Amun.

***

How annoying.

Not only was I being tortured by the Princess’ incessant need for conversation and attention. The ceremony seemed to drag on and on while we and everyone else just sat there, talking amongst ourselves.

I was fully aware that this was a once-in-a-lifetime event meant to form an unforgettable, prideful memory within both the awakened and the esteemed guests. That was made evident by the sheer amount of spectators. Still, after seeing nothing but efficiency and smooth operations for fifteen years, watching the higher-ups drone on and on proved to be quite frustrating. Though, it was nothing I couldn’t handle. Hurry up and wait, as they say. Besides, their speeches proved to be quite interesting.

Naturally, the Emperor gave a short welcoming speech first. Jamettus Deapou was just as domineering as the legends described him to be. He was the spitting image of my Great-Grandfather, in a way. An absolute unit of a man who looked down on the world from atop the two meters tall pedestal that was his shoulders. Beyond that, they seemed to be polar opposites in both looks and persona. Where Grandpa Lich was fickle and dishonest, the Emperor was bluntly truthful. The former was somewhat stoic, if amiable and carefree. The latter was hot-headed and expressive. Passionate even.

Naturally, their dynamic had been passed on to me and Roheisa. Where I took on the features of my forefathers, she too had the same aquiline nose, deep-set eyes, light brown skin, and square face as her father. Pushing 185 centimeters, she was nearly as tall as her father- and much taller than me. The only notable differences besides the obvious were the lack of muscle mass, her gray-colored eyes instead of the rusted black irises, and the missing mountain-man beard. Though she still had a considerable amount of the former, the latter seemed to have been transplanted to the top of her head in the shape of a bun that resembled the mountain we were huddled inside.

With the Emperor stepping down from the podium, the proctor stepped up to announce Grandpa Lich's incoming speech. I could practically hear him grumbling as he took the stage. But then, it was like seeing a flip being switched. He spoke of the first awakening ceremony, of a crude ritual in the wilds, guided by elves. He told of the Guild Association's creation, long ago. And explained the system they devised to ensure the survival of the Marulean species. He spoke of how the event has changed since then. Of how so many people have been spread across the Mortal Plane as a result of their efforts. And how these very Empires were created under the same system. In closing, he spoke of his pride in seeing so many people gathered to witness the next generation take to the world. And bowed down from the podium after thanking the guests a final time.

King Uplos followed behind him to introduce each party that was present. Naturally, every royal family from both Deapou and Odissi was seen in the stands, and I noticed Toril shift subtly when the Fulgum House was mentioned. On top of that, each of the other entities was allowed to speak their intentions. As Roheisa said, many of them were scouts from guilds or militaries stationed throughout Phaegrath looking to recruit. Though, she also made sure to tell me that they always tried and no one took up their offers.

“I don’t know why though.” She pouted as if she were annoyed.

“With an increase in power comes an inflated ego.” I shrugged. “Inflated egos will either be humbled or killed somewhere down the line. If they walk away with their lives, these scouts will be there to sow their seeds while their recruits are at their lowest point.”

Before Roheisa could reply, the stern, raspy voice of a warrior maiden rang through the hall, forcing our gaze to the far ends of the room. “My Name is Gysil Vilignin, Arcane Mage of the Marulean Guild Association, Deapou Division. My subordinates and I are here to assess each Initiate and determine who will be allowed to attend the academy. That is all.”

With a bow, she returned to her seat, allowing King Uplos to step down and my father to step up to begin naming off the three royals and their vassals who were attending today’s ceremony. On top of that, there were dozens of royals and even more commoners attempting to awaken their cores, making for about several hundred initiate prospects.

In closing, he explained that after a brief intermission, we’d gather in the chamber to begin the actual ceremony, causing the gathered mass to erupt in chatter and excitedly scramble out of the room

with instructions to return in ten minutes. After the little break, we were guided to the dining hall for a mid-day meal amongst ourselves while the commoners and nobles went through the process. Either from anxiety or anticipation, no one seemed to want to speak; much less eat, except me. So I quietly satiated myself and waited until the Emperor returned to fetch us a few hours later.

When the time came, were guided underground to an antechamber leading to a vast, egg-shaped chamber made entirely of polished granite. Dug into the walls around the room’s equator were numerous skyboxes filled with what appeared to be thousands of spectators. Conversely, the only infrastructure on the interior was something out of shoddy sci-fi design: a thin catwalk extending from the entrance to the center of the room, where a massive, pale blue crystal sat within a housing of gold. Sitting at the zenith was a matching crystal, hanging from an enchantment stone-lined ceiling like a large stalactite. Similarly, the basin was made of the same, stone-riddled marble as the dome; only in a far greater concentration and made without the colossal crystal at the center.

The antechamber itself contained a short corridor connecting the staircase from which we came with the chamber before us. To the right of that was an alcove containing a few rows of bleacher-like seats akin to the ones in the throne room we were in earlier. After we wordlessly situated ourselves within, Prince Abulot ordered his vassals to go first, as per our agreement.

