The line of UnMarked winding its way into the temple did not dwindle for the entirety of the next two days. I didn’t know of any UnMarked who didn’t want a second chance to receive the goddess’s grace. I even saw Sarina’s parents, recluses as they were, waiting for their turns.
Not only did everyone want a Mark, as was a normal desire in Edrona, but everyone also wanted to help fight against the Nagari threat. Edrona was their home just as much as it was for the Marked, and they wanted to help defend it.
My curiosity reached levels that matched everyone else’s in this situation; I couldn’t help but watch and wonder if people would receive a Mark. Of course, I didn’t have time to sit for two straight days watching people enter and leave the Temple of Euridice. I had to train. And I did train. But that didn’t stop me from heading into town with Drayek at least a couple of times a day and marvel at the fact that about a dozen UnMarked for every 50 left their ceremonies with a brand new Mark.
Even most who remained UnMarked insisted on commissioning Blacksmiths to forge non-Tiered weapons and non-Tiered armor so they could still assist in the upcoming battle.
Near the end of the second day after my most recent Marking Ceremony, I had finally plopped down onto my lumpy cot. Just before I could start massaging my aching limbs– achy from a day’s worth of training with both a sword and spear and forcing myself to run about 100 laps around our training arena–Drayek barrelled through the door, returning home early from an Elders’ Council.
“Priest Kane wishes to address all of Edrona,” Drayek said.
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Is it mandatory?”
Drayek gave me a pointed look. We both knew that anything that Priest Kane requested was, in fact, mandatory. At least in all of the Priests’ eyes. Meaning, we should feel that way, too.
I sighed but began getting back into my Tier 1 armor that I had just taken off and then slid my sword that I’d set next to the bed into its sheath at my side. Drayek and I had been wearing our armor and keeping our weapons at hand every time we left the hovel. The Nagari army was too close to take any chances.
I nodded at Drayek, indicating I was ready to leave.
***
The stares and whispers I brought about just from my presence in town were not anything I wasn’t used to. In fact, I couldn’t help but think of my past as an outcast as preparation for such behavior. But these stares and comments were… different from what they’d been before. I didn’t hear a single insult, and I even caught a few smiles thrown in my direction.
“Drayek,” I said as he and I found a place to stand near the back of the gathering crowd, “why is everyone acting so–”
“Strange?”
I glanced around at the welcoming faces. “Very strange.”
“That’s how people treat a hero.”
I laughed. “I’m not a hero.”
Drayek leaned closer to my ear and whispered, “The fact that you are the first to ever receive a second ceremony and actually receive the goddess’s grace, even after she denied you the first time, is astounding to everyone. You started a new age for Edrona, Rayden. Now, people will be offered a second chance from here on out.”
“One, I did not come out with a Mark,” I said, careful to keep my voice low so that no one else could hear. “And two, Edrona might not survive this battle. Any regard to what the future might look like for our city is irrelevant.”
“But you gave them hope, Rayden.”
Did I?
I surveyed the tight crowd of a few thousand Edronans piling together in front of the Temple of Euridice. There were about 5,000 Edronans in total. And all of them—the elderly, children, Hunters, Tradespeople… —stood tall with chins lifted and eyes shining with courage.
Drayek was right. The air surrounding me felt almost light as it brimmed with hope. But how much did that actually have to do with me? Drayek was the one who had arranged my second ceremony. And I wasn’t one of the UnMarked that had actually come out with a Mark.
I felt like a fraud.
But I couldn’t help but feel thrilled by the change. I’d spent my entire life trying to accept that no one would ever like me. And now… they did like me. So, if there really was hope, something everyone needed at this moment, did it really matter where that hope had come from?
A hush fell over the crowd as the 12 Priests of Edrona marched out of the temple doors, then lined up in front of the goddess’s statue to face the people. The Priests' current apprentices followed closely behind, all in similar robes but with less gold embellishment along the sleeves. Sarina was included among the number as the apprentices offered their respective bows to the Priests, then found their own places amid the crowd.
