As Zoey came back to her senses, she was finally able to focus on what the interface was displaying.

[ZOEY: INNATE TALENTS:

[1. DARK STAR RUNIC BLOOD

[ABILITIES:

[a. Transformation Trigger: Unknown

[b. *NEW* Ability Assimilation

[c. *NEW* Ice Venom Rune

[2. Aether Engineer

[a. Able to design and fabricate items from aether magic. Adding matter to construct will reduce design cost.

[b. *NEW* Able to repair and modify items created By Aether Engineer ability.

Zoey had been aware that getting stronger would affect her abilities in some way, but she had not expected a change this significant. She saw that she was able to select the items on the interface for a better explanation. She selected the new items to get an idea of what they were.

[Ability Assimilation: Able to assimilate abilities from new essence sources and form runes based on the ability. Runes allow for utilization of assimilated ability by the host.

[Ice Venom Rune:

[Rune Active Ability: Creation and application of Ice Venom

[Rune Passive: Ice Venom Immunity]

The final new addition was the ability of her Aether Engineer talent to repair and modify items created by her with the ability. All the abilities were spectacular in their own way. She had not expected to be able to gain completely new abilities from just absorbing an essence stone. She would have to ask Nito if this was something that was common in this world. For now she had made some unexpected, but welcome gains.

She closed the interface and returned her attention to her essence pool again and continued to absorb the essence from the stone. Not long after she completely finished the first stone and opened her eyes. The first thing she noticed was that she had a new tattoo on her left arm. It was placed in an orbit around her original tattoo and was glowing with the same blue and green colors that could be seen on the scales of the Ice Venom Sky Snake. As her magic receded, the glowing ink of her tattoos went back to their normal black color allowing her to inspect her new tattoo better.

It was a small and extremely intricate portrayal of a Rank 1 Ice Venom Sky Snake with its wings outstretched. Zoey could see that every single scale was drawn with perfect detail creating a lifelike image on her arm. Around the image of the snake was a runic border that she could not interpret the meaning of, although the runes seemed oddly familiar to her. When she activated her magic again, the tattoo lit up with the blue-green colors again giving it an ethereal beauty.

Finished with her inspection, she looked up and found that Nito had food ready. She joined him to eat but did not notice the odd look that Nito was giving her. While they ate, She asked Nito if he had ever heard of anyone gaining new innate talents by any means. After he heard her question, he immediately began recounting tales of his past.

Before he had come to the Exile Frontier, he had been an assistant for a renowned magic professor and researcher in one of the major cities in the interior of the continent. This professor had been the leading authority on innate talents and all things related to them. As his assistant, Nito was able to learn information simply by being around and had learned plenty while he was there.

Out of all the information the professor had researched, there had never been a case of dual Heritages like Zoey had, and only extremely rarely would evidence appear of someone being able to obtain multiple innate talents aside from what they were born with. Such an ability would be considered extremely powerful on Darren and would throw the noble houses into chaos.

With this information, Zoey decided she would have to do her best to hide her ability to gain abilities from essence stones. If word got out that she had this ability, and dual heritages, AND a Harmonic Heritage as well, she would have the entire planet after her blood.

Once finished with the food, Zoey wend back to her corner and continued to absorb essence stones. She felt that she had to get stronger as soon as possible. If by chance she encountered a situation where she was dealing with nobles again, she did not want to be forced to run away. She wanted to forge her path in this world and live the way she chose. The only way she could do this is with strength.

After Zoey had completely absorbed 10 of the Rank 1 stones, she suddenly felt a change happen within her essence pool. With her mind's eye she could see her essence pool start to rotate and form a whirlpool. It rotated faster and faster until a waterspout formed, exposing the bottom of her essence pool.

As this happened, Zoey heard that deep, mechanical sound again. The sound was like a mechanical leviathan in the depths of her mind, echoing through her inner world. As the sound echoed away her essence pool suddenly expanded and grew in size. The essence crashed and expanded violently until it filled a new area inside her space. The pool was now a small lake, and though it was deeper, she could still see the molten red and cool blue swirling in the depths that signified her dual heritages.

In the center of the lake was a new addition. A small sapling seemed to sprout from the lake of essence, and its thin roots could be seen going all the way to the depths. The sapling was thin and small, and it seemed to be made of petrified wood. Under the surface of the sapling she could make out vague hints of molten red and deep blue, just like the bottom of her essence lake.

She was certain the sapling signified something. But did not know what it could mean. She would have to search for some info later. Zoey smiled as she took in the new sight. She knew that she was now considered a Rank 2 magic user.

She knew this was only the beginning.