After class, Akira headed to the Literature Club as usual. Today, his main task was to evaluate Aizono Momo's coloring skills.
Momo had already finished the character designs and illustration sketches, even completing line art and black-and-white inserts ahead of schedule. Her work speed was simply incredible.
Yet, while her pace matched expectations given her Talent and Skill levels, Akira still wanted to dig deeper into why Momo outperformed most other illustrators. Understanding the specifics would help him better grasp how to fully utilize his blessing.
After all, there were dozens of different art forms. Momo couldn't possibly excel at all of them. Indeed, Momo's talent was heavily specialized—if he asked her to paint watercolors, traditional ink paintings, or oil on canvas, she'd struggle terribly.
Granted, Momo's strong comprehension partly stemmed from her obedient nature and eagerness to improve, factors unrelated to Talent itself. So, if he forced her to pick up a new medium, would she master it quickly? Or would she stay average due to her limited Talent rating?
Take manga, for example: could she become the best manga artist in Japan—or even in the world—with just a B-rank Talent? Did that B-rank set an insurmountable ceiling?
These questions were critical. Akira had encountered two other students at school with [Art Talents]—both mere E-ranks—offering him the perfect chance to compare and contrast different rarities. He wanted to find out whether Talent rarity primarily limited breadth, depth, or perhaps both.
The results from his recent experimentation were clear: Talent rarity seemed to affect both learning speed and versatility.
This aligned with Akira's own experience after copying the talent at various rarity levels. The differences were staggering.
For example, an [Art Talent E] merely gave him steadier hands—at best, enabling him to sketch neat circles on a chalkboard like a math teacher. On the other hand, a B-rank dramatically enhanced his ability to visualize clearly.
After all, people usually couldn't vividly imagine things they hadn't seen before—even recalling familiar faces accurately proved challenging. If you doubted this, just close your eyes and picture your parents' or friends' faces; most likely, the details would blur into vague impressions.
Humans only see clearly imagined images while dreaming. At all other times, mental pictures remain pixelated and unclear.
Drawing relied heavily on precise visualization, which in turn required extensive observation. That's why most accomplished artists collected mountains of references before starting their work.
No wonder people joked that the brain was the world's most advanced rendering engine, or that the endpoint of eroticism was mere pixels—since human imagination thrived by association, not original creation. When seasoned perverts saw objects like white radishes, peaches, or anything remotely round, their brains instantly rendered suggestive images.
After copying [Art Talent B], Akira could vividly imagine every alluring detail of a beautiful girl without needing to rely on vague associations.
Yet, even with this Talent, Akira still couldn't quickly acquire related Skills. At most, he improved from drawing identical stick figures to drawing slightly better stick figures according to his own imagination.
Still, this was enough. Now he could sketch rough layouts for Momo, helping her grasp his ideas more intuitively.
Observing Momo closely, Akira finally understood why she surpassed other illustrators:
Her imagination was far beyond ordinary limits.
It seemed [Art Talent B] already represented the peak for specialized skills, though it lacked broader applicability. An A-rank likely expanded versatility, granting a boost to everything even tangentially related to that Talent—exactly why Class Rep's [Academic Ability A] was so broadly powerful.
Had it been a B- or lower-rank, it probably would've only boosted standardized test performance.
Take Shiori's [Memory B], for instance. She could memorize entire texts after reading them twice, but if she tried remembering unrelated things without intentional effort, the effect diminished significantly. If her Memory had been A-rank, she'd probably remember anything effortlessly.
Then what about an S-rank?
Would it result in a curse-like scenario—where one couldn't forget anything, even if they tried?
Understanding these nuances brought Akira to another realization:
Even though Shion possessed three separate S-rank Talents, judging by her recent performance, she was merely doing what B- or A-ranks could achieve.
For example, her recent proliferation of new Skills was simply due to the broader applicability of an A-rank Talent. Her Skill growth rate was also roughly on par with a B-rank alent holder.
But surely, S-ranks were capable of far more.
Did this mean Shion hadn't yet truly unleashed her real potential?
What exactly made S-ranks special compared to A-ranks?
Clearly, he needed to figure out how to "further develop" Shion when he returned home.
After all, those were three S-rank Talents.
If Akira could properly guide and unlock their full power, Shion's future achievements might reach heights never before imagined…
"Um… Kuroba-kun, is my coloring really… not up to par?"
"Huh?"
Hearing Momo's hesitant voice, Akira snapped back from his thoughts.
Right—he'd been reviewing Momo's attempt at coloring character illustrations. Lost in his analysis, he'd momentarily drifted off.
After closely inspecting her work, he had to admit her coloring indeed fell slightly short of expectations.
It wasn't bad—just somewhat lacking.
While technically still satisfactory, he wished it could be better.
More importantly, after thoroughly grasping the differences in Talent rankings, Akira found it puzzling.
Momo's coloring ability lagged noticeably behind her other skills, yet given her earnest personality, laziness couldn't possibly be the reason. With her rich imagination, she should've easily visualized the correct color scheme, so why were her results still off?
Perhaps this wasn't an issue of Talent… but rather, her eyes themselves might be the problem?
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T/N: went back to chapter 50 something, Aizono Momo used to be Aizono Moe lmaoo, and her skill was Drawing B probably gonna change it to Art Talent it fits a bit better
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