Sometimes his mother could ask really stupid questions. He wondered if that was the true reason that she had been denied the chance to become a Wanderer. Maybe all that talk about her Roots being too weak was just because she was too embarrassed to tell the truth to him. Should he then tell her that he already knew the truth, and that there was no need for her to make such lies?
Before Ernith could go further down that train of thought, he felt his mother smack him on his head once again. “We still have some time, so think of something else,” she said. “No taking me as your Roots, or that stupid price as well. Otherwise, you can forget about becoming a Wanderer.” After a pause, she added, “And also, remember to never tell anyone about your Roots, not even to me, or to your father. Even till date, I don’t know what your father’s Roots are, and neither does he know what mine are. The Origin Sea has endless Mysteries. Only if no one knows about your Roots will it forever remain a secret.”
Ernith rubbed his head, glaring at her. Was she teaching him about keeping a secret? Should he tell her that he had kept a secret from everyone for more than six years, and how dumb she was for trying to teach him how to keep a secret? Or so Ernith thought, until he saw the look in her eyes. After that, he decided to keep quiet. At least for the moment. She may be a little dumb, but she was still stronger than him. For now. Not that he would fight her when he grew stronger. He loved her too much for that.
But after he would finally become a Warrior, maybe she would get too scared to hit him. That was another reason he was thinking of becoming a Warrior. After all, Scholars were too homely for his mother to get scared, while becoming an Arcanist would not help either. His father was an Arcanist, but even he had to bow down to his mother when he was at home. But he would not tell her that. He would just keep it a secret. It was another thing he had learned from the man in his dreams. Keeping secrets.
Rubbing his head, and quietly acquiescing to his mother’s demand to rethink his Roots, he once again started walking in front of her as they made their way through the festive streets of Anneve, greeting all the aunts and uncles they met along the way. They were nice people, if he did not take their habit to tease him into account. However, all of that would soon come to a stop. After all, he was going to become a Wanderer.
Not just him, but all the other children–people his age, were going to take their first step as Wanderers. That was what the Spirit Awakening Ritual was all about. Awakening the Spirits of all twelve year old people, and guiding them into laying their Roots in the Origin Sea. Once their connection with the Origin Sea would be established, then they would stop being children, and would become Seeds, people who could borrow the power of the Origin Sea and begin training their Spirits in preparation for Wandering the Origin Sea.
That was true for Ernith, and that was true for Reth, and Amaya as well. Living in the same part of the city, Ernith met up with them at the Western Altar Road on the way to the Origin Altar. Just like him, they were going to lay their Roots, and become Seeds. Hence, it was only natural that they would be dressed like him as well, in cumbersome, and heavy robes.
On other days, Amaya normally dressed up in loose frocks and shirts, while Reth went around getting covered in mud from the Warrior Hall’s training field at the Academy every day, so it did not matter what he normally wore. All of that would end up getting dirty and ruined anyway. However, following the traditions of the Spirit Awakening Ritual, it was normal for them to put on robes for the Ritual, Reth in yellow and white, and Amaya in green.
It had always been so. Even for those who could not afford it, the Orthodoxies would send their kids–young men and women, a pair of robes for the occasion of the Spirit Awakening Ritual. All the children–young men and women, at the age of twelve, the age of laying their Roots, would dress in robes, and walk towards the Origin Altar on the first day of the month of Ilea.
The march was a tradition that signified the conviction of children to become Wanderers, and to defend the world against the Thralls. And that conviction was what decided the strength of their Roots. Ernith already had his own conviction. His mother had asked him to change his Roots, and he probably really should. But even if he did change his Roots, his conviction would remain the same, to always be with his mother, and his father.
Looking at his two friends, Ernith wondered what their conviction was, and what the two would take their Roots as. With the two being weird as they were, he would not be surprised if they took something weird as their Roots, or conviction as well. Should he reminded to at least not fight for the day? Or maybe he should not. At this point, fighting each other was practically their way of greeting each other.
In the beginning, it was not like that. When they had first met, it had looked like the two would get along with each other and had even been almost inseparable from each other for a small period of time. Then, on one particular day, they had gotten into a fight after a small argument over something that they had long forgotten about.
From that day forth, the two never got along with each other. They were still inseparable from each other, but for a completely different reason. No matter the time or place, if they got a chance, they would always be at each other’s throats. Many times, Ernith had to step in himself to stop their fights. Yet no matter how they fought, the two also refused to stop being friends with each other. They were just too weird. Still, they were his friends, and that would remain the same even if they chose some weird conviction, or Roots.
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Withdrawing his focus from them, Ernith looked around himself, and the road they were on, the Western Altar Road. Like the other seven Altar Roads, it cut through Anneve from its outermost fringes, directly to its centre, the central plaza, and the Origin Altar. And in the process, it also took them through the core city of Anneve, which also happened to be what he was trying to get a glimpse of.