The first of them was Maurice Harris. A particularly tall and lanky young man with light tan skin, large glasses, and clown-like feet. After placing his hand on the crystal, the entire construct glowed blue and seemed to form a hologram above the gem. Displaying a field of energy similar to the slush properties of his well. Once his reserves were depleted, he collapsed to his knees as a pulse of energy was ejected from the top of the crystal, like a laser that cascaded into a thick shroud of mana upon meeting the crystal above. As the seconds passed, the shroud began to fall and spread thin over the basin, where it began changing color and molding into a thick mesh of brown fibers.

“Hair magic.” The Prince nonchalantly informed us without our asking. "Maurice's hereditary affinity."

With the ground below him reflecting his core, the crystal housed above started to shine and soon pulsed out a wave over the ceiling. As it spread, the slush-like mana began changing into clumps of another type of fibrous mass, albeit a smoother material with a higher sheen than the hair seen below. And in almost the reverse process as the basin, the attributed mana began collapsing towards the crystal, forming a dense ball of energy that dripped from the ceiling and slowly settled before him. Thus forming the kidney-shaped organ that was the affinity core.

After settling in front of Maurice, it simply faded into a stream of particles and cascaded into his body. Then, the construct faded to its dull, inactive state. And without as much of a sigh, he turned from the crystal and began the walk back to the antechamber. Prompting Toka Eyer, The Prince’s other vassal, to begin trotting down the catwalk. She was a short moon-faced girl with curiously lustrous yellow-tan skin with large eyes that were just as brown as her hair. Though, with our limited interactions, I naturally knew nothing about either of them besides how they looked.

After the slush-like hologram appeared and descended to the basin, her mana formed an amorphous blob that coated the bottom of the chamber in a type of gel. Slime, according to Prince Abulot. Following the motions, the ceiling changed into an unmistakable black sheen that I immediately recognized as oil.

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‘I know a country that’d be arming themselves for war if they existed here.’ I snorted to myself. ‘Or at all, for that matter.' Surprisingly, however, the crystal glowed again and went through the same process, this time coating the ceiling in a layer of wax before depositing her core.

“Oh, she got two.” Prince Abulot recoiled in amiable surprise. Unlike his father, the heir to the Uplos Kingdom had a short and slim stature in comparison to the tall and hulking figure of his father. Only with a square-shaped head and a bit of an overbite, with red-brown skin, tan eyes, and curly black hair that’d been slicked back over his head. More so, he seemed to be entirely lacking in ambition. In his words, he simply wanted to work in an office and do nothing more.

Ignoring him, I turned my attention to Princess's vassals readying themselves for the big moment. Roheisa herself shot a particularly prideful gaze toward her knight as they decided who’d go first, eventually decided to be her, Lucia Pike. A blond-haired, fair-skinned girl with the build of a gymnast and gray-white eyes. She quickly placed her hand on the crystal and soon after, the floor filled with a sea of glowing white blades pointing their tips skyward.

“Blade Magic.” The princess proudly declared, admittedly triggering my curiosity. But only until the construct above pulsed, spreading its field of mana over the dome. Soon after, the undulations ceased and a solid surface was formed. Yet it took a few more seconds for the hue to darken to a bronze or bass-like sheen, and even more for the core to condense and merge with its new owner. As Toka experienced, the crystal above burst to life once again and repeated the process, filling the ceiling with a thick layer of glowing white quills.

“Bronze and feather magic, then.” I guessed out loud. “Or, brass and wing magic?”

If she heard my postulations, Roheisa veritably ignored them. Instead, her pride was visibly burning like her father’s magic. As it should’ve been, I supposed. But I couldn’t share her excitement, as my curiosity drew my attention to her other vassal moving towards the crystal.

Rosso DaVinci was clearly the princess's least favorite vassal. As she paid the fair-skinned, glossy-eyed boy next to no mind as he moved down the walkway. Instead, she repeatedly congratulated what I assumed was his sister almost the entire time. The rest of us, on the other hand, watched in silence until the basin filled with a skin of polished glass panels.

“What is that?” I asked, half-knowing the answer.

The Princess turned away from Lucia for only the third time to offhandedly say, “Mirror Magic.” Then turned her attention back to her knight.

I could only shake my head in shock at both her behavior and the fascinating magic Rosso was born with. And even more so as the field above condensed into a glossy pearl-like material. My shock quickly died down after Rosso returned to the antechamber, however, as Ed soon waddled up to the crystal. Even Roheisa’s attention finally turned back to the event. Much to my bemusement.

After placing his hand on the surface, Ed's mana surged into the construct until the entire thing projected a solid cylinder of ice-like mana that soon began drifting to the bottom of the shell, where it quickly filled with a cloud of dense smoke. Following that, the ceiling lit up as everyone else’s did before, only for it to take on a bluish-purple hue and deposit a bean-shaped mass of pure energy. Unlike the others, however, Ed’s new core seemed to exert a subtle pushing effect on those in the antechamber; and in the skyboxes as well, according to what I could scry. That feeling, however, soon disappeared as the ceiling pulsed again and took on the form of a massive plate of fire. Heating the place to an absurd degree until the raging torch of the core was assimilated into Ed’s body.

