Life force, right?'
I activated Monster Force.
Soon I felt a swirling energy inside my body. It emanated from my heart and circulated to my entire body and returned, just like blood!
I wasted no time and tried to control it. Using my skill, I directed the force circulating within my right arm outside. And just as expected, it rushed out of my hand!
I saw a crimson red glow hovering above my hand.
'This is aura!'
Without wasting a single second, I condensed the aura into a sphere above my palm.
Then aiming at the mug I had brought earlier, I shot it forward with every bit of power I could muster from the Force control skill.