Ability Wielders 6 A Tragedy

How was he supposed to do this? By memorizing every note, of course! Although it isn't yet confirmed, he didn't doubt that with the help of Divine Perception, he would be able to do it.

He searched a video of all the 10 octaves that humans can hear and tried to listen to each and every single one of them twice. Through this process, he thoroughly ingrained each tone and note in his mind, and how every single one sounded like. On top of this, he also memorized what each key on an 88-keyboard sounded like, comparinh it to the notes in his mind.

Doing these two more times, he opened his eyes, searched an anime piano cover, played the video, and closed his eyes again. This time, when he heard the piano playing, he knew what exact note it was.

When he finished hearing the cover, he stretched his hands and laid his hands on the keyboard. He then began playing the keyboard. With perfect movement, he played the song as precisely as it gets, the timing, the keys, all without looking at the cover itself and hearing it only once.

After his performance, Hayden opened his eyes. He felt amazing from what he accomplished. "It seems that the learning capabilities, as long as a regular human can do it, I can learn it. Unless something is in-born, I can learn it!"

He now knew that, given a week or two, it wasn't impossible to master a martial art, a programming language, and even becoming a medical resident in that timeframe was not impossible as long as he had enough books to read, and that he was given enough material to memorize.

Of course, actually practicing his medical knowledge, if he somehow acquired it, would not be as easy. That was, if he did not use Divine Perception to operate, if he did, the intense focus and concentration provided by Divine Perception that removes excess nervousness in his body would allow him to save a human life even without prior experience.

However, a few seconds of thinking made him push down this manner of thought as he will be termed as a 'prodigy' if he did. Again, he did not like the limelight! If he became one of those prodigal geniuses, he would be in the spotlight forever, with the media observing each of his moves, even his sleep schedule will not be unscathed.

"Good thing I thought about it without trying to execute the plan," Hayden said to himself, relieved. "I hate the paparazzi most of all, after all. Can't a celebrity just enjoy their lives?"

Hayden spat out words of hate towards paparazzi that always spied on celebrities. He hated those kind of people the most. Taking pictures of celebrities on their private lives? Exposing them of their deeds and actions without their consent? Selling those pictures or videos to magazines for money, which leads to inappropriate rumors?

It was all too hateful! "d.a.m.n, I should be careful in the future. Well, I'm a wielder who can literally know everything about my own surroundings with a flicker of a switch, so I think I'll be fine."

Hayden continued on to learn piano piece by piano piece. This time, he wanted to learn Moonlight Sonata's First and Second Movement. Spending 30 minutes on listening, Hayden performed the entire Moonlight Sonata while his eyes was closed.

His actions were like smoothly flowing water, elegant, calming, and beautiful to look at. It was as if looking at a virtuoso performing a piano piece. If any pianist was inside the room with Hayden, and they knew that last night, Hayden was a complete greenhorn in playing the keyboard, they would have tried to find a piece of tofu to commit suicide.

Little brother! Calm down! You're flipping heaven and earth by learning those three pieces within two nights! Furthermore, executing the Second and Third Movement without even looking at a tutorial or looking at a sheet music and using only your ear. In addition, you played it like master would've done? "Listen here, you little s.h.i.+t!"

Unfortunately, Hayden was using a keyboard, if he used a true piano, the piece would be truly complete. Thankfully, there was no one that could hear Hayden's keyboard, except, possibly, for his neighbors, who would not care about Hayden at all.

"That's satisfying," turning off Divine Perception, Hayden stretched. "I guess I can play virtually anything now as long as I can hear it once, huh? That's pretty amazing!"

"Wait, if I can do that, what's the point of actually trying to polish my skills…?" Hayden asked himself with a strange expression. "Well, I will still try to learn at least one song a day… but does it really make a difference?"

He felt that it was useless further practicing the keyboard, for the reason that he can, factually, be considered a master already as long as he hears a master playing. He was sure that he was no master, yet, playing anything with only hearing it once? Unless Hayden would compose his own song, there was no point in trying to learn anymore songs as he can play anything from hearing it once!

"I guess… in the far future I can learn how to read sheet music, just not now…" Hayden was lazy at this moment, only wanting to cook and eat as he was starving.

After doing exactly that, he took a shower and played War of Honor for an hour, acc.u.mulating trophies for his rank up.

Subsequently, lying down while thinking of various scenarios and visualizing what he would do, he slept like a log.

…..

Waking up at 3 AM again, Hayden was refreshed once more. As of now, Hayden had too much free time in his hands. Suddenly, an idea of what he could do, instead of jog, popped up in his mind.

"I can learn dances! I can do that, yes," Hayden smirked. "I always liked moving around my body. I also always admired people who can dance masterfully… I guess now it's time for me to learn from those masters!"