Normally, both the core city, and the Altar Roads, were reserved for the Orthodoxies, and highly esteemed Wanderers. What that meant, Ernith did not know. He just knew that his, and Reth’s father, Wanderers as they were, were still not allowed walk on the Altar Road on normal days. And though his father was allowed to go to the core city, that was because he worked for the Redbud family. But his father was not at an important enough position in the Redbud family to bring Ernith, and his mother into the core city.
However, since the Spirit Awakening Ritual was held right in the centre of the city, including the core city, the Lotus clan ruling the city had no choice but to allow everyone the passage to the central plaza through the Altar Roads. And so, not counting the Academies, which lay partly in the core city, and partly on the inner edge of the inner city, only on the day of laying their Roots were the people, other than those affiliated with the Orthodoxies, allowed to pass through the core city, and get its glimpse. That was another reason why Ernith had been so excited.
Ernith had been born and raised in Anneve. That was his whole world. In particular, the inner city of Anneve was his whole world. Yet according to the books that he had read, Anneve itself was just one of the smallest cities in the Evenfall prefecture of the Ann province. And when considered in the perspective of the whole country of Rianra, it was just a remote city located near its southwestern borders.
Thus, being able to finally leave his small world, and take a step towards seeing the vast world that lay just beyond his own, was too thrilling for Ernith. Even though he was not allowed to go anywhere else but the Central Plaza, his thrill did not diminish in any way. At least he could still see some of the core city on either side of the Altar Road as he made his way towards the central plaza. Even that was not something that he could get the chance to do every day.
As such, Ernith made sure to make the best of what he could, comparing what he was seeing with what he knew about the city. Having seen the map, and layout of the city, he was aware that from the top view, the city looked like a spider’s web, being divided into roughly four parts by its streets, and its architecture. The dead centre of the city was the central plaza, where he, and the other people on the Altar Road were going. It had only one thing, the Origin Altar, which was only used for the Spirit Awakening Ritual, and nothing else.
A little further out from the Origin Altar, with the Origin Altar at its centre, a small circle marked the second division of the city. Within the circle, covering roughly one tenth to one twelfth of the city’s area, lay the core city, where the Lotus clan lived. Outside of the circle, and within a larger circle that had its boundaries a little further out, covering roughly one third of the city’s area, lay the inner city. Ernith lived in the inner part of the inner city, only a few streets away from the core city. So it took him only an hour to make it near the central plaza from his home. But he would not have minded even if his home would have been at the edge of the inner city.
As for the Outer City, that lay outside of the bigger circle marking the boundary of the inner city, covering almost two thirds of the city, his father had told him that for security reasons, no one living there was allowed to come into the inner city, let alone the core city, or the Origin Altar. And that was true even for the day of the Spirit Awakening Ritual. As it was a very important Ritual, there could not be any room for errors. Thus, they could not take risks by allowing the people of the outer city to come into the inner, and even the core city. What if there were some Heterodox Wanderers mixed in them?
Shoving his thoughts about the other things away, Ernith focussed his attention on the core city, or at least the part of it that he could see, comparing it to how his father had described it to him. Except for a few differences, it looked exactly the same. Strange, and large buildings, completely different from the buildings of the inner city, surrounded by an endless spread of lush green gardens.
The core city, of course, was much more than that. And Ernith wished to see all of it. Unfortunately, for that he would have had to leave the Altar Road and enter the core city itself. Something strictly prohibited by the Lotus clan. So he had to satisfy himself with what he could see, and leave the rest for later, when he would become an esteemed Wanderer, and gain the right to go wherever he wished. Yet, for that, he would have to lay his Roots first. So after getting a satisfying glimpse of the core city, Ernith started to think of what he could take as his Roots. Unfortunately, there were just too many things to choose from. And so, he reached the central plaza before he could complete his thoughts.
However, it looked like both Ernith, and his mother had underestimated the enthusiasm of the people for the Spirit Awakening Ritual, as by the time they arrived, the central plaza was already filled with more than a thousand people, waiting for the Ritual to begin, while even more people kept pouring in to keep increasing the crowd. It was hard for them to find his father in such a crowd.
So after wishing for the blessings of Goddess Ilea for his two friends, Ernith, and his mother separated from them, and forced their way through the crowd to where the North-western Altar Road opened up into the plaza. Since the Redbud family lived in the north-western part of the core city, if his father had yet to come to the plaza, then that was the direction where he would most probably come from. Thus, finding a place that would make them look a little more conspicuous than the rest of the crowd, Ernith waited with his mother for his father to find them.
After a while, when neither he, nor his mother found any signs of his father, it became apparent that he had not yet come to the plaza. But he did not mind. His father had promised him after all. So while Enn kept climbing higher and higher in the sky, and more and more people kept pouring into the Plaza, Ernith kept searching among those people for his father. He kept searching, and searching, until no more people came, after which, his search turned into a wait. Then, he kept waiting, and waiting, until Enn reached his zenith in the sky, and the time for the Spirit Awakening Ritual to begin finally arrived. But his father did not.