Just as the usual applause died out from the background, the crystal above pulsed again, causing a muffled shock to bleed through the walls while the rest of us expressed either surprise or joy at Ed awakening a third core. It manifested in the same way as Lucia’s, yet it darkened to a steel-like composition that pulled a curious gasp from Roheisa’s lips. However, as I studied the core floating in front of him, something felt… off.

“Something tells me that it’s not steel he was just granted,” I commented aloud.

“What else could it be then?” Roheisa asked with much interest.

“It could be many things.” I shrugged. “Aluminum, silver, tungsten. Only Ed knows. For now.”

While Roheisa turned to face the crystal and fall into a bit of silence, the crowd’s deliberation on the nature of the gifted attribute rose to an all-time high. Even I was at a loss for what the last could be and resolved to ask him the moment I could. Though, those questions had to come later, as Jonet was approaching the crystal next. I sat forward in my seat in anticipation of what was to come.

After the bottom of the shell filled with a frigid covering of frost, the top glowed blue before splitting into two distinct sections and depositing the bean-shaped organ of energy. Causing a particularly deafening roar to erupt from the crowd as the field of energy condensed into a core split into two parts. Or rather, it had a color gradient. With one side being an icy blue-white that transitioned to a torch-like white on the other side. Leaving me at a complete loss for words until a subsequent field of mana formed a clear bean of air that seemed to vibrate everything around it was created.

“What do you think those are, Amun?” The princess gasped in astonishment.

“I’m not sure of the first one,” I commented as I turned to see the wide eyes and agape mouths of the others. “Something to do with temperature, I suppose. As for the second.” I shrugged. “Vibrations? Sound, possibly? I don’t know.” And I couldn’t guess, as the crystal once again erupted and spread a third field of mana across the ceiling that soon transformed into a thick bog of purplish liquid.

Jonet seemed to be completely oblivious to the veritable uproar surrounding her on her way back to the antechamber. She only held her gaze up to an ambiguous point in the ceiling and distantly smiled until she returned to her seat, wherein Jaimess began his approach. Like with the others, the bottom of the construct lit up before showing everyone a thick sheet of ice and a basin layered with countless sheets of paper. Consequently, the field covering the ceiling solidified to form a black sheet of a powdery substance that immediately reminded me of gunpowder. Though, like with Ed’s metallic affinity, something told me that this was something different. Almost expectedly, however, the ceiling bloomed again and formed into another steel-lustered material. Only, the material was imperfectly crystallized, producing interesting flake-shaped light patterns to reflect on us all as it descended before Jaimess.

Being at a loss for what it could possibly be, I quickly skimmed through the samples of elements on the periodic table until I found a match, and inadvertently blurted out the answer in surprised excitement. “Silicon!” I laughed to myself.

“What’s silicon?” The princess asked.

“An element.” I casually explained before gesturing to the third mana field blooming across the ceiling.

Looking at it, her eyes bulged wide. As did the rest of the crowd from the sounds of it. A clear reaction from seeing the smooth, black, glass-like stone core fading into Jaimess' body. “That was… obsidian.” She gasped.

“Looks like your family doesn’t have a monopoly on volcanism after all.” I chuckled a bit too loudly.

She gave me a stern eye, but then looked away as Toril dutifully approached the stand. Prompting me to do much the same.

He calmly placed his hand on the crystal and waited as the construct depleted his well, creating a crystalline holograph to appear above the gem before a field of sparking electricity spread below the catwalk. Then, he gazed upwards to see the ceiling begin to pulse and change. Listening in through the shadows, I could hear a multitude of topics from the many royals, nobles, commoners, and guests. Some of them noted that each of the Grand Duke’s vassals had received three cores thus far and further agreed it'd be an embarrassment if I or my knight were to receive anything less. Others were expressing shock from seeing Toril possess a diamond-grade well. While many more openly wondered how and why the other royals' vassals seemed less than lacking when compared to the most recently awakened. After each of the faceless inquires, however, I heard my forefathers, giving support and credit where credit was due. Serving only to elate me higher than I already was.

The rise in commotion seemed to restart as the first field began to spread over the ceiling. Within a few seconds, a billowing, multi-colored cloud of gas hung under the crystal before it condensed and fell into an orbit around him. After the next pulse, the crowd’s excitement amplified while the mana transformed into an eternal cloud of billowing fire. Light and energy cascaded into the crowd like a perpetual explosion, even going as far as to produce small shockwaves until it was absorbed. Giving us a small bout of peace until the ceiling pulsed again. Triggering an earth-shattering outburst from the crowd. Much to everyone's bemusement, however, the field transformed and condensed into a dense gray blob of energy that had no other features or marks on it at all.

Though I had my assumptions on what each of their awakened cores was, those assumptions would have to be set aside for a later time; as all the eyes within the walls of the construct and the antechamber suddenly turned to us. And so, without a word, we stood to begin our approach to the chamber’s interior door.