He planned to steal ch.o.r.eography from various masters. This would help him in the 9th grade dance portion of physical education. Ever since the 7th grade, all the dance moves were hard, making him struggle to learn. Nevertheless, he put in effort, trying to do his best to at least not weigh his groupmates down and to get a high grade.

He was an introvert, but he still had sympathy! And when the time comes, he can socialize, getting out of his comfort zone to ask for help, and practicing on his own while in his own room.

With his struggles in mind, he put on a dance cover of t.i.tANIUM's song, Turn It Up. Watching the ch.o.r.eography once as his Divine Perception processes the information, he stood up, his whole aura transformed.

At that moment, his body exploded with the power of the dance steps of Turn It Up. Swinging his arms powerfully, his feet charging down on the floor, twisting like a pro, n.o.body would think that Hayden once struggled when it comes to medium-difficulty dance steps.

"I actually did it with watching it only once?" Hayden asked himself. He was already numb of the surprises brought by his Ability. Regardless, it was indeed still a delight to see it at work. Next, he tried dancing Turn It Up without using Divine Perception.

Still the same! This led Hayden to finally confirm his conclusion that seeing something once, or hearing something once, while his Divine Perception was activated, he will already be able to remember it fully. Of course, he didn't know precisely how Divine Perception's superhuman memory function worked, only a hypothesis.

His hypothesis is that Divine Perception, activated through the Origin Crystal, activates his latent brain power, everything it touches is also activated, as the blood cells deliver oxygen to the cells of the body, this is where his superhuman sense of touch comes from. As for the others, naturally, his eyes had blood vessels, in his ears, from his olfactory receptors, and in his brain, otherwise, how would he live?

Basing on this, Hayden thought that the blood in the hippocampus carrying the essence energy makes the hippocampus hyperactive, which in turn implants long term memories inside his brain permanently. If he saw something that he thought should be remembered, his hippocampus would oblige and implant it in his brain for later access, meanwhile, if he wanted to learn something, the hippocampus would store it as muscle memory in his nervous system, becoming a part of him.

Although this made sense for him, it was still speculation. Hayden was clueless as to how it all really worked, but for now, it was sufficient explanation for him.

For an hour, Hayden learned dances of t.i.tANIUM and a single dance from CHORUS. Afterwards, exercised, doing his daily routine, before resting. His body was extremely exhausted, to which he thought of activating Indestructible Devil without the horns, tail, claws, fangs, and size growth.

When he willed it to activate, his skin became reddish in color, his muscles became more defined, and boundless energy seeped into his body. The feeling of it was refres.h.i.+ng, and with the activation of Indestructible Devil, his body became devoid of fatigue.

"Is this some sort of cheat code?" Hayden smiled wryly. "Well, I should be grateful instead of bickering with an unknown force, and being an ungrateful person."

With the recovery of his body, he took a shower, reheated the food from last night as his mom didn't go home, ate, put on his clothes, and went to the Scholar Academy.

…..

7:05 AM, Hayden arrived at his room, dropped down his bag, and read a book again. This time, he put on his earphones so as to not notice anything anymore, especially if there was a person to come in the room.

The entire day, Hayden spent listening to the teacher as usual. Nevertheless, he couldn't help to notice that Faye, his seatmate, was absent. As Hayden was steadily gaining popularity, he was able to easily find answers from his cla.s.smates.

He usually wouldn't act this way; it was simply that he had a premonition of some sort. It was as if something terrible, extremely terrible, happened to Faye. Inquiring around, he found out that Faye was absent because of her dad's murder last night.

He acquired this information from Faye's friends, who was going to visit her. Hayden wasn't close to Faye, thus, he refrained from going to her house. For safety measures, he asked Faye's address.

On the way home, he was thinking of why he was being bothered by something. For some reason, there was this horrifying feeling on the back of his mind about this murder.

It was like there was something more to this murder than it seemed from the outside. That night, Hayden still learned Korean. After those two hours though, he didn't have the energy to continue doing anything else. He was frustrated as something was still bothering him. Opening his phone, he browsed articles on it.

"Why am I having such thoughts?" Hayden was becoming annoyed of this. "Tomorrow, I'll check for myself-"

As he was finis.h.i.+ng his sentence he now knew why he had this nagging feeling. It was because Faye's dad was murdered by Asw.a.n.g. It was still the same killing scheme of hanging the victim like a butchered pig, enforcing that Asw.a.n.g was a serial killer. Furthermore, there were three others prior to Faye's dad, leaving a trail from Taguig City to Makati City, of which, two were women in their 30s. The strange thing is that Asw.a.n.g's face was never seen, there were no witnesses, and all the people in the vicinity, including residents of the places where Asw.a.n.g visited, heard nothing when the victims were being murdered.

"f.u.c.k…" Hayden took a deep breath. "f.u.c.k, son of a b.i.t.c.h! He's in Makati City?"

In the next moment, all he could think about was his mom. He wasn't worried for his father as his father was working in a military base, and not in Makati, however, his mom wasn't!

