[Awakening unlocked: Psychotic Saint]

[Skill unlocked: Chaotic Healing. Skill description: Sacrifice your own health to greatly heal an ally, as well as substantially buffing their speed and power. Warning: can kill the user if too much health is sacrificed.]

[Skill unlocked: Reckless abandon. Skill description: The less health the user has remaining, the more his damage, mana regeneration, mana pool, speed, strength and reaction speed are increased. Can evolve to unlock additional effects.]

Seeing the skills he received, James wasn’t sure if he should be excited or disappointed. He didn’t know what to make of it.

“Is… is this any good?” He asked his friends.

Helios and Lunaris answered immediately, without any hesitation. They could guess what James was thinking, and they didn’t want him to feel disappointed.

“Are you kidding? Those skills are great, brother! I’m sure they’ll be of great use … eventually. Just because we can’t see what they’re good for at the moment, doesn’t mean they’re not amazing!” Helios spoke so fast that he bit his tongue while talking. He really wanted to encourage his friend. Feeling disappointed by your own awakening is how a lot of mages stagnate in their progress and get nowhere in life.

Lunaris offered a more intellectual response. “Don’t be disappointed that you didn’t receive a big, flashy skill that does a lot of damage. There are plenty of those out there. If anything, it’s a good thing you received utilitarian skills. Those are harder to come by. And I’ve never even heard of these skills before, their uniqueness definitely makes them more valuable!”

His friends’ words and their attitudes were definitely helpful, James quickly forgot his initial disappointment.

They were right, just because he didn’t see the value of the skills right away, didn’t mean they weren’t great.

“Thanks guys, you truly are the best friends one could ask for!” James cringed every time he said such corny things, but his friends were so great, he just felt the need to express it.

He then coughed and tried to quickly change the subject. “Anyway, is that it? Two skills, is that all that an awakening gives you?”

“Yes and no.” Lunaris answered. “An awakening can define your entire progress from now on. You could think of them as two powerful skills that you can base your entire build around, which will lead to unlocking more skills in the same category. But it would be just as valid to think of them as just another tool in your arsenal, something minor that you don’t really use much, and instead you steer your development in another direction. Both schools of thought are just as valid and accepted.”

“Yeah, your second awakening can be entirely different, totally unrelated to your first. That’s at level 200. Or it can be an even deeper specialization of your first awakening. You control your own destiny, brother. You can be whatever you want to be. Think of it this way: you received two free skills. No harm, no foul, right? Just continue being who you are, and things will fall into place.” Helios added. He had a temper, he was reckless, but he wasn’t an idiot. Helios was a very smart guy, but he preferred to hide that intelligence behind impulsiveness and brazenness.

“All right, that actually sounds great! I think I’m actually excited about it now!” James replied with enthusiasm. He was really pumped now, that initial disappointment having turned into curiosity and excitement about what he could become in the future.

“Wait, what about the actual name of the awakening? Psychotic Saint? What the hell does that even mean?” James was cringing a bit at the name of his own awakening. “It sounds so … edgy. And a bit embarrassing if I’m being honest.”

Helios and Lunaris kept it together for a while, but now that they had given James the needed encouragement, they began cracking up.

“Welcome to the club, pal!” Helios said while laughing to the point he was slapping the table next to him.

“It’s a rite of passage!” Lunaris was laughing to the point she had to lean on Helios so she wouldn’t fall over. “Now we all have bad awakening names!”

“The Righteous Marauder! The Holy Atom!” Helios and Lunaris sarcastically struck an embarrassing pose for a second. “And now presenting … the Psychotic Saint!”

While he was confused at first, seeing his friends laughing uncontrollably made James slowly start laughing as well. “Is there a gas leak in this room? This doesn’t seem funny, but I can’t stop laughing.”

They laughed it up for a few minutes. It wasn’t that funny, but they were in a good mood. They were out of that god forsaken place that was sabotaged by some lunatic, James finally went through his awakening. Life was good at the moment.

Lunaris and Helios were actually quite happy that they weren’t the only ones with stupid awakening names anymore. It felt like being a part of a niche little club, the club of the badly named.

And now that James had a chance to think about it, it made him feel a lot better about his own awakening’s name, knowing that his friends were in the same situation. It certainly felt a lot less embarrassing.

After the laughter died down, James still had questions. “Ok, but what does it mean though?”

Lunaris thought for a while and then answered. “Well, I told you about all the things that go into your awakening. All the questions you were supposed to meditate about. The name of your awakening is basically a reflection of who you are, a combination of many aspects of your personality and your entire being. And the skills themselves are also an extension of that.”

