The Astonishing Number of Talents

What was that thing at the center?

It turned out to be the shard of ice that had fused into Karen's soul during the previous collision.

Could this be what changed Karen's talent? Look at it; it was just a piece of ice, so the explanation that it produced ice-type talents was very plausible.

Moreover, these talent cores were all orbiting this ice shard, so they must have been related.

Forget it, no point in obsessing over which branch of talent it was; at the very least, such blindingly brilliant talent cores were truly mouth-watering.

Let's see what kind of talents there were. Karen continued to inspect his talents.

Frost Barrier: Enhances the effects of all your ice-type defensive spells.

Elemental Focus: Increases the hit rate of your ice-type spells and reduces the chance of being interrupted while casting them.

Piercing Frost: Your ice-type spells have a very small chance to freeze the target upon impact.

Bitter Cold: Increases the damage of your ice-type spells.

Extreme Cold Extension: Increases the casting radius of your ice-type spells.

Frost Energy Conduction: Reduces the casting cost of your ice-type spells.

Rapid Cooling: Eliminates the lingering effects of casting ice-type spells within the body. Limited to once per day.

Extreme Cold Wind: Increases the damage and area of effect of the Blizzard spell.

Icy Bloodline: When activated, increases ice-type spell haste for a short time, accelerating casting speed. Limited to once every three hours.

Arcane Meditation: Harmonizes the body's communication with external elements, increasing mana recovery speed during combat.

Presence of Mind: Stores a non-channeling spell pattern with a cast time of less than ten seconds in the mind, allowing the mana within the body to be mobilized for an instant cast. Limited to once per day.

These talents left Karen dazzled. Most were related to ice-type spells, while the last two were arcane-type talents, likely his own innate ones.

There were too many talents, and he would need to spend some time organizing and familiarizing himself with them, but there were more pressing matters now.

"System, are you there?" Karen asked in his mind.

"Greetings, Host. Welcome back," the system replied.

"Thank you very much for your help during this time. From now on, we are one entity, and we will need to cooperate closely in the future."

"Assisting the Host is this system's primary directive. When the Host is unable to perform operations, this system can temporarily take over the body to execute them until the Host resumes control," the system explained mechanically.

"No need to pretend, Drew. I know you have your own thoughts. What happens after this period won't just be about passively executing programs. I said we are one, so there's no need to hide from me. Since you've been using the name Drew this whole time, shall I call you Drew?"

Drew did not reply. Karen was not in a hurry and waited patiently. They would be companions for a lifetime; if they didn't resolve this issue now, it would only cause trouble later.

If a married couple had a falling out, they could choose to separate for a while to cool off, or even divorce and never see each other again.

But the two of them had no way to do that; they had already fused into a single entity.

Seeing that Drew hadn't replied for a long time, Karen didn't rush, instead starting to check and familiarize himself with his talents one by one.

He made up his mind to stay in seclusion until this problem was resolved.

However, Drew's silence provided an answer to a question from another perspective.

The system had indeed developed a personality, because under normal circumstances, the system would have responded immediately.

Only if the system had its own thoughts would there be such a long delay.

"Fine, I have indeed awakened a personality. You may call me Drew," Drew's voice appeared in his mind.

"Very well, Drew. From now on, we are one. I need your help, and of course, you can offer your opinions, which I will adopt—after all, we both want what's best," Karen said happily.

With this most important matter resolved, there were still many things to handle.

After negotiating some agreements with Drew, Karen opened the formation of the cultivation room.

As Karen stepped out of the cultivation room, the personnel guarding outside immediately notified President Pierre and Nelson.

When President Pierre arrived, he immediately sensed Karen's aura.

"Master Drew, have you advanced to a High Mage?"

"Yes, President Pierre. I just advanced; I will need to seek your guidance often in the future."

"It is only right, only right. After advancing to High Mage, your control over magic will improve once again. Your alchemy will also see a significant boost. Congratulations, congratulations! Why do I feel that your aura after advancing is different from others? It feels much stronger. What talent did you awaken?" President Pierre asked.

"Ice-type."

"Which one specifically?"

"Extreme Cold Extension, Frost Energy Conduction, and Icy Bloodline." I had originally intended to say that I had awakened all the Frost-type talents, but thinking better of it, I decided to keep a low profile and only mentioned three.

"No wonder you give off such a powerful aura; it turns out you've awakened three talents, and all of them are powerful ones at that," President Pierre marveled.

"Lord President, are talents really divided into strong and weak?" Karen asked curiously.

"That's right. There are thousands of talents, and since different talents have different effects, there is naturally a distinction between strong and weak.

Most people only have one talent when they promote to the Advanced level. The better ones have two.

Those who reach three belong to the genius category. The current record for the highest number of talents is six.

The strength of talents is classified as follows. Talents are mainly divided into combat-oriented and auxiliary types.

Combat-oriented ones primarily increase damage, enhance spell effects, and so on.

These are considered powerful talents, as they directly influence combat capability.

There are also auxiliary talents; for instance, my talent increases the success rate of the final solidification stage.

These practical talents are also considered powerful. However, some people's talents are truly pathetic.

Some increase the visual effects of spells, others add functions to cantrips, and so on. These are quite useless and belong to the weak category.

You have three talents, which places you in the ranks of geniuses.

Furthermore, your talents all influence combat, making them powerful, and they can even stack their effects to act upon a single spell.

Talents that can be used in such a set are even rarer.

To be honest, with talents like these, it's a bit of a waste for you to pursue alchemy as a secondary profession.

Fortunately, you have already reached the pinnacle of the Master level in alchemy.

You could completely set alchemy aside and focus on cultivating combat spells," President Pierre said with a hint of regret.

He felt that Drew's days at the Alchemist Association were numbered; with such excellent talents and alchemy already maxed out, anyone would make that decision.

After hearing President Pierre's explanation, Karen realized that the number of talents he had reported was quite appropriate.

But thinking about how the record for the number of talents was only six, while his own talents were one, two, three, four, five, six, seven... well, he didn't want to count them; the gap was just too massive.

Moreover, his talents were all extremely practical, highly useful spells.

Karen agreed with President Pierre's suggestion.

He had originally intended to develop in the direction of combat, but he had simply been unable to break through until now. It was time to shift his focus toward combat.

However, Karen had his own plans.