I could not see Sarina’s face very well from where I stood, but she seemed to walk without pain, and I could see no obvious deformity on her nose. Priestess Nora must have healed her well.
My shoulders sank in relief. No amount of my rationalizing could have stopped the wrenching guilt I felt for having crushed her nose during our duel. I was glad that her face now looked as beautiful and as normal as ever.
Priest Kane took two steps in front of his fellow Priests, then raised his arms high above his head.
“Praise the goddess!” he cried. “Praise her all-knowing and all-encompassing love for her people!”
He lowered his arms and stared into the crowd with tight-knit brows. “We must all pray with gratitude to Lady Euridice. She has blessed more people with Marks than she ever has! She has allowed her UnMarked to gain Soul Strength and try again! With their new Soul Strength, she has deemed them fit to cultivate safely and further serve her and Edrona.”
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
She definitely wants them to serve her, I thought bitterly.
I watched as many among the crowd outstretched their arms toward the Lady Euridice statue that stood tall as ever in front of her temple. With everything I knew about her, it made me furious to see the love these people had for the goddess–a goddess that only cared about the potential power each of them could give to her. She didn’t love us; we were her slaves!
The more people the goddess could Mark, the more people she could steal essence from. She was probably thrilled by the “second chances” the UnMarked had recently received. Perhaps this had been a part of her plan all along. Everyone knew you could build up your Soul Strength over time, so why couldn’t the UnMarked do the same thing? The answer, as we had all learned over these last two days, is that they can. So why wouldn’t Lady Euridice want as many people as possible cultivating and providing her power within the Erudition Collective?
My narrowed eyes rested on the stone face of the statue, but I had to quickly drop my gaze as I felt a weight of darkness suddenly settle onto my chest. Even though I stood at the back of the gathering and a couple hundred feet away from the temple, the unwelcome presence I had felt during my last ceremony loomed over me like an ominous shadow.
I shook my head and tried to pay attention to Priest Kane’s words:
“Her generosity could not have come at a better time!” the Priest bellowed with an encouraging smile. “An army of Nagari are but four days away! And instead of having just 2,000 Marked to fight against an army of much greater size, we now have 3,000!”
“Is that really going to make much of a difference?” I said to Drayek over the cheering.
Edrona’s population was right at 5,000, and even with the new Marked, we still only had just over half of us who could offer much to the fight. Others remained UnMarked, and many were too old and frail, and the rest were children not yet of the Marking Ceremony age.
“It makes a difference–even if slight,” Drayek said. “You have to remember, most Nagari cannot fight someone above a Tier 2 alone. The Tier 3 Elders can definitely take on at least ten each at one time. And with 1,000 new Tier 1s, they can definitely hold their own. At least for a while.”
“Many of us remain UnMarked! What if we still want to fight?” someone I couldn’t see shouted. His voice carried from somewhere near the front of the crowd.
Priest Kane raised a hand to stop the eruption of hollered agreement. “We will not stop anyone who wishes to fight. But we do ask that children below the Marking Ceremony age of 16 remain hidden in their homes for the duration of the battle.”
Complaints from a multitude of adolescents rang in my ears.
“Hunts will increase by tenfold,” Priest Kane continued. “Any loot we can find is essential to our battle preparations. And please remember to bring all prizes you find on these excursions to us.”
He gestured at himself and the other 11 Priests standing behind him.
“We will decide, with the goddess’s help, how we will distribute the goods when the time is right,” Priest Kane said amid the unhappy grumbling.
The Priests had already announced this change to the city, but that didn’t stop people from disliking the idea. But their faith in the goddess and her chosen, the Priests, was stronger than any doubt the Edronans had.
Now, I’m not Edronan. I didn’t need faith. I didn’t even know if the Priests had the ability to actually confer with the goddess, as they claimed to. For all I knew, they sat in that temple day in and day out, just drinking ale and laughing about Blacksmith Gerald’s desperate need for a bath.
But no, all I needed to worry about was how I could prepare myself for this oncoming war.