“But why saint? I’m definitely not a saint, not even close. I guess I can see the psychotic part though. I wouldn’t put it that harshly, but I can see why it applies, somewhat. Although the system or the gods or whoever gives us the names could’ve been nicer and just named me ‘Chaotic’ or something, not Psychotic, of all things.”

Helios was the one to answer this time. “That’s for you to think about, mate. Don’t worry too much about it though, you should actually take it as a compliment.” He then gave James a pat on the back.

“Yeah, it actually is a compliment!” Lunaris added. “Even the psychotic part can be interpreted as a compliment. I’m sure it’s related to your unique way of thinking. How you went about studying magic, coming up with new spells, the way you decided to train. Your recklessness, impatience, along with all your other contradicting traits. Hell, even the name is a contradiction, right? How can a saint be psychotic? Anyway, I don’t know exactly what the saint part means, but it probably has something to do with you wanting to protect others and be a force of good, right?”

James did want to be a force of good, but he also though of himself as a pretty selfish person overall. Even though he chastised himself for it, the fact remained that he still didn’t do much for others. He didn’t really do much of anything back on Earth, much less going out and doing good things for others. Although he had the vague desire to be good, he was too lazy to actually do anything. In a way, it could be seen as wanting to wallow in his own sloth and comfort more than he actually wanted to do good things. If he wanted it bad enough, he would’ve done something. And yet he didn’t.

He did hate himself for it a little bit. But he was always chronically lacking in energy. Lying in bed with a good book was all that he could muster the energy for. It always seemed inexplicable to him how people actually had the energy to go out and do things. He would’ve thought of himself as agoraphobic, except the reason he didn’t go outside was not fear, but lack of energy, and a complete lack of desire to actually go out.

He did think about how nice it would be to do good things, but he didn’t lift a finger for others. His laziness had been almost debilitating, and because of his laziness he was more than a little bit selfish. He now realized that his cynicism and nihilism had been just another way of justifying his own selfishness.

James was contemplating these things because he couldn’t understand why his awakening would be called a saint. Did his vague desire to be good get reflected in that? It can’t be, everybody wanted to think of themselves as good. Even villains, even Hitler thought of himself as good.

Although, he wasn’t named a saint. He was a ‘psychotic’ saint! It wasn’t the words themselves that described him well, it was the contradiction that was so fitting! He did want to do good things and be a good person, but he was too crippled by his flaws and contradicting personality traits to actually live according to his own values and goals, which they themselves were contradictory at times.

James was at peace with the skills he received. He didn’t get a big nuke that would destroy all of his enemies, but the ideas of synergies and new skills that he could combine them with were already swirling in his mind. But while he was ok with the skills, the actual name of his awakening was something that still gave him pause.

He was grateful for it though. It would serve as a good lesson. He’d definitely try to be better from now on. He was always telling himself what he should do, how he should change, and yet he kept making the same mistakes.

James knew he was no saint, but he definitely wanted to be saintly towards two very special people. His friends were more important than anything to him. While his empathy didn’t extend that easily towards everybody, because his selfish laziness was precluding him from actually sacrificing his own comfort for the good of humanity, he definitely wanted to be a saint for his friends. And if took saving the whole world to make them happy, then he’d have to do just that.

And he wasn’t that much of a selfish bastard. The idea of saving and helping humanity was pretty appealing in and of itself, he did want to bring peace and happiness to others. Although the gargantuan amount of sweat, blood and tears that he'd have to pour into that, certainly made it quite a daunting task. Only the thought of doing it for his friends was enough to actually push him enough so he would put himself through what seemed like a torturous journey.

Thinking about all the other people in the world that just like him, enjoyed their tranquil, happy little lives with their friends and family did tug at his heartstrings. It would be nice if he could wield the kind of power that could allow all those people to continue living a life full of smiles and laughter.

But at least, as an added benefit, one of his new skills actually brought him great peace of mind. He wasn’t that good at healing spells, something about them just didn’t click with him, so his skills at healing were subpar. But now he could give up his own health in order to heal his friends.

Every time they were in a battle, he felt the need to do something more to make sure his friends were safe, his heart filled with worry. Especially since he was dragging them into danger in the first place. But now, if they ever got hurt, he could actually do something about it.

“Yeah, I can actually see the potential of these two skills now.” James said with a genuine smile. The more he thought about them, the better his new skills seemed. Raw power was useless in and of itself anyway. Utility is the true power. All he needed now was a little creativity so he could put the spells to good use.

“That’s the spirit! A real man will make the best out of any situation!” Helios said cheerfully, giving James a high five with so much enthusiasm that his palm stung for several minutes. “Now let’s go, my father invited us all to lunch. The investigation is over, and we have much to discuss!”