A once bright and welcoming plain was now dark and muddy, tainted by an unexpected storm that had rolled in that very same day. The worst they’d had in years, they’d said. Lightning struck an empty field, but the grass was already far too soaked to come alight, so all that happened was a lone magpie was scared from its nest and flew away.

Whether or not it would survive the day was uncertain, but it knew no better than to go out into such a storm. How was it to know the danger, when it had never experienced anything quite so bad, and there was no one to tell it to stay safe at home?

The nearby village of Mantlemount, named for the shadows cast by the nearby mountain that cloak the village in shadow in the morning, and keep it hidden from anyone not dedicated to searching for it, appeared to be empty. Every villager was locked away in their homes, hoping that the storm passes soon so that their crops have a chance of surviving and they can get back to work. Every villager, that is, apart from one.

Robert Zeneki hadn’t ever experienced a storm quite so bad, but he had heard of villagers going out into much tamer storms and never returning. He didn’t have anyone tell him to stay safe at home, but he had heard the same being said to the other children, and he was smart enough to understand that the same should apply to him.

But some things were more important than being safe, warm and dry.

Today was the day of his Awakening, and if he failed to get the right Path, he might just be better off dead. Well, perhaps that was him being mildly overdramatic, but the sentiment remains the same. He would climb that mountain or die trying.

Rob met no resistance when leaving the house, his mother gave him a small disappointed look, and his father shook his head before returning to whatever it was he was doing to pass the time, but neither made a move to stop him. This worked quite well for his plans, but he couldn’t help but be a little disappointed that they cared so little. It’s not like that was anything new, but it still stung after all these years.

He wrapped his cloak around him tightly, but that didn’t do much to stave off the cold or the rain. Something made out of leather would have been better, but he couldn’t exactly have planned for something like this to happen, so he made do with what he had.

The village’s dirt roads weren’t exactly built for stormy weather, in fact, they weren’t built at all. They were just the natural result of people walking the same way for decades, and were probably worse at handling rain than just plain grass. Moving on the side of the road, where there was still plenty of plantlife, proved this hypothesis correct. The mud wasn’t even sucking his boots off his feet, which was nice.

Soon he reached the edge of the village, with not even one person trying to sway him from this course of action. If anyone else had tried to do something so stupid they probably wouldn’t have even made it outside, even if people knew it was to get the best Awakening possible.

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Trying not to focus on his isolation, Rob trudged onward. The entire path up to where he wanted to go was covered in a dense forest, but that actually provided pretty good cover from the rain, so his walk was much more pleasant than he expected. There was the occasional whistle of the wind through trees and leaves, but something like that wouldn’t unnerve him enough to deter him from his goal.

The walk, whilst uneventful, still took hours and left Rob’s legs tired and painful, but he finally made it to the crack in the cliff face that would take him to his goal. It was just barely too thin for him to walk through normally, so he was forced to go through the discomfort of sliding through it sideways, feeling the occasional rock jab him in the leg or back.

It was more treacherous than usual, and he worried about what would happen if he slipped and got lodged in between the walls, but that thankfully never passed and he made it to the other side. He was close, but this was the most dangerous part of the journey. Emerging from the crack he found himself on a familiar cliff overlooking the village. It was a good dozen metres above the ground, and falling would most likely result in his death, even if it didn’t happen right away it was unlikely that someone would come looking for him, but it was worth it for what was just around one final corner.

There was a small lip that he’d been able to shimmy across just fine previously, but was certainly much more dangerous now with the rain pelting his face and coating the rock in water. Rob furrowed his brows and gripped the first handhold, then slowly began to shuffle. This was a well worn route to him, he’d been here dozens of times in the past months after all, but he quickly noticed that it wasn’t quite as familiar as it once was.

In places that once held rocks, firmly lodged in place, there were now only small divots in the cliff face. Once again, his normally casual trip had been made infinitely more challenging. He ignored the doubt that was beginning to creep into his mind and resolutely continued on, managing to make it over three quarters of the way there with no difficulty. Of course, he’d had far too easy a time getting this far, and felt the rock he’d just grabbed begin to come loose.

“Shit!” He began to lose his balance, and attempted to grab another rock in a blind panic, but only ended up punching the solid rock for his trouble. The world seemed to slow down as adrenaline coursed through his system. He realised that he was going to die if he did nothing here, at the angle he was falling he wouldn’t be surprised if he landed square on his head and died instantly.

This time, he didn’t panic. A strange sense of calm came over him… and he jumped. His torso slammed into the rough ground, and he almost thought he heard something crack in his ribcage, but he’d made it. He was halfway hanging off the edge, and he may have broken a rib, and there was also a slight chance that he would contract hypothermia, but there in front of his face was a small, glowing flower.

He climbed up the ledge, careful not to step on the flower, and then sat down next to it to catch his breath. After a few minutes of deep, painful breathing, he carefully plucked the flower and brought it close to his face, examining every detail. It had four identical, softly glowing, cyan petals, but the rest of it looked just like a normal flower. Before he could have any doubts, he shoved the flower in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. For a moment nothing happened, but then he got it. His first ever System notification.

Active Mana Pool Detected Expediting Awakening

He felt a surge of something pleasant rushing through him as he looked to the sky in relief, before he saw a lightning bolt that, for a fraction of a second, seemed to curve towards him before his vision went blank and he felt blinding pain.

As he began to feel his consciousness fade, he felt more than saw another notification appear.

Unusually High Lightning Affinity Detected

Narrowing Path Choices