Lamia walked with the boy in her arms out of the big room they had been staying in, into the main hall of the Temple. She had been waiting for the ceremony to start in that room since early in the morning. As a pass time she had told Tristan, her youngest son, her favorite fairy tale. But now it was finally time for the ceremony.
Lamia was really excited because today was Tristan’s initiation ceremony. The initiation ceremony is a ritual every child had to go through. It is a ritual to judge the magical potential of the children, to seal the magic powers of the children to protect them and their surroundings from accidents and to introduce the new family members to Fors the ruler of the three realms.
The ceremony was held one week after the second birthday. Children under the age of two didn’t have to worry about magical accidents so there was no reason to hold it earlier. No matter how fast a child did grow the earliest point in time the 'mana circuits' would start forming was after the second birthday.
As the name suggests mana circuits are a circuit inside the body. They cover the whole body much like nerves or the bloodstream just that they are used to transport 'mana'. The older one got and the more one trained, the more complex and thicker the circuits got.
Mana is the energy one needs to use magic. To be able to channel that energy one needs a mana circuit. Mana is generated passively and stored in one of the two mana poles of the body. The South Pole is found in the belly area. The North Pole is found in the area around the right eye. Depending on what type of magic one wants to use one Pole is activated. Magic users most of the time don’t realize which pole they are using because channeling the mana from one of the Poles happens subconsciously.
Lamia brought Tristan to the center of the dome shaped main building of the temple, where the high priest and his helpers had already been waiting. She handed Tristan to one of the female helpers of the high priest. She went to one of the benches around the altar the priests were on. Now she was reunited with her family. Her husband was there with her eldest son so where her parents and her parents in law. Many other people were also attending the ceremony.
The initiation ceremony was second to ones wedding the most important moment of one’s life. Therefore the parents would invite all their friends to take part in the ceremony and the celebrations later on. Lamia was the head of the ‘Schatten’, one of the three clans ruling Umbra. Ergo, it was no surprise the main building of the great temple was full with people attending little Tristan’s initiation ceremony.
The female helper holding Tristan placed the boy in the middle of a magic circle. The other five helpers surrounded the magic circle the boy was in and started to move around in a very unnatural manner. From the outsider’s perspective, it looked like they were twitching nervously and convulsing around the kid. But it was all part of the ceremonial dance to attract Fors attention.
The head priest began chanting some words in the 'old language'. The old language was once spoken by every race; before the division of the world in three dimensions. After the division each race developed their own language. The old language is now only used during religious ceremonies.
The magic circle the boy was sitting on started glowing. Lamia did hold her breath. The moment she had been waiting for a week was finally here. The whole room was illuminated by holy light. Nobody present had ever seen the holy light shining so bright during an initiation ceremony.
Was Fors going to decent to give the boy his blessings? It had been almost ten millennia since the last time Fors personally visited Umbra. The last time he visited Umbra, was after the separation of the three continents.
Lamia couldn’t help but feel proud. She knew everybody was thinking the same thing. Everybody knew Fors would appear any moment now. The intensity of the holy light kept rising till it reached the point people had to use barriers to not get hurt by it.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
The spectacle of light continued for five whole minutes. The intensity of the holy light kept increasing. Everybody was lost in thoughts like ‘How am I supposed to face Fors?’ ‘Why would a Fors descent now?’
A loud bang brought everybody back to reality. The holy light was suddenly gone. The magic circle the boy was sitting on was shattered into thousand pieces. The six helpers of the head priest were hurled out from the altar they had been on.
To everyone’s surprise Fors was nowhere to be found. A loud but gentle voice could be heard. The voice saying “Sorry guys I had no Intention of damage the altar and the magical circle” didn’t belong to Fors. The voice sounded too young for Fors. So who was the one speaking?
The speaker now addressed Lamia, who had been holding her husband’s hands so tightly some bones were crushed. “Don’t worry Lady Schatten, Tristan is ok. You probably want to hear now about his magical potential, right?” Lamia just nodded. In this situation she wasn’t able to squeeze out a single word.
“Well… what stats am I supposed to start with? Sorry I’m kinda new to this whole initiation ceremony thingy. It wasn’t a thing yet, back in my days.” The head priest stuttered “We usually start with the magical potential sire.” – “Oh! Right! Thanks man! Hmm the kid’s magical potential is pretty high. Ohh! … Wow! ... To be honest the potential of his mana pool is unrivaled by any other person in this world. That is just if he trains enough”
Lamia’s eyes started to shine. She knew it! Her little Tristan was made to do great things! She found the confidence back, she had as the head of the Schatten and asked the voice “What about his 'passive and active abilities'? Does he have a 'prophecy'?”
Every demon has an active and a passive ability. The passive ability allows a demon cast magic without having to use a catalyst. A demon’s passive ability works like an inborn catalyst that enables the demons to use one of the three dark magic types. Dark magic is subdivided into shadow magic, death magic and chaos magic. If a demon wants to use a magic type that doesn’t fit its passive it has to either use a magic circle, a chant or a gem as a catalyst.
The active ability is a special skill varying from demon to demon. The variety of special skills reaches from breathing fire over shape shifting to telekinesis. The abilities are ranked after popularity. The more people have the same ability the weaker it is ranked. The reasoning behind it is, the more often one fights a certain ability the easier it is to find a counter to it.
“It seems we have an eager one here!” said the cheerful voice. “I dunno though if you’re gonna like what I am about to say. Anyways, let’s see what his passive ability is! Can someone please take notes? What I’m about to say is rather rare around here. His passive ability is called ‘checkmate’.” The words of the youth invoked puzzled looks from his audience.
The voice noticed this and gave a meager explanation. “You probably want to know what this passive ability does, right? Hmm… according to the description I have, his passive gives him the ability to think faster than other mortal.” No one seemed sold on the explanation so the youth added a little annoyed “On Aetas crown! It means he is smartest mortal in this world! Thinking about it he even might be smarter than some gods, me included… Feels bad man, right?
Sorry for that little outburst, I am just bad at holding back my emotions. Let’s get going it is not like you or I have all day to hang around here, right? Here comes the good part! His active ability is 'Gates'. Before you ask, my sheet says it is a variety of ‘Rüsten’.” Lamia’s world caved in. Not only had her son not inherited her shadow magic, but he also had the most common and useless active power of all! ‘Rüsten’ is an ability that allows one to summon weapons from a pre arranged room. It is useless because everyone knows how to summon things through magic and summoning magic is a very mana efficient spell.
“I can see it in your faces; you are not really pleased with ‘his’ verdict. Hope you know it can be changed, right? If you want to I can tell you his prophecy. I have no clue though what it is supposed to mean. Maybe you want to write it down and give it to him one day. He is supposed to be smart so I am sure he will figure it out, right?. It says: ‘The boy who should not have been born shall challenge Fate and change the world with his companion the: mightiest her.’ Well, that’s all from my side so… Good luck boy, you’ll probably need it, right? ... See you later people I’m out!”
“Wait!” Lamia cried, but she received no answer. The owner of the voice was already gone and there was no way to bring him back. Lamia was standing there staring at her child, tears flowing down her cheeks. “The boy who should not have been born…” she whispered over and over again only for her to hear.