***
I had already been on two hunts the day after Priest Kane’s speech. When Priest Kane had said that they’d increased the scheduled hunts tenfold, he’d really meant it. On both of these hunts, I had accompanied Drayek and his Hunters. And I even had another five scheduled before the Nagari army was expected to arrive within the next three days.
We gathered our monster hides, hearts, and cores during our hunts and turned them into the Priests, as they had requested, but not without Drayek, me, and the rest of the Hunters secretly pocketing what we could. Morally, none of us felt guilty about that. If we had any chance in this war (and we really didn’t have much of a chance), we had to gather essence and try to get stronger.
There was lots of talk about someone maybe breaking through to Tier 4, including in Drayek’s group of Hunters. There were even arguments about who deserved it more and who would get there first.
What I didn’t like seeing, however, were the prayers and offerings made to Lady Euridice. All of the Edronans, save for Drayek, prayed in the streets and sacrificed their meat to the goddess for help. And that just made me angry. I had a hard time believing she would help any of us. Why should she care?
But I ignored all of my emotions and dedicated every thought and intention toward getting stronger. If I wasn’t on hunts, I was training–training my butt off! I allowed myself only four hours of sleep each night, then hit that training arena with Drayek, as long as we weren’t scheduled for a hunt.
Drayek scrimmaged with me again and again, encouraging me to fight interchangeably with both my shortsword and my spear and keep both with me at all times. Gerald had made me a horizontal back sheath to carry the spear easily as I traveled. So, with the spear strapped to my back and the sword at my hip, I was ready for almost anything.
At the end of the fifth day after my recent Marking Ceremony, I found myself alone in the training arena. It was well into the night, and I continued my repetitions of spear thrusts and practicing my rolls and dashes with the weapon in hand, and even a few times with the spear strapped to my back, all the while absorbing any stray streams of essence I saw floating about.
Before I knew it, the night sky was beginning to transform into shades of dark blue, indicating that dawn was approaching. Knowing I had a hunt in a few hours, I decided to slow down for the night–or early morning, I guess–and get myself to bed as soon as possible.
But I was determined to cultivate first.
I sat down as comfortably as I could in the middle of the arena and breathed myself into a meditative state. I’d gathered a lot of essence in the last few days since my second ceremony and had only meditated once, having already reached Tier 1, Level 7. But I knew I now had a lot more essence within me to use up.
I did as I always did, transferring the essence to my core. The gold glow of the Tier screen popped up in my vision.
STATUS
NAME: CLONE #52
TIER: 1
LEVEL: 10
Level 10? I thought.
Codex had said there were 10 levels within Tier 1. Was I really that close to Tier 2? It took years, sometimes decades, for the Edronans to advance from Tier 1 to Tier 2. The amount of essence I was able to gather and not have stolen from me by the goddess must be a lot more than I had previously thought….
“Would you like me to suggest where to allocate your 9 free stat points, Master?”
“No,” I replied matter-of-factly.
And before Codex could argue, I placed the points where I wanted them, then read over my work with satisfaction:
STATS:
MIGHT: 10 (+3)
AGILITY: 9 (+1)
VITALITY: 9
INTELLIGENCE: 8 (+1)
WISDOM: 7 (+1)
WILLPOWER: 11 (+3)
FREE STAT POINTS: 0
“Master, that is not what Lord Solomon chose when he reached Tier 1, Level 10.” It almost sounded like concern laced Codex’s squeaky voice.
“And as I’ve told you, I’m not Lord Solomon. I am going through different experiences. Did he have to battle a Nagari army at Tier 1?”
“But Mas-”
“Drop it, Codex. That’s where I want my points.”
“As you wish, Master.”
Codex went silent, to my satisfaction. When I looked at those numbers, I saw well-balanced statistics, perfect to aid me in a battle where who knew what could happen? And I had put an emphasis on Might to aid me in killing a large number of monsters, and I had tried to keep my personal strength up there, as well; my Willpower. Hadn’t Codex said something about that category being Lord Solomon’s favorite? So, I wasn’t completely deterring from his path.