Fire Eater

[Summoned Beast: Zhang Ping]

[Master: Zhang Ping]

[Race: Human]

[Potential: ???]

[Lifespan: 89]

[Rank: Novice Awakened]

[Level: 2]

[Talents]

[Absolute Command: You possess absolute authority over your summoned beast. Your commands cannot be disobeyed by the summoned beast.]

[Absolute Obedience: You absolutely obey your summoner's commands. You will faithfully carry out your summoner's orders.]

[Stable Appraisal: Can appraise a target, with a very small chance of obtaining information about the target. The smaller the gap in strength between both parties, the greater the chance of successfully obtaining information. Once an appraisal succeeds for the first time, the success rate of subsequent appraisals on the same target will increase substantially. Note: A talent ability born from the thirst for knowledge of summoned beast Zhang Ping and summoner Zhang Ping.]

[Nightwalker: Gain night vision. Your presence is greatly reduced at night, your movement speed greatly increases, your body weight decreases, and you become completely invisible while in shadows.]

[Fire Eater: Can restore stamina by devouring flames and convert excess flames into Fire Element energy stored within the body. After releasing the energy, you will temporarily gain a flame-wreathed effect until the stored Fire Element energy is exhausted.

This ability will gradually increase the user's resistance to high temperatures.

Note: Potential is ultimately only potential. Only when it is turned into strength does it become true power.]

After some work, Zhang Ping fed the materials into the mold, hammered them, then poured fire oil over them. After that, he sat on the ground to rest and checked his own attributes.

The first thing he noticed was that his potential had lost a star.

But after reading the note on his new talent, he understood the meaning of potential.

Potential was not strength.

It was power within his body that had yet to be realized.

Only through training or gaining new talents could potential be turned into strength.

The potential of other Awakened, even Mutated Beasts, was limited. Yet Zhang Ping could continuously strengthen his own potential through Contract Gems, then turn that potential into actual strength through training and awakening new talents.

This was a broad road with no end in sight!

After reading the note, Zhang Ping recalled a small detail from when he had observed the Heavenly Fox.

Among the adult Heavenly Foxes he had appraised, most only had two-star potential, while the Heavenly Fox cub he had wanted to kill possessed four-star potential.

At the time, he had mistakenly thought that cub was a genius among Heavenly Foxes and therefore had greater potential.

Only now did he belatedly realize that it was because the Heavenly Fox cub's potential had not yet been turned into strength.

"No, when I awakened Nightwalker, I gained a star instead."

Zhang Ping quickly recalled what had happened on the night he awakened Nightwalker. Still, it was hard to say, since he did not know exactly how much potential Nightwalker consumed.

Abilities of different tiers certainly consumed different amounts of potential.

For example, he had initially been classified as Useless Tier.

If an ability truly belonged to Useless Tier, it would definitely consume very little potential.

Following that line of thought, Nightwalker probably had limited potential, or perhaps it had not consumed much potential at the time.

The ability tiers of Awakened were actually difficult to appraise accurately. The evaluators could only make judgments based on past experience.

At present, Mingzhu City divided abilities into seven tiers:

[Useless Tier]

Simply put, these were abilities that could not meet their activation conditions or could not produce any effect—abilities with no use at all. For example: Silent Fart and Alien Death Ray.

"Silent Fart" was a famous ability at Pearl Ability Academy. The name of its Awakened was unknown, but the ability was simple and easy to understand: the sound of his farts would be eliminated.

During the first year, teachers repeatedly used this ability as an example.

As for the Awakened with "Alien Death Ray," his eyes could fire light waves invisible to living creatures. These waves could instantly kill all aliens.

The problem was that aliens had never appeared in Mingzhu City, so this ability was also classified as Useless Tier, on the grounds that its target did not exist.

[Convenience Tier]

Abilities that could provide a certain degree of convenience but could not be used in combat.

For example: Cold Immunity and Tooth Regeneration.

There had once been an Awakened who possessed Cold Immunity and later became a doctor.

He devoted himself to researching viruses that could cause colds in humans, even hoping to use viruses as weapons. In the end, he accidentally contracted a virus that did not cause colds but did cause fevers. His brain was fried, and he became an idiot.

[Practical Tier]

Abilities that could provide positive help to oneself.

For example: Storage Space, Food Enhancement, Eagle Eye, and Enhanced Smell.

The first three abilities actually had fairly decent potential for development. The reason they were classified as Practical Tier was mainly because their Awakened often found it difficult to advance. Most stopped at Intermediate Awakened and struggled to break through into Advanced Ability Users.

Simply put, the potential of these three abilities was exhausted at the intermediate stage.

Most of the tiers after that were similar to Practical Tier. If strengthened without limits, they could all become extremely powerful. The problem was that once their potential was exhausted, they would stop at different stages, which was why they were classified into different tiers.

There was another circumstance that could lower an ability's rating: excessively harsh activation conditions.

