"Eugene, I always knew this day would come... I wish I could stay with you longer..."
"Father!!!"
...
The morning sunlight streamed through the window, illuminating specks of dust floating in the air.
It also shone on the young man who'd just woken from a nightmare.
"Phew..."
After taking a few deep breaths, the young man habitually wiped away a tear from the corner of his eye.
This young man was the child raised by the ogre, Eugene Kaysin.
He'd been out on his own for about two years now. He was sixteen.
"Can't believe it's been so long, and I'm still having that dream..."
This unique first-person dream wasn't entirely Eugene's imagination. It was connected to his ability.
In this world, a small number of people are born with extraordinary abilities different from ordinary folks.
Eugene was fortunate enough to be one of them.
He named his ability Ravenous.
When activated, Eugene could consume the body of a creature that had died within the past hour and gain some of its memories and supernatural abilities.
He didn't need to consume the whole thing, but the portion couldn't be less than one-thousandth of the creature's volume.
Once the ability activated, the acquired memories would manifest as a first-person dream.
This ability was something Eugene accidentally triggered when he was nine years old. That time, he became a bird in his dream.
The feeling of flight stayed with him for a long time.
Back then, he told his father about his ability. His father wasn't happy after hearing it, just told him to use this innate ability carefully, because too many foreign memories might make him lose his sense of self.
Eugene always remembered that.
During that time, he really did have trouble telling whether he was a bird or a person.
So Eugene maintained a healthy respect for this ability and didn't use it until his father's death...
He wanted revenge. He wanted to see who he needed to take revenge on!
For that, he actively used this dangerous ability and painfully acquired his father's memories.
Unfortunately, even after the ability finished activating, Eugene still couldn't figure out who had done that to his father.
All Eugene managed to glimpse in the dream was that whoever hurt and killed his father used fire.
And as the price, this long, repeating dream nearly made him lose himself.
"Fire mage..." Eugene pulled out a notebook from his pack. Written inside were his targets for revenge.
The Goblin King.
The Ogre Chief.
Fire Mage / Unknown Professional (?)
These three were all targets Eugene wanted revenge on. The Goblin King created the village tragedy, the Ogre Chief created his father's tragedy, and that unknown fire mage was the direct culprit who caused his father's death.
Turning to the second page of the notebook, it was densely filled with legends about resurrection techniques he'd collected.
Many of the entries were crossed out. Only the divine prayer section remained blank.
Eugene used to not believe in gods, but after his father's death, he hoped those legendary gods existed. But that was too far away...
Right now, Eugene wasn't even a proper supernatural professional yet.
He hadn't even completed his so-called revenge quest.
"Power..." Eugene muttered to himself as he turned to the third page of the notebook, where he'd recorded the paths to gaining power he'd explored over the past two years.
Knight (×).
To become a knight, besides breathing techniques and training resources, the most important thing was knight bloodline. Eugene had tested for that. He didn't have the aptitude. This was all determined at birth.
Warrior (blank).
Eugene looked at the warrior section, thought for a moment, then finally picked up his quill and crossed it out.
Warriors were the path prepared by the Church of Truth for those who couldn't become knights. Same breathing technique training, same physical strengthening.
But to become a professional, the difficulty for warriors was way higher than for knights of the same level.
Because warriors needed to guide their own vitality, energy, and spirit to achieve balance and fusion. This process usually required meditation assistance to complete.
If you didn't achieve Trinity Convergence, you couldn't be called a warrior at all. You'd just be a stronger person.
Only after achieving Trinity Convergence and cultivating vitality aura could you be considered a true supernatural professional.
Eugene had been trying to aim for warrior before, trying to step over that professional threshold.
For that, he'd persisted for over a year.
But probably because he'd used his ability before, Eugene's three energies just wouldn't merge together.
Looking at it now, he might have to give up.
Mage (×).
Besides needing mental talent, mages also needed the talent to sense and manipulate magic power, plus the talent to sense and utilize elements.
Eugene tried this first, because compared to knights and warriors, mages of the same level had greater destructive power and stronger abilities, and higher status too.
But unfortunately, Eugene had none of these three talents.
If it was just insufficient mental talent, he could make up for it with magic potions. If element affinity wasn't enough, he could switch to becoming an energy manipulation barrier master...
But Eugene's magic power sensing was negative.
This wasn't common for humans, it was actually rare... As for the reason, Eugene had actually guessed it. It probably had to do with his ability.
After swallowing his father's flesh and blood, Eugene learned that the Ravenous talent didn't just consume memories. It also had the effect of copying part of the consumed creature's racial talents.
As long as the target was a supernatural race.
The first time he activated "consumption," the bird he ate wasn't a magic creature. So Eugene didn't know his true ability at first.
Not until he woke from his father's memory dream... did he clearly discover several new abilities in his body.
These abilities all came from his beloved father.
Low-level Enhanced Digestion.
This was an ability most monsters possessed, but ogres were particularly outstanding in this area. It could even be "trained" further. Powerful ogres could even swallow lava and become Fire-Belly Ogres.
Low-level Enhanced Recovery.
This was also a basic ability of monsters. Monsters that couldn't regenerate themselves were mostly eliminated.
Basic Magic Resistance and Poison Resistance.
This was the ability the ogre race relied on to survive, a rare ability among monsters. Maybe because ogre ancestors ate mithril, ogres were naturally born with resistance to magic power. This gave them pretty good resistance against basic magic and poisons.
It sounded pretty good, but the problem was right here. Magic resistance was a double-edged sword. This resistance made the effects of magic potions Eugene consumed exceptionally poor.
He lost the strongest advantage of being human: magic power adaptability.
It directly cut off his path to becoming a mage.
