Online Game: Starting With SSS-Ranked Summons-Chapter 575: Charlotte’s Talent [1]

He told her about the apocalypse—how monsters had begun appearing across Earth without warning, killing indiscriminately, throwing humanity into chaos. How a game-like system had manifested, granting people abilities and talents to fight back. How killing these creatures made humans stronger, allowing them to level up like characters in a video game.

He explained Armageddon, the parallel world where stronger monsters existed and resources could be gathered. How players could travel between worlds, how the dimensional barriers had weakened, how everything humanity had known about reality had fundamentally changed. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

Charlotte listened with wide eyes, her expression cycling through disbelief, horror, and eventually grim acceptance as Arthur's explanation continued. She asked occasional questions—clarifications about how the system worked, what talents were, why monsters had appeared—and Arthur answered each one patiently.

He told her about his own journey. About receiving multiple SSS-rank talents, about building power through hunting, and about forming alliances with nations to protect Earth. He kept the explanations relatively simple, avoiding excessive detail about specific battles or political manoeuvring. The broad strokes were what mattered right now.

Finally, after nearly twenty minutes of explanation, Arthur reached the question he'd been building toward. The one that had been lurking in the back of his mind since the moment Charlotte woke.

"Charlotte," Arthur said carefully, his voice carrying new weight. "Can you call your status? Check what talent you received when the system activated?"

Charlotte's brow furrowed with confusion. "My... talent? You mean like the abilities you described? The things people got that let them fight monsters?"

"Yes," Arthur confirmed, his tactical mind already racing through possibilities. "Everyone who survived the initial apocalypse received at least one talent. Yours is..." he hesitated, choosing words carefully, "...yours is what caused the cancer. Or rather, what the cancer actually was."

Charlotte's eyes widened with shocked understanding. "The cancer was... a talent? My own ability was killing me?"

"Not exactly," Arthur explained, his voice gentle but firm. "Your talent was so powerful that it flooded your body with more mana than it could handle. Mana poisoning. The uncontrolled magical energy manifested as what doctors diagnosed as cancer, but it was really your system rejecting the overwhelming power it suddenly contained."

He watched Charlotte's face carefully as she processed this information. Horror, confusion, and something that might have been fear flickered across her features.

"So I'm... dangerous? My talent is too strong, and it'll just poison me again?"

"No," Arthur said firmly, squeezing her hand. "Jasmine's healing addressed the poisoning and stabilised your system. But we need to know what talent you have. Understanding it is the first step to learning how to control it safely."

Charlotte nodded slowly, her expression shifting to determination despite the lingering exhaustion. "Okay. How do I... how do I check?"

"Just think 'Status' or will it to appear," Arthur instructed. "The system responds to intent. It should display your information, including your talent."

Charlotte closed her eyes briefly, concentrating. A moment later, her eyes snapped open with surprise as a translucent screen materialized before her—visible only to her, following the standard system behavior.

Arthur watched her face carefully, noting how her expression shifted from curiosity to confusion to dawning shock as she read whatever information the system provided.

Her brown eyes grew impossibly wide, her breath catching audibly.

"Arthur," Charlotte whispered, her voice shaking slightly. "My talent... it's..."

"What rank?" Arthur asked, though he suspected he already knew the answer. Only the highest-tier talents could cause mana poisoning severe enough to manifest as terminal cancer.

Charlotte's gaze lifted from her status screen to meet his eyes, disbelief and awe mingling in her expression.

"SSS-rank," she breathed. "My talent is SSS-rank. Just like yours."

Arthur's eyes widened in shock, his mind reeling from the revelation. He hadn't expected that at all. His sister possessed a talent that was arguably on the same wavelength as his own—the highest possible tier, the pinnacle of what the system could grant.

But what shocked him even more was the implication behind this discovery.

He had always believed that his sister was the SS-rank champion of Earth. The knowledge he gained from the guide during the apocalypse's beginning announced an SS-rank talent holder from each planet. Arthur had simply assumed it was Charlotte, given her catastrophic mana poisoning that suggested an extremely powerful ability.

But if Charlotte had SSS-rank... then who held the SS-rank talent?

This means there's an SS-rank talent holder somewhere on Earth that I don't know about, Arthur realized with growing concern. Or perhaps that person has already been killed in the chaos. But if they're still alive and I haven't encountered them...

The implications cascaded through his mind. An SS-rank talent represented power just below his own level. Someone with that capability could be a valuable ally or a dangerous enemy, depending on their disposition and allegiances. The fact that he hadn't identified them yet was troubling.

But those concerns faded to secondary importance as Arthur refocused on his sister. Charlotte's talent took precedence over everything else right now.

Arthur's grip on her hand tightened involuntarily. SSS-rank. The highest possible tier. The kind of talent that even the most powerful people he knew—the guide, king of Caldera, second-order domain wielders—didn't possess or even knew existed.

"What's it called?" Arthur asked, his voice carefully controlled despite the intensity of his curiosity burning through him. "What does it do?"

Charlotte's eyes returned to her status screen, reading the information displayed there with obvious difficulty in processing what she was seeing. Her expression cycled through confusion, wonder, and mounting disbelief.

Then she spoke, her voice carrying a mixture of awe and uncertainty:

"It's called... Infinite Mana."

Arthur's mind went completely blank.

"Wait... what?" The words burst from him before he could control his reaction. "What does it do? You should see an effect of your talent, or maybe more than one. Tell me everything it says."

He couldn't believe what he was hearing.

Infinite mana? The implications were staggering, reality-breaking. Mana was the fundamental resource that limited every awakened individual's capabilities.