Zhang Ping's Contract Gem only consumed stamina and Mental Strength, but some abilities required souls, luck, lifespan, humanity, and so on.

Since abilities of this kind could not be used frequently, their tier ratings would also be lowered.

[Combat Tier]

Abilities that could be useful in battle, such as Steel Body, Rapid Healing, Enhanced Five Senses, and Appraisal Technique.

[City Guardian Tier]

Abilities with the potential to grow into powers capable of protecting a city, such as Mind Control, Gravity Manipulation, Equipment Forging, and Heavenly Eye.

[Nation Guardian Tier]

Abilities with the potential to grow into powers capable of protecting a nation, such as Enhanced Sixth Sense and Precognition.

[Infinite Tier]

Abilities with unimaginable potential and limits that could not be determined, such as Ability Replication, Divine Artifact Forging, and Wisdom Eye.

Of these seven tiers, anyone who awakened a Combat Tier ability was eligible to join the Patrol Team or Investigation Team. Some special Practical Tier abilities could also qualify to join an organization after assessment.

For example, most Storage Space ability users in Practical Tier were recruited by the three major organizations as logistics personnel.

Most Awakened at Pearl Ability Academy possessed Convenience Tier or Practical Tier abilities. Only a few geniuses could reach Combat Tier. For example, Su Jingyao's telekinesis was Combat Tier. The moment she awakened it, she could lift an object weighing nearly half a ton, though she could only maintain it for thirty seconds. Then there was Zhang Chen, whom Su Jingyao had mentioned before. His "Boulder Armor" was also a Combat Tier ability.

As for the City Guardian Tier above that, Pearl Ability Academy had produced only one person: Luo Shiyu.

Luo Shiyu's ability was temperature manipulation. She could easily alter the temperature within a ten-meter radius centered on herself. If the Heavenly Fox had not killed her too early, she would sooner or later have become a pillar of Mingzhu City with her potential.

As for the tiers above that, Nation Guardian Tier and Infinite Tier, none had appeared in Mingzhu City for hundreds of years. Their possessors existed only in textbooks.

For example, an Infinite Tier Ability Replication user had appeared in Mingzhu City two hundred years ago.

This ability user could replicate all abilities below Nation Guardian Tier. As for whether he could replicate Infinite Tier abilities, there had been no one else of Infinite Tier in his era to test it on, so the answer remained unknown.

Zhang Ping could basically confirm that Contract Gem was absolutely an Infinite Tier ability.

He did not even need to replicate anyone else's abilities. As long as he kept devouring Contract Gems, he would naturally awaken all kinds of abilities.

Becoming all-powerful was only a matter of time.

He did not continue thinking about it. Potential was ultimately only potential.

Although he had gained a new ability, he was still a Novice Awakened. Any Intermediate Awakened could easily knock him flat.

His second forging attempt failed, without surprise.

Because Fire Eater had suddenly awakened, the temperature in the furnace had been too low for a period of time. This caused some of the materials to fail to fuse properly with the refined iron. As a result, numerous cracks appeared in the patterns of the Pearl Saber. There was no need to test it to see that the saber was ruined.

Zhang Ping was somewhat disappointed, but he was not dejected because he had awakened a new ability.

He simply sat beside the furnace and continuously absorbed its flames. Whenever the fire weakened, he added more wood, then continued absorbing the flames.

Because he had only just awakened it, Fire Eater had limited storage capacity for Fire Element energy. After absorbing flames for half an hour, Zhang Ping felt full.

He could sense an additional energy within his body. It was not stored in any particular organ, but dispersed throughout his entire body with his blood. Whenever he wanted to control it, it flowed according to his will like a current of heat.

Like a child with a new toy, he spent the entire afternoon controlling this current of heat. Sometimes he concentrated it in his fists, sometimes in his legs, and he even tried clenching his anus to concentrate the heat somewhere unspeakable.

Honestly, this ability was much more fun than Contract Gem or Nightwalker.

Contract Gem was powerful, but it ultimately only created a gemstone. Both its visual effect and the feeling of controlling it were rather ordinary. Using it felt like suddenly becoming a little tired and sleepy because his stamina and Mental Strength had been consumed.

As for Nightwalker, it only passively enhanced him at night. It could only be considered a passive ability.

Fire Eater was different.

Fire Eater allowed him to devour flames and control the Fire Element energy inside his body.

Strictly speaking, this was the first time he had truly come into contact with a superpower that could actually be manipulated.

By dusk, he could already control a small amount of Fire Element energy and coil it around his fingers. Once that energy leaked from his fingers, it transformed into flames that wrapped around them. At least visually, this ability was genuinely cool.

There was another point: Zhang Ping discovered that when the Fire Element energy in his body was abundant, he could actually resist the cold. This gave him greater confidence about meeting the mysterious woman who had slipped him the note.

That night, after dinner, he absorbed another batch of flames.

Once he confirmed that Liu Tiefeng was asleep, he left Iron Soul and headed for the small park.