Chapter 1 1: Getting My First Talent

"Dad I'm coming!"

Outside a mud hut stood a young man who looked to be in his early twenties holding a wet cloth. The young man ran into the mud hut with worry written on his face as he went towards a deathly pale old man lying on the ground covered with thick blankets.

"Dad, you got to hang on for a few more days. I am in the final stretch of becoming a scholar. Once I pass I will buy you plenty of medicine to get over your sickness and I will take you to Jade city just like you dreamed of." The young man gently stroked the old man's hot forehead as he replaced the old wet towel on his head with the new one to help his fever.

This young man was Yoze Thunder, the adopted son of Drew Thunder, an old man whose entire life revolved around this field that surrounded them. However, what his father and the world would never know was that Yoze wasn't from this world.

He was just an ordinary young man from earth and one day he found himself in a foreign world inside the body of a child. With no idea how, why, or where he was Yoze lived a tough life for a few years before his current father took him in and raised him as if he was his son.

To this day Yoze would have never imagined that he would treat another man as his father. But this old man was the one who saved him when he first came to this world and raised him as his son. So he was beyond grateful and would do anything to help him.

To help relieve some of his father's burdens Yoze had helped him with everything he could. However, as his father grew in age the desire for Yoze to provide him with a better life grew.

With no talent to train in martial arts or any magic powers, Yoze had very few ways he could better his father's life. The only path Yoze found that could get them better lives was to follow the intellectual path and become a scholar.

To be able to achieve this Yoze had to put his entire focus on learning and following the way of a scholar for the past year to have a shot at this year's scholar exam. This caused Yoze to spend less time helping his father which made him feel guilty but his father never complained or asked Yoze to find work after he told him he wanted to become a scholar.

"Dad..." Yoze's heart froze for a second as he saw his father's eyes close before realizing that he had only fallen asleep.

After replacing the wet towel on his father's head and making sure he was asleep. Yoze went outside and sighed as he felt lost.

"It has been 13 years since I came into this world as a child. "

As someone who read a lot of novels back in the 21 century, Yoze had initially been full of hope for the future. Even as the years passed by, Yoze had the assumption that his modern knowledge would have been enough to create a better life for his father and himself.

But he realized that it was impossible to use any of the modern knowledge he had without the technology to back it up. As an average person back on earth, he didn't have a single clue on how to build any of the machines that made modern society thrive.

Even then Yoze didn't give up hope and didn't want to live the same lifestyle of farming just enough to survive and nothing else. This realization instead only strengthened his resolve to become a scholar.

"Dad just hang on for a few more days and I'll get you all the medicine you need to get better." Yoze clenched his fists and planned to go find his friend to study.

[Second Best System]

[Name: Yoze]

[Age: 21 years]

[Talents: None]

[Talent Mark: 1]

Suddenly just as Yoze was about to leave a strange transparent panel appeared in front of his eyes. It didn't make a noise and seemed to stay in the center of his vision regardless of where he looked.

Knowing what this game-like panel must mean, Yoze felt an electric shock go through his spine as hope swelled in his heart. Yoze's eyes went wide as he looked at the system panel in front of him and almost cried from happiness.

"Yes! It finally arrived! My cheat for my difficulties." Yoze hopped around with joy before coming to his senses that his father was still sleeping.

"I need to calm down and see what my cheat can do first." After calming himself down and examining the panel he figured out what it did.

The use of the Second Best system was that it could allow Yoze to copy other people's talents. However, when he copied a talent he would get a degraded version of it.

According to the system, there are 10 grades of talent, and the higher the number the better.

Grade 1 means a 20 percent bonus on learning the talent's particular subject. Grade 2 means a 40 percent bonus, Grade 3 and 60 percent bonus, and this continues until grade 6 which has a massive increase to 150 percent.

Grade 7 has a 200 percent increase, Grade 8 has a 300 percent increase, Grade 9 has a 500 percent increase, and Grade 10 has a 1000 percent increase.

That meant if he found someone with a grade 4 talent in literature he would be able to copy it and get a grade 3 talent in literature.

"This cheat doesn't have much use right now but as long as I find people with high talent grades I will be able to reach the top of every category." Yoze felt his hope to become a scholar solidify and an ember of ambition burned in his heart.

"I already know who I'm going to use it on."

Since the Scholar exam was starting in a few days, he was going to visit the smartest man he knew. When Yoze arrived at his target's mud hut, he saw that a young man was watering a large garden.

"Evi, how are you doing?"

The young man raised his head and smiled out to Yoze before walking over. This man was Evi and the smartest man that Yoze knew. They would frequently study together for the scholar exam, however, after a bit of time the study session would become a situation where Yoze asked a question while Evi answered.

"I'm doing fine, are you here to study together," Evi asked with a smile.

"Yeah," Yoze nodded his head and agreed to the study session.

Since Evi's hut didn't have any lights he took out his notes from his hut and they began to study the material together. Yoze not only wanted to use this study session to study for the exam but also as insurance to stay near Evi since he didn't know how long it took to copy someone's talent.

"Send out the talent mark." Yoze thought to himself.

[Sending out Talent Mark on target.]

[Name: Evi Rock]

[Age: 20]

[Talents: Literature Comprehension(Grade 4), Gardening(Grade 2)]

Yoze silently took a deep breath as he didn't know his friend was learning literature almost twice as fast. After thinking about it more Yoze understood that this should have been the case.

He and Evi began studying for the scholar examination around the same time however when it came to literature he had been able to get a much deeper and more comprehensive understanding in a similar amount of time. Since he had confirmed that his cheat was real and his friend did have a useful talent, he chose to copy it.

[Name: Yoze]

[Age: 21 years]

[Talents: Literature Comprehension(Grade 3)]

[Talent Mark: 0 (23:59:57 hours remaining) ]

As soon as Yoze copied the Literature Comprehension talent a small explosion erupted in his mind as concepts from texts and stories became clearer to him. All the discussions about literature he had with Evi in the past became easier to remember and understand.

"This is amazing, I wonder what Evi is going through."

Yoze felt invigorated and found that he was able to keep up with his friend and his knowledge of literature deepened more in a single hour compared to several hours-long study sessions he had with Evi in the past.

"It's getting dark so I'm going to head out." Noticing that he had been studying with Evi for so long that the sun was beginning to set, Yoze decided to call it a day.

"See you at the scholar exam." Evi smiled as he bid Yoze goodbye.

After tasting the fruits of being talented, Yoze was hoping to find more talented folks but he didn't know anyone else that had more talent in literature than Evi. It also seems that he had to be careful about choosing someone and copying their talent since he had to wait 24 hours until he got another talent mark.

A few days soon passed and Yoze was standing outside of a large wooden building with freshly painted green walls. This testing facility was built specifically for the scholar exam and today was the day to see if the hundreds of people that had dedicated their lives to become scholars had the qualifications.

Suddenly feeling a hand touch his shoulder, Yoze turned around to see that Evi was standing behind him with some study notes.

"Are you feeling confident?" Evi asked with the confident smile he always wore.

"I will give myself a good chance at passing the exam as long as the harder subjects are not selected for this exam," Yoze said casually as he shrugged his shoulders.

Yoze found that he was more interested in finding another talented person to copy their talent than worrying about the exam. After studying for the last few days with his new Literature Comprehension talent his previously weak skill in understanding this world's literature was mostly shored up and his confidence in the remaining fields was good.