Chapter 10 10 - Teaching An Ability?

While going to get food with Krista, Milo was checking ability screens to see if there were any he may want, and he came across a hidden gem. Among the elemental abilities, the ice ability and the lightning ability were considered the strongest and some of the rarest among them. When going through the different available abilities around them a young waiter who may not have manifested their awakened power completely was handing out drinks. When Milo activated his ability to check awakened powers on the waiter a screen popped up that read.

[Notice]

Ability: Frost detected

Conditions to copy: Help target learn to use their ability

[complete condition to copy ability: Frost]

The condition was a one that Milo couldn't believe, "he has a frost ability but doesn't know how to use it? Or does he just not know he has awakened?" These thoughts kept going through Milo's head as he tried to think of a way to teach the waiter about their ability, without looking like a crazy person, and he only had about a day to do it.

After a while Milo did some research by looking through articles online about the elemental abilities. Milo devised a plan, he read that awakened who have elemental abilities have been known to unconsciously activate them in dire situations. If he found a way to make him use his ability unconsciously it could be the breakthrough he needed to learn to control his frost power. Now all Milo needed was to make a dire situation.

The dire situation also needed to be something that could be helped with the frost ability. The easiest thing would be to maybe let the ice in his drink melt and ask the guy if he was able to cool it down. That wouldn't be dire enough for the guy to activate it unconsciously, another thing that Milo thought of was maybe giving himself a bruise or faking a sprain. But who knew if that would be dire enough to make the guy act. His last plan was the most dangerous and involved using the ability opposite to the one being used, fire.

Elemental abilities would cancel out the element opposite to them, in the case of the frost ability, it could be used to cool down a fire and put it out but the only issue would be where to light the fire, how to light the fire, and how to guarantee that it doesn't go out of control to the point of putting anyone's lives in danger. After some consideration Milo planned to use a piece of paper and to drop it into a trash can, hopefully igniting whatever was inside without having it go out of control. To light the paper in the first place he would use the burner of one of the serving stations.

Milo put his plan into action, using the burner closest to the target he lit a balled up napkin on fire and tossed it in the trash, slowly he let the fire build so that it was big enough for the guy to need to take action. After letting the fire build in the bottom of the trashcan, Milo used his telepath ability to say, do you smell something burning?, into the guys mind. The target then sniffed the air and exclaimed, "Fire!"

People began to hurry through the train to get to the next car, but Milo ran up to the man instead, "you need to do something!" He tried to make it sound as urgent as possible but the man still didn't act. Milo then decided to try and take it a step further, pretending to try to fan out the flames he put his arm a little too close, causing his sleeve to catch fire as well, with his reinforcement ability he could withstand the heat for a few seconds before it did any major damage so he had to act fast. He screamed as if terrified for his life, and this was the push the man needed. Within a second the temperature seemed to have dropped and mist could be seen coming from Milo's breath. The man grabbed Milo by the arm and the cold air emanating from his hand caused the flame to extinguish, and in the next second the man went wide eyed and the temperature in the room returned to normal.

When realizing the flame went out the man went wide eyed and asked Milo if he was okay. Playing dumb Milo exclaimed, "You have the frost ability? That's so cool!"

The man was obviously surprised as to how he had gotten his power to work, and said he had no idea he could do something like that and couldn't control his power.

Milo told him to just do whatever he just did and the power would probably work, trying to push the man into realizing how to use his ability. The trick seemed to have worked as a new determined look appeared in the man's eyes and the next second a screen popped up.

[Notice]

Ability: Frost detected

Conditions to copy met…

Will you copy ability: Frost?

[Yes] [No]

Just like last time when the condition was met, when he heard the ding he knew it had been a success. The icon above the waiter's head also turned green confirming that the condition to copy had been met. Milo immediately activated the plunder ability and the black chains shot from his arm wrapping around the waiter before disappearing and displaying a message in front of Milo's eyes.

[Notice]

Ability: Frost has been successfully plundered

Free stat points have been gained from plundering a new ability

Extra points have been earned for plundering a rare ability

Tutorial has been generated based off current intelligence stat

Watch Tutorial?

[yes] [no]

Once the message appeared, Milo thanked the waiter again for saving him and went back to his room. He felt that watching the tutorial in his room would allow him to practice trying to use the ability without prying eyes. Before watching the tutorial though, he decided to check out the status screen and allocate the points he earned from stealing the frost ability.