Chapter 38: Choosing a Talent
Meanwhile, in Joo Joowon’s opinion, Mind’s Eye was currently the strongest among all five talents.
It functioned almost like granting the player a third eye.
Centered around the player’s body, it could clearly perceive everything within roughly a one meter radius.
Even walls within the covered range could not block this Mind’s Eye vision.
The talent [ Soul Link ] functioned somewhat like telepathy.
It allowed Joo Joowon to vaguely sense Byeol’s emotions, and he could also convey his own emotions back to the cat.
However, because the exchanged information was far too blurry, Byeol could not understand overly complicated messages.
At most, it could comprehend simple commands such as sit, lie down, attack, or run.
Since Byeol was the only cat in the apartment, Joo Joowon had no way of determining the exact range of this ability.
The description itself also failed to explain it clearly.
It only stated [ Your extraordinary Mental Power has granted you the ability to communicate with lifeforms. ]
But what exactly counted as a "lifeform"?
Did plants count?
What about zombies?
Were they included too?
Joo Joowon had no way of knowing.
Although this repeated refreshing method allowed him to continuously test different talents like exploiting a bug, he still hoped to decide on a permanent talent as soon as possible.
After all, he could not confirm whether this truly was a loophole or if the game had intentionally designed it this way from the beginning.
And if it really was a bug, then sooner or later it would definitely be patched.
Ideally, he wanted to settle on a talent before that happened.
At the moment, the talent that tempted Joo Joowon the most was [ Mind’s Eye ].
After all, the greatest fear when hunting zombies alone was being ambushed from hidden blind spots.
This talent was practically equivalent to possessing a third eye.
Moreover, because it was categorized as a talent rather than a skill, Joo Joowon could not feel any consumption while using it at all.
There was no cooldown and no mana cost whatsoever.
The only problem was that the effective range covered merely about one meter.
Honestly, at such a short distance, most dangers would probably already be noticeable even without Mind’s Eye warning him.
Even so, it was still nothing short of a miracle level ability at the current stage.
Setting everything else aside, merely the ability to see through walls was already enough to make clearing floors and hunting zombies vastly easier for Joo Joowon.
Still, he could tell this talent was likely only a powerful early game ability.
It was not difficult for him to imagine that once job advancements unlocked in the future, mage type classes would probably possess similar detection methods anyway.
By that point, this talent would most likely become obsolete.
It was the kind of ability that was overwhelmingly powerful during the early stages but highly likely to be abandoned later on.
However, abandoning a powerful early game talent purely for an uncertain future was completely unnecessary.
Joo Joowon also greatly wanted the talent [ Soul Link ].
After all, Byeol was still a cat.
Although the cat had never really caused him trouble before, there was always the possibility of accidents.
If they could communicate, then with proper training, Byeol might genuinely become a qualified scout in the future.
After struggling over the decision for a long time, Joo Joowon still could not determine which talent he should choose.
Even though he felt the other talents were not useless either, especially the seemingly unremarkable [ Enhanced Cognition ], which might unexpectedly provide hidden benefits later on, he still sentenced it to death almost immediately.
The reason was simple.
Even if it truly was a god tier skill, as long as it could not directly increase his combat strength at the current stage, then it was effectively a useless talent in his eyes.
Of course, plans often failed to keep up with reality.
Perhaps when the day actually came to permanently lock in a talent, he might unexpectedly end up choosing it after all.
For now though, Joo Joowon only intended to decide between [ Soul Link ] and [ Mind’s Eye ].
When surviving through the apocalypse while bringing along a pet, the most important thing was teaching the pet to obey commands and follow its owner’s intentions.
Because of that, Soul Link was genuinely very important to Joo Joowon.
Dogs and cats were fundamentally different creatures.
Dogs could truly recognize their owners as masters.
Cats, however, even after establishing a hierarchy, still genuinely viewed their owners as fellow creatures of the same kind.
At the same time, Mind’s Eye was equally important.
After obtaining it, the advantages it provided were simply too enormous.
Even when facing two or three zombies simultaneously, the probability of killing them without injury would increase dramatically.
In the end, ordinary people without professional training could never transform themselves into battle hardened veterans within a short period of time.
Only something like Mind’s Eye could compensate for the countless flaws within his combat movements that true experts would immediately notice, greatly improving his chances of survival.
After thinking things through repeatedly, Joo Joowon ultimately decided to temporarily keep Mind’s Eye as his permanent active talent.
Byeol was not a troublesome pet like a husky that constantly caused problems for its owner.
Even if the cat could not actively help, it had never dragged him down either.
Because of that, his need to communicate with Byeol was not especially urgent for now.
Mind’s Eye, however, could immediately produce visible results during zombie fights.
Still, Mind’s Eye possessed one major drawback.
Humans were born with only two eyes.
Adapting to a third perspective instantly was naturally extremely difficult.
Using the talent made the user’s body movements feel incredibly awkward, almost as though every limb operated independently from one another.
Even when his eyes clearly saw a cup sitting in front of him, his hand might still completely miss the cup while reaching for it.
Fortunately, reaching ten points in Mental Power had also increased Joo Joowon’s thinking speed and memory significantly.
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