*Dong, dong, dong, dong*

With this, the church became deathly silent in a matter of seconds, and from the doorway of the church, the priest emerged. It was the same priest who had been teaching Nikola. However, today he was wearing a grey robe with two cloth sashes, with either end strapped down by his belt, while looping over his shoulders.

His left strip had the three stripes of White, Yellow, and Blue, while the right strip had Red, Green and Black, they were in the order of the seasons from left to right.

He walked down the aisle with two attendants who were just in grey robes, however, one was carrying a staff with a horseshoe at the top with six protrusions pointing out. The other carrying three 1-foot sticks, one gold, one black and white and the other purple, held closely to his chest with folded arms. These represented luck, presence, and perception.

The priest reached the altar and turned to the crowd, his two attendants walked around the altar and stood behind it, facing the crowd. “Good morning, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters.”

“Good morning father,” the crowd murmured back.

“Today is a day of celebration, today we have endured chaos, earth, water, fire, and wind and have now come to order. But our journey is not over, for order, too holds many dangers, but unlike the dangers we have faced so far, these dangers are hidden, they do not reveal themselves to us openly.”

Through the endurance of all six elements, only then can we orient ourselves on this earth and take a firm step forward. Today, many of you will be taking your first few steps through these challenges,” The priest gestured to the kids in colourful tunics “and others who continue to stride forwards.” He gestured to the adults in colourful tunics.

“But today, we take the next step together, to progress on our path of life, and to greater heights.”

“In the beginning, there were only the six elements, separated, from each other in their own realms, constantly battling each other for dominance, then one day, chaos birthed intelligence, but this intelligence was slipping away in the chaos, fading in and out of existence.”

“but this intelligence was not content with its being, it decided to make an anchor in the realms, a vessel, a body to latch onto. But the only constant source was earth, so it tried to make a body of earth, taking a huge pile from the earth realm, but it just kept crumbling to dust when he tried to bring it to the chaos realm.

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“So, this being had another idea, he would turn it into clay, to stick together, and so this intelligence got regathered his lump of earth, and added a lump of water and combined them, and this worked, and the intelligence was becoming smarter, and wiser.”

“However, this clump of mud was still being distorted by the forces of the elements, so the intelligence decided to harden it, and to do that, it got a clump of fire, and added it to his clump of mud, giving it warmth and hardening it.”

“But while the body was now firm, it was also brittle, and the forces of the realms were causing cracks and splinters to form all over it. So the intelligence grabbed a lump of wind elements and created a barrier, but these elements that were combined were being held together by chaos. And this caused the body to go through a constant cycle of destruction and creation, nothing lasting.”

“So, the only thing the intelligence was able to take next was order, and so it took a lump of order, and added it to his body, calming the elements down, in fact calming the elements too much, the intelligence found itself starting to become duller, the body becoming stale, and void.

In contrast, became much wiser, and through his wisdom and experience, he knew he needed to add more chaos, so he grabbed a lump of chaos into his body.”

“From this the world became alive, and with his intelligence and wisdom, he slowly gathered more and more elements to keep feeding it while balancing each of the elements. and from this, four different realms emerged, connecting themselves to this body, allowing him to add their elements to him, in the same way, that the first 6 had.”

“The realm of neutrality, giving it the power to endure the forces of the elements, the realm of the divine, gave this body life, the plants the trees the animals, the realm of the perceived giving the intelligence and its body presence in the void, and finally the realm of judgement, allowing the intelligence the ability to see.”

Nikola was listening with rapt attention. This was the first time hearing these stories, he didn’t know what to make of them. Were they real, were they fake?

“And from this, the intelligence gained consciousness of itself and gave itself a name Zoran, and became god onto us all, creating and guiding us as we proceed further in life.”

“We pay homage to him through the seasons and baptisms,

the first being chaos, represented by the colour white, and the first season of the year, where animals are waking up from hibernation, with new offspring,

Earth, represented by yellow, the season for planting crops and forming a foundation for the future,

Water, represented by blue, the third season of the year, fertilising the grounds and provides sustenance,

Fire, represented by Red, the fourth season, gives heat and warmth allowing us to grow,

The wind is represented by green, the fifth season, the time of harvest, where we collect our grains and finish our hard work to protect us going forwards

Order, represented by Black, where the world enters a state of calmness, where animals hibernate, and we reflect on the year that has been.”

The priest rambled on a bit more until the time came for the baptism. The attendants moved to the back of the church, opposite side of the altar, and picked up a large chest, bringing it to the altar and resting it on top of it. They opened to reveal a mellow golden glow.

“Come, my children, come to me,” the priest said, as he started the baptism ceremony