She'll do well. With that regeneration and all that talent, it's almost a complete package. And she's smart, not the type to throw herself in without thinking. She's always been good at kendo - one of the best, in fact. She also excelled at judo. Disciplined. Technical. She never told me, but I could see it: she loved the feeling of clean victory, of overcoming.
Yes, Mika will become a hero. With a glow of her own.
And me?
Well... I'll try not to die backstage while that's happening.
The old man finished pumping Mika up, as if he'd just found the world's next savior, and then it was finally my turn. I felt a lot of stares behind my back. Because of her, of course. After all, we were a duo - and after that show, everyone expected something similar from me.
Poor things.
The old man approached me and placed the crystal in my hand.
Nothing.
Not a spark. Not even the faintest glimmer of courtesy.
But the crystal was still beautiful. It sparkled like a diamond that has decided to enter the magical art market. I still want one of these. Maybe I'll steal one before I leave. If I leave.
The old man laughed. Softly, almost as if in pity.
"The amount of mana is one," he said, with a tone somewhere between 'sorry' and 'you're too special for this world'. "There's no mana core."
Yeah. No core. As if I'd come to a magical war without so much as a bucket of water to throw on the fire. A single point of mana. Probably a system erro.
"Gift of the Goddess: 'Body Control'"
Really?
"Sword Mastery: Advanced. Hand-to-hand combat: Advanced. Archery: Beginner."
He paused briefly, staring at the crystal, as if waiting for something else to appear.
"Not bad" he said at last, with that polite tone of someone who hands over a gift without knowing if the other person will like it. "But no sis... eh..."
He shrugged, shook his head sadly, and moved on to the next one. As if I were a defective item on the shelf, but still functional enough not to throw away.
I stood there with that bitter smile on my face. Everyone around waiting for their magic moment - literally - and me with this.
No fireballs. No teleporting. No summoning of celestial beasts. No dramatic flashes or acclaimed 'divine blessing'.
Just... body control.
What does that mean, anyway? Can I turn off the pain? Sleep with one eye? Control my heart rate like a murderous Tibetan monk? If so, it wouldn't be so bad.
As the last assessments dragged on, the old man returned to the stage and raised his arms theatrically.
"Look at his tattoos" he said, and his voice echoed with that rehearsed authority. "They reflect your development and skills. White: beginner. Red: intermediate. Orange: advance. Yellow: master. Green: real. Blue: sacred. Purple: demonic. Black: divine."
He paused, then explained like a proud teacher showing the blackboard for the first time:
"The color of the hexagon where the rune is inserted determines the degree of its power. If you have empty hexes, you can insert more runs in the future - extra skills, talents, specializations. And in the center, the octagon. That... well, only time will tell."
I looked at the palm of my hand.
There it was.
A tattoo that looked like the outline of a circuit board, with straight, symmetrical lines connecting geometric shapes.
Five empty hexagons. And an octagon in the center, also empty, connected to all the others by thin lines like golden wires.
It was funny. Somehow, it didn't look incomplete. It looked... unfinished. As if it was waiting for something.
Or someone.
I smiled, this time for real. Not because I was happy - but because I understood something.
If everyone else has received their shine now, maybe mine will come later. And if it doesn't?
Well... it doesn't matter.
I'm already good enough to survive.
And that, in this new and suspicious world, might be much more useful than being a beacon shining on the battlefield.
I brought my hand up to my face and studied the runes. Each symbol pulsed faintly, as if breathing, warm under the skin. It was strange to see something so alive being part of me.
Power - red.
Dexterity - orange.
Endurance - yellow.
Reason - orange.
Magic - white, with a number engraved under the rune: 1.
A miserable unit, like a label stuck on your forehead.
But that wasn't what caught my eye.
"Body Control" - yellow. The rune was sharp, bright, as if it had been forcibly engraved. It was directly linked to the rune of the mind. Not magic, not the physical body - but the mind. A rare, perhaps unique connection.
Her sword and hand-to-hand combat skills were orange, almost burning into her skin. My archery skills were white - childish, underdeveloped. Something in me thought that could change.
But what really caught my eye was the octagon in the center of the tattoo. Empty. Mysterious. Like the core of a labyrinth waiting to be filled with something that doesn't exist yet.
I raised my head and looked around. Most of the other people's tattoos looked... organic. Like vines growing, like expanding plants. Some were dense, others modest. But they all had one thing in common: none of them had a central octagon.
Not even Mika.
Her tattoo was like a living forest. Twigs intertwined, a fluid pattern, as if her skills were connected by instinct rather than logic.
Strength - red.
Dexterity - orange.
Endurance - orange.
Reason - red.
Magic - white, with the number 5000 shining like a star.
"Divine Regeneration" - blue, connected to magic and endurance.
Sword - orange.
Hand-to-hand combat - red.
She was like a character ready to take on the world, written with lines of heroism on her body.
But... there was no octagon.
I watched in silence. Until she looked at her own hand, longingly, as if trying to understand something beyond what her eyes could see.
And then she looked at me.
Longingly.
Had her eyes always been like that?
Light blue, true - but now they seemed deeper. Sharp. A serene abyss. As if, as she looked at me, she was trying to understand what exactly had changed... and what was still hidden.
And then I realized something else.
Mika's hair - once a pale golden yellow - was now completely white. Not aged, but pure. As if it had been washed by divine energy itself. As if her body was adjusting to "Divine Regeneration", molding itself to the goddess's gift.
She looked different.
She was different.
But, strangely, so was I.