But even if Eugene could choose again, he wouldn't regret it!
For the truth, he had no choice.
"Still gotta work hard." Eugene looked at his own pale hands that didn't look like a warrior's.
His body's passive recovery ability kept Eugene's skin condition consistently good.
His hands looked better maintained than most noble ladies'. No one could tell these were hands that fought regularly. Not a single callus.
"I still have other directions to choose from..." Eugene looked at the last two sections on the page.
Warlock (pending).
Unlike mages, warlocks were illegal in Engador Kingdom.
If it wasn't necessary, Eugene didn't want to choose this path either. It would make him a wanted criminal.
No one knew how the first warlocks came to be anymore.
This was the only choice for those without magic power sensing who still wanted to use magic power.
Transplant supernatural organs or consume forbidden imitation sequence potions, and ordinary people could leap to become warlock professionals.
Sounds so wonderful...
But supernatural organs or forbidden potions often had side effects. Either physical collapse and death, or gradually losing yourself. They said the higher level a warlock was, the more they resembled magic beasts...
The most famous of these were the legendary Dragon Sleep Warlocks. They could actually transform into dragons.
Of course, for Eugene right now, all these worries were unnecessary because he couldn't even get forbidden potions.
Psychic (blank).
This profession was very special.
To become a psychic, you just had to meditate and condense a psychic seed. No other requirements.
But having no requirements was the biggest requirement. Usually, if you couldn't condense it before adulthood, you could forget about it for the rest of your life.
As for what use becoming a psychic had, Eugene didn't know. Because he hadn't condensed his psychic image yet. This profession was very mysterious.
He only knew that any profession that qualified as a professional standard must be useful and powerful.
Looking at the psychic section, Eugene sighed. "One more year..."
He had one more year until adulthood. On this continent, seventeen was considered adult. After reaching adulthood, the psychic option would basically be crossed out too.
Then, the only path left for Eugene would be warlock.
"I won't give up!" Actually, Eugene had one more path he could choose.
That was his innate ability, Ravenous.
Without this ability, Eugene probably would have given up on unrealistic revenge long ago. It was precisely this unreasonable devouring power that gave him confidence and courage.
Ravenous.
This ability couldn't be activated whenever he wanted.
Eugene had a vague feeling that if he activated this ability again before completely "digesting" the last "meal," something very dangerous would happen.
Before completing his revenge, Eugene didn't dare gamble on it.
Besides that, to rely on this ability to plunder and copy supernatural powers... there were other requirements. Eugene couldn't be too much weaker than the "food." This was feedback from the last consumption.
Of course, if the target willingly agreed to be "consumed" before death, maybe that could break this limitation.
This limitation meant that after Eugene "digested" the ogre's power over these two years, he'd only performed one additional "consumption."
Fully "digesting" the supernatural abilities the ogre left behind took Eugene nearly a year and a half.
Eugene figured this was probably because he'd "consumed" a life form stronger than himself.
So for the second consumption, he chose a monster that wasn't so powerful, a Talonclaw Falcon.
This was a very common low-level monster bird in the Monster Forest that fed on magic rabbits. Common and ordinary.
The reason he chose it was because Eugene remembered the first creature he consumed when activating his ability was a bird. He had a feeling that "consuming" the same type would make "digestion" much easier.
Of course, catching a Talonclaw Falcon was still quite difficult for Eugene back then. So he simply bought one directly from a hunter at the monster trading market.
Consuming and digesting again was indeed much easier.
Maybe it was because he had experience transforming into a bird. Maybe it was because the monster he consumed this time had a short lifespan. Eugene wasn't affected as much as the previous two times.
But even so, he still took nearly half a year to "digest" it.
But there was good news too. Because the "digestion" completion was very high, the ability Eugene acquired became much more complete.
Though he didn't get the powerful talon ability he wanted, he got an even more incredible practical ability: super dynamic vision!
Hawks and falcons had extremely powerful dynamic vision. The Talonclaw Falcon as a monster was even more so. This ability brought its eyesight to a terrifying level.
This played a significant role in Eugene's wealth accumulation over the past six months.
"Should also prepare for new 'food'..."
Eugene let out a light breath and put down his notebook. He stood up and went to the metal mirror to tie up his shoulder-length hair.
His hair grew pretty fast, so he needed to trim it regularly.
The reason he didn't shave it all off was because that would be too conspicuous.
Eugene didn't want to stand out. His current hair length was just right, within the normal, unremarkable range for residents. That is, if you ignored that face that looked prettier than most girls.
After tying his hair and wiping his face, Eugene picked out a wax mask from his pack. He'd made it after learning his father's disguise methods from the dream.
It was made from silver needle bee wax mixed with fat scraped from magic rabbits, processed with herbs and applied to the face.
After removing the mold and drying it for three days, it could be used for several months.
When worn, it made his face look a bit stiff and expressionless, but for Eugene, it was good enough. He just needed to not expose his real face.
Eugene knew very well what kind of trouble this face would bring him.
Though imperial law provided protection, it was still easy for professionals to take action against non-professionals.
Prevention was better than remedy. Eugene wouldn't invite bigger trouble just to save a little effort... He was too weak and needed to be careful all the time.
This was also what his father often taught him.
Only after covering that pretty face to look plain and unremarkable did Eugene satisfactorily take out a mask from his pack.
"Gotta earn today's money first."
Walking out the door, he passed through an empty street, put the mask in his hand on his face, and transformed.
He became a regular at the arena, and quite a remarkable regular at that.
Because Eugene's striped mask was exceptionally famous in the apprentice-level arena.
He had a very loud, embarrassing title there.
The Strongest Mortal!
The Strongest Mortal, "Glutton"!