"Yes?" Ringing three times, Hayden's mom finally picked up the phone.

"Please be safe, mom." Hayden's tone was worried. "There's a serial killer on the loose in Makati City."

"I know, I got wind of it earlier." Hayden's mom was a woman who was headstrong, one of the good qualities about her. "Don't worry sweetie, I have a car with me. I'll be safe. I love you."

"I love you, too." With that, Hayden said his valedictions to his mom. "Should I chat her, or not?"

Hayden was thinking whether to console Faye or not. Ultimately, he didn't. It was stupid to ask somebody if they're okay when their dad got murdered recently. Who would be okay with that? Hayden knew that Faye led a good life because of her dad, so she evidently cared for him. Who would be okay with a good father like that being killed?

"Yeah, no…" Hayden shook his head. There was nothing he could do at this moment. "I wish nothing would happen to mom…."

…..

In a distant roof near Hayden's house, a shadow appeared. The shadow was wearing a creepy white smiley mask on his face, adorning light ninjlike armor. This unknown figure's black hair was mannered in a way that it looked moderately spikey, appearing as if he was an anime character, more specifically, a villain. This unidentified figure was known as Stalker. Hayden's earlier suspicion of being watched was not for naught as this Stalker was watching Hayden for days now.

"It seems that he caught wind of Asw.a.n.g." The Stalker said in a light hollow voice. Along with his white smiley mask and ninja attire, anyone who saw him and heard this voice will be scared s.h.i.+tless. "We'll see how he deals with it."

At that moment, Stalker felt a vibration coming from his waist. Opening his phone, he saw the message was from his boss.

"Boss," The Stalker called his boss and talked in a respectful manner. "The target now caught wind that Asw.a.n.g killed one of his cla.s.smate's father. We'll observe how he reacts to it."

On the other side of the phone, a deep laugh ensued. "You're still watching that brat? I thought you have come to the decision that he has no Ability? Why are you still watching him?"

"I don't know," The Stalker replied admittedly. "For an unknown reason, I have a gut feeling that this brat does have an Ability. And you, of all people, knows that my gut feelings are never wrong. Look, there's even a member of the Puting Araw (1) observing him, not just me."

"Oh, really?" The boss was surprised. "Who s.h.i.+tty member of that s.h.i.+tty Puting Araw is watching him?"

"Him." The Stalker said. "That guy has been on my tail for days now. When he lost me, I saw him taking an interest on this little brat as well. He clearly sensed something. With that, I knew my gut feeling was correct."

"Him?" The boss asked. Realizing who The Stalker was talking about, another laugh ensued. "That guy, huh? Continue watching the kid then. As for that Asw.a.n.g, he is getting out of hand. He would risk the exposure of wielders at this rate. For the next few days, if Puting Araw doesn't make a move to contain Asw.a.n.g, we have to kill Asw.a.n.g."

"I don't think that will be necessary, boss." The Stalker said. "I feel like something is going to happen to that guy, whether it benefits the wielder world or not is an unknown. For now, I advise that we do not make a move."

"Suit yourself. I will give a week for that Asw.a.n.g, whether something happens or not. Until then, we will not make a move. I trust you." The boss talked in a solemn manner before cutting the call.

Putting away his phone, Stalker continued to watch Hayden. When Stalker saw Hayden looking at his direction, he felt a chill.

"It's a good thing that it's night…." Stalker heaved a sigh of relief at the thought of this. "Why is this little brat looking at my direction every now and again? He clearly doesn't know I'm here, so why?"

The Stalker asked himself, thinking of a reason why Hayden would look at his direction.

"Well, some people have strong instincts… I guess his is strong as well." The Stalker shrugged off the matter as he knew Hayden can't see him. "G.o.dd.a.m.n, he's back on my tail!"

Jumping into a shadow, The Stalker disappeared, as if he amalgamated with the darkness. When The Stalker disappeared, a person in a white robe appeared, looking disappointed. Without saying anything, the man went away.

…..

Thank you for reading this novel of mine. I think some of you have read the previous versions of Ability Wielders, and I know some of you knew that I gave up because of the criticisms I got at the time. I hated myself for dropping this novel for something as trivial as that, now, I will commit to this novel! Thanks for the support! I hope you will continue supporting my novel, Ability Wielders!

…..

1 Puting Araw – Can be translated to English as "White Sun."

Note: Edited Chapter 5: Showing Off – Edits: Changed Faye's height to 160 and the part where she says 'tall, handsome, with outstanding basketball skills. Where was he?' to 'pretty good stature, handsome, with outstanding basketball skills. Where was he?'

Why did I edit? Because I initially made our MC, Hayden, 167 meters in height, a height that is considered above average in Philippines. Anyways, I forgot that I changed it to 163 centimeters, and as I was pretty sleepy when I edited the chapter, it slipped past me.