Evan was curious to see what he had received from the system now that his synchronization percentage had reached 10%.
So he didn't waste any time and opened the abilities screen to see what he had obtained.
---
[Death Mark]
Rank: F
Description: Allows the user to mark a target in their vicinity with a mark of death. The mark slowly drains the target's vitality and transfers it to the user, restoring their energy.
The mark remains on the target until it is removed, forcibly destroyed, or until the target dies.
Warning: A Death Mark regenerates every 24 hours. If the target is significantly stronger than the user, the mark may last only briefly or fail to take effect.
[Marks Available: 0/1]
---
After reading the information about the ability he had received, Evan became a bit thoughtful.
It was an interesting ability and certainly useful, especially because it allowed him to drain an enemy and replenish his own energy reserves.
Evan could think of several situations where such an ability would come in handy, particularly when facing enemies stronger than himself.
He was planning to escape at the first real opportunity he got, and he knew that doing so would almost certainly mean dealing with some unpleasant situations, such as having to deal with Percival's butler.
Martin had been an E-Rank for a long time, most likely already close to the Advanced Stage. It was clear his potential wasn't particularly high, otherwise he wouldn't still be at that rank after all these years.
In all likelihood he was one of those awakened who had forced their awakening, which tended to cap their future growth.
It wasn't unusual to find people like that, especially those serving nobles, since the process required a lot of money and such people were willing to serve nobles in exchange for these opportunities.
Evan was almost certain that Tom had similar intentions, otherwise there'd be no reason for him to have ended up as a simple servant at the manor.
That said, limited potential or not, Martin was still an E-Rank with far more experience than him. Going up against him directly would be a tough fight. Fighting him with his clone was an option, but the clone was a hidden card he had no intention of revealing too easily.
Now, with this ability, he could face a similar opponent more easily.
While Evan was thinking about this, he couldn't help but notice a particular detail in the ability's description.
'The ability is F-Rank,' he thought, recalling that his clone's abilities had all matched its rank as an awakened.
He had assumed that was the usual method, but now his own ability was Rank F, while he himself was E-Rank.
If it had been a lineage ability like Life Draining, which had no rank and was purely based on the possessor's strength, he would have understood. But here, he had a counter for the mark and a rank.
The mere fact that a rank was indicated meant he could increase it, but how to do so was not specified.
'Hey Bruce, how do I increase the rank of this ability? Will it happen automatically, like with my clone's abilities, or are there other conditions?' he asked mentally, and the answer came quickly.
[No. Unlike your clones' abilities, which grow as their rank increases, yours require external resources.]
'External resources? What do you mean?'
[You need pure sources of magical energy to increase the rank of your abilities. More specifically, you need mana cores.]
Evan was a little taken aback by that. He had to spend mana cores to rank up his abilities, while his clone could do it naturally just by growing stronger?
Who exactly had the cheat system here, him, or the clone?
As if reading his mind, Bruce's voice rang out in his head once more.
[This is different for your clone because those abilities belong to its species.]
[They are part of it and grow with it. The rank of your clones is directly tied to their level of existence.]
[The higher their level, the more new abilities they acquire, and the stronger their previous ones become.]
Hearing this, Evan could get an idea of what the system meant by "level of existence."
After all, his clone had that title stat, which seemed to indicate its current stage of evolution. Before, it had been a Spawn of the death race. Now it was a Grave Binder, which appeared to be the next stage up from Spawn.
It was a detail in the clone's description he'd noticed before but hadn't given much thought to. Now he did, and he understood that as a higher existence within its race, its capabilities were both stronger and broader than before. The ability to summon subordinates, for instance, was something it simply hadn't been able to do previously.
Evan understood the reason for his clone's advantage, and though he still felt a bit annoyed by it, he realized there was little he could do.
The fact that he now had an ability of his own was already a big deal for now.
Abilities in this world typically required the use of specific manuals that didn't come cheap. Without them, you could only hope to have some kind of special bloodline, which was rare, or make use of the basic abilities tied to your element, if you had one.
The fact that he could receive abilities this way, and even rank them up without spending years training them, was already an enormous advantage in and of itself.
Evan eventually made peace with that and decided to just ask directly how much ranking up would cost.
"So, how many cores do I need for the next rank?" he asked.
[You need exactly 10 E-Rank (Advanced Stage) cores to increase the rank of an F-Rank ability.]
Evan: "..."
'Fck, this guy just wants to rob me.'