When someone reached sixteen, they awakened a system based on their talent.
For elves, it was always the same. They were born with healing talents, which meant they always awakened healing systems.
That was the way of their kind.
But Summer's life changed the day she awakened something completely different. Something that had nothing to do with healing at all.
[Congratulations! You have awakened a ?? quality talent, 'Bloodline Stacker'.]
Trait 1: When you get hit, there is a chance to gain permanent attribute points and a small chance to acquire the opponent's talent.
Trait 2: When you get hit, you may gain Spell Points. These can be used to upgrade the quality of any skill.
Trait 3: Every hit you take converts into mana.
Trait 4: Each hit you endure is stored in your blood. When the stack reaches 100%, you can release it all at once.
Summer blinked, recalling the disgusted faces of her mentor and classmates after her awakening.
Professor Eldon had bluntly suggested she abandon her Talent Core and implant an artificial one.
Perhaps everyone was too stunned by her talent to notice the Talent Measuring Device failing to register it.
But that did not escape Summer's eyes. After all, it was her own talent awakening ceremony.
Summer blinked again.
Disregarding the advice of her mentor, parents, brother, and fiancé, she accepted the only system option available.
[You have chosen Warrior System. Because of your race, the system upgraded into Warrior Elf System.]
[Complete the system quests to rank up from Unranked to Awakened.]
Summer scoffed, remembering the disappointed sighs after her choice. Elves always prized elegance.
Fuck them.
If they didn't consider her elegant, then she chose to be a bitch.
That did not matter to her. If elegance measured one's profession, she chose to be a warrior elf.
A bitchy warrior elf.
The elves, however, were bound by old, outdated laws. They decided to lock her in a dungeon so she could never shame them. How hypocritical they are.
She had been branded a shame from birth.
Different from the blond-haired, green-eyed elves, she was a platinum-haired, purple-eyed abomination.
Because of her appearance, she had been ostracized since childhood. Even her family had avoided her like a plague.
Unwilling to be locked in the dungeon forever, she ran from the Elf Continent, hoping to start a new life elsewhere. But that too went wrong.
Summer blinked once more, letting out a helpless sigh.
She had never expected to be caught by wandering slave traders. They were all Awakened, and their leader was even a two-star Awakened.
She was like a sheep in front of them.
They had one-star spells, while she had nothing. She wasn't even an Awakened.
They had not harmed her yet, valuing the profit they could gain from selling her. But their piercing eyes tore into her, raising goosebumps across her skin.
"Never expected to see a platinum-haired elf," one muttered, saliva dripping from his mouth.
"Could she be royalty?" another asked, cautiously.
"If she is royalty, will she be alone in the human territories?" the leader, a large man with a hammer slung over his shoulder, scoffed.
Summer closed her eyes with a sigh. She had no power to escape. Because of her lack of physical training back home, all her attributes were pitifully low.
With a thought, she summoned her system screen.
[Summer's Warrior Elf System]
Talent: Bloodline Stacker (??)
Rank: Unranked
Spells: Nil
Stats:
STR: 6, DEF: 5, AGI: 10, VIT: 10, INT: 10
Mana: (100/100) (10*INT), Health: (100/100) (10*VIT), Magic Damage (MA): 60 (10*STR), Magic Defense (MD): 50 (10*DEF), Magic Movement (MM): 100 (10*AGI)
For elves, intelligence was valued above all, as it increased mana and allowed longer healing spells.
Summer's intelligence was considered to be average. However, that couldn't help her now. What she needed were attack and defense attributes, so she would never die in one shot from these slave traders.
Looking at her stats, she mentally cursed. Her magic defense was merely fifty, meaning any magic attack above that would burn through her health.
If her health reached zero, she would die. Summer shivered.
'I have to find a way to escape,' she thought.
If she were sold as a slave and bound with a slave ring, she would remain a slave forever. She had heard the horrors of elf girls sold as slaves.
That fate was worse than death. She clenched her fists. If she had known her talent would turn out like this, she would have trained for it.
Now all she could do was regret neglecting physical training.
Suddenly, the carriage pulling her cage jolted violently, slamming her head into the iron bars.
"Ouch," she cried out.
[You have taken a hit. Strength (1)]
[Strength -> 7 (+1)]
[Your mana has been fully restored]
[Stacking the hit. 0.1%. When it reaches 100%, you can unleash all the damage into a single magic attack. The maximum stacked damage will be 1000% of your Magic attack.]
'This…' Her eyes widened as she recalled the first trait of her talent.
'I can increase my attributes like this!' excitement flooded through her veins as she finally found a way to escape her current situation.
'If I stacked 100% of the hit damage and my strength increased this way, then can't I just one-shot everyone here?'
The strength of an ordinary Awakened would be in the 30s. Their magic attack would be in the 300s; if her magic defense couldn't block this damage, her health would be burned out.
So she had to avoid them sensing any abnormalities and wait for a suitable time to catch them off guard.
The carriage continued along a narrow mountain path, jolting left and right over the uneven terrain. Summer's body slammed repeatedly against the cage, each impact feeding her power.
"Boss, should we go slower? The goods might be damaged before we reach the city," one slave trader muttered in worry.
The boss shook his head. "We have only four hours before sunset. If we do not arrive before that, we have to wait at the city gate until morning."
Slave trading was banned in the Bastian Kingdom. They had to pay a huge sum to cheat the laws. The longer the goods were in transit, the higher the chance of being caught.
So the leader ordered the journey to hasten. Unbeknownst to him, every jolt and collision was improving Summer's attributes at an alarming rate.