The fact that Noah took an interest in Dave's abilities did not mean that he lacked his own magical talents.
Noah possessed the innate talent as a Source, a unique ability that allowed him to communicate directly with the world and use world energy to cast spells without the need for channeling artifacts.
By absorbing Dave's talent —the best of this world— through the Absorption Spell, Noah did not replace his own ability, but rather added that talent to his own. Both talents were fundamentally similar: the ability to extract and shape world energy. The sum of both exponentially multiplied his capacity to extract energy from the environment and use it with even greater naturalness.
As he continued absorbing, Noah mentally reviewed the different classifications of seekers of the arcane.
Mages: individuals born without any innate power. Their magic comes exclusively from study, discipline, and theoretical understanding of magical systems.
Sorcerers: they can be born with a natural gift to attract and channel external energies —like those from The Witcher world or those from this world, like Dave— or be ordinary people who gain access to magic through a stable external source, a pact with a higher entity, or the use of magical artifacts.
Wizards: they are born with magic inside their own bodies and use that internal energy to cast spells. The wizards from the Harry Potter world fall into this category. In essence, the ninjas from the Naruto world are not so different: they use internal chakra to shape it and produce specific effects.
In Noah's case, his situation was hybrid. As a Source, he possessed the innate talent to attract and shape external energies, which placed him in the Sorcerer category. At the same time, his Elder Blood granted him an internal reserve of Chaos Force, a type of magical energy usable directly for casting spells, just like his chakra. Added to that was the spiritual energy of his soul, which he constantly trained. Although it was not yet enough to use it in spells, once he reached rank 3 as a magus apprentice, he could use his spiritual force as another magical system.
If it weren't for the risk of destabilizing his body and the lack of time, Noah would have already thoroughly studied how to exploit his Chaos Force, and even tried to fuse it with his chakra to increase his versatility.
But for now, his attention was on Dave: absorbing his special talent would exponentially increase his capacity, and fully unlocking his brain would allow him to maximize the use of both power sources while increasing his mental and psychic abilities. After all, more talent was never bad.
The complete transmission process took more than ten minutes.
Noah took a deep breath and allowed himself a few seconds to fully assimilate his changes.
It was not an explosive or overwhelming sensation. Rather, it was clarity. As if a constant background noise had suddenly disappeared.
His thoughts flowed with greater speed and order, without interference, and at the same time he perceived more information from his surroundings without needing to concentrate on it. His brain activity had reached a complete state, without blockages or dormant areas.
Then there was the mana.
Now he could feel the energy that permeated this world with even greater clarity. Flowing constantly through the air, the ground, and objects. It was similar to an invisible current, always in motion.
He raised his hand and the mana responded to his thoughts.
A small ball of fire ignited in the palm of his hand without any resistance. He had not drained chakra, nor Chaos Force, nor spiritual energy. Just a clear visualization and the ambient mana obeyed that intention.
Noah observed the flame attentively.
Normally, only sorcerers with years of experience could do something like that without relying on channeling artifacts such as rings, staves, or grimoires. Dave, due to his innate talent, could learn to cast spells without needing a channeler once he mastered the basics. Now Noah possessed that same talent, added to his own. The result was an instinctive and raw control over the surrounding mana, even without formal knowledge of advanced sorcery.
He knew, however, that this control had limits. For complex or large-scale spells he would still need theory, magical structures, and understanding of this world's systems. Talent did not replace knowledge, it only raised the ceiling.
During the following hour, Noah dedicated himself to experimenting with his control over the surrounding mana.
When he finally stopped, he had a clear conclusion:
As long as he had the respective knowledge, he could recreate any type of phenomenon through the control of the world's mana. Now the question Noah had was whether he could do the same and with the same versatility with the natural energy of the Shinobi world or the equivalent energies of other worlds.
But that was not all. Added to his access to senjutsu, Noah discovered that he could take his mastery over world energy one step further. By combining his now-enhanced Source talent with sage techniques, he could enter an enhanced state where world energy not only served to cast extremely powerful spells, but also to reinforce his physical body simultaneously. In that state, as long as he did not exhaust himself or his access to the world's energy was cut off, Noah could cast spells, enhance his physical power, or heal himself nonstop.
However, this was still limited by his own body. After a while, his body would need to recover from that state, but the greater his physical constitution, the longer he could remain in it. Since his body was now barely that of a six-year-old child, he could not remain in such a state for long or he would end up poisoned. At most, he could stay for 5 minutes, though those minutes would be practically invincible at his same level.
This state is a separate ability from his normal use of world energy —he can perfectly use his power as a Source to manipulate world energy as he wishes and cast spells without activating it— but this state exponentially amplifies those effects.
Noah let the roots that had kept Dave immobile fade away completely. Those blocking the entrance also disappeared without a trace. With a slight gesture of his hand, his psychic powers levitated the unconscious young man, depositing him outside the shop.
He took the matryoshka and the vessel he had stored earlier out of the Horadric cube and returned them to their place inside the shop. There was no need to keep those sorcerers now that his goal was accomplished: he had absorbed Dave's talent and secured considerable loot.
He closed the door behind him and went into the alley.
He put Horvath's sword and the dragon ring inside the Horadric cube.
A sudden buzz ran through the cube abruptly.
Noah pressed a button on the surface to confirm the synthesis, and a projection appeared showing a date of thirty days until the completion of the process.
He rubbed his chin, intrigued, and continued walking toward the main street, eager to discover what the ring and the sword would become once they merged into a single object.