Volume 2: Masquerade - [Uriel Evernight Arc]
Chapter 56: Accidental Awakening
It was a dark space when Uriel opened her eyes; in front of her, everything was covered in pitach-black darkness, but just as she was struggling to see anything, a slight light came through in a straight line from her right side. The straight line expanded as the width increased by moving to the left.
Uriel closed her eyes as light fell into them; she opened them slowly as she blinked her eyes a few times before fully opening them.
She looked in front of her; she saw a few people in a variety of animal masks.
Five wore fox masks, three wore owl masks, and the remaining wore identical rabbit masks.
"Good morning, my lady." The masked owl spoke out as he greeted with his masculine voice.
Uriel was confused for a second about where she was, and her head was hurting after a minute of enduring the pain and adapting to it. As she felt the pain gone, she looked ahead of her again as she spoke out, "Good morning, where am I right now?"
She asked the question right away because the place she is seeing from her eyes right now is entirely different from how her room is supposed to look.
"An accident happened, causing you to awaken and become an awakener, and due to that, we had to shift you to some other place for safety reasons and also to make you join the academy." The same owl-masked man spoke again as he gave a brief summary of where and why she is in the place she is in right now.
"Elaborate on it more," Uriel said, as she was confused about what this masked man was saying, and she didn't know who the masked man was, except for the fact that they guarded her from the shadows.
"On the day when you heard that you were going to get engaged to Young Master Aeren Ashborn, the youngest brother of the Ashborn family, you fell down to the ground due to awakening. And due to that, we had to bring you here on the orders of what the master said. For you to more properly understand, I will begin to tell you about the awakening, my lady."
"Hmmm," Uriel nodded with a curious glance, as this is the first time she has heard about a topic called 'Awakening.' Despite having heard the word many times, this time the word 'Awakening' is used in a different way from the way they speak, and Uriel can tell that from the way her father ordered her to move away from the home and how these masked people are talking about the topic seriously.
"Awakening is the activation of the spiritual dormant core within your heart, unlocking access to Leym energy and your true affinity. Without Awakening, you remain an ordinary human. But with it, you step into the world of Awakeners. Awakening happens at random times and with strange rituals for each type of awakening. We don't know about what ritual happened to you that caused you to awaken, my lady. Can you please try to remember what happened before you went unconscious?" The masked owl said, and in the end asked a question.
Uriel tried to remember but couldn't get any memories of what happened, and she doesn't have any photographic memory to remember every single detail that happened around her.
After some intense thought, she didn't get any information from her memories. "I don't have a memory."
"It's alright, my lady. I think I have stressed you out on this one. Even without knowing anything about it, I can tell you about this awakener's world."
"Okay."
Every human is born with a dormant spiritual core located at the center of the heart, which awakens only through a three-stage ritual. These rituals are divided into two types: natural and artificial. A natural awakening happens spontaneously, triggered by chance, environment, or fate; like an accident, a storm, or even a surge of emotion might set it off. It is unpredictable and impartial and can occur to anyone, whether a beggar in the streets or the heir of a noble house. Artificial awakening, on the other hand, is a deliberate process created by studying and replicating past natural awakenings. These rituals are preserved by families or academies, allowing them to grant awakening in a controlled and reliable way."
"And your awakening is by chance, and that means it is a natural awakening, my lady. Is what I am saying too fast, or is it okay?" After talking about awakening, the masked owl, who is standing in the center, asked Uriel.
"It is good; you can continue." Uriel understood everything; despite how unreal this feels, so unreal, she knew these people wouldn't joke about things like this in front of her when she is the daughter of the second-richest family in the world.
"Next is based on one's awakening; they will get an element type, and directly connected to it comes the manifestation. Every element has different types of manifestations. For example, I have a fire element, but I have a different type of manifestation called "bright orange flame," and it has its own unique attributes, which are combat- and support-type attributes." He pulled out the bright orange flame on his right palm as the bright orange flame illuminated the room they were in.
Though the room already has lights on, the flames brighten it even more.
Uriel was amazed by the scene in front of her; her composure of how a noble should act collapsed instantly as she was shocked and amazed at seeing magic in front of her, and from this, she could tell she could also use superpowers like them. In a few seconds, she regained her composure as she coughed a bit as the owl-masked man started speaking again.
"Master only told us to tell you this; the remaining lessons should be learned in the academy."
Uriel, who heard those words, was angry as she got up from her seat; previously, when she was woken up, she got outside while listening to the speaking of the owl-masked man and sat on the chair.
"Hey, just tell me right now." Uriel shouted at the man, but he didn't budge as she heard the owl-masked man say, "Sorry, my lady, but we can't tell you more than this. Master specifically said that we can't tell you anything more than this and that you would go to the academy."
"Hmph." Uriel is angry at her father. Her father knows about her the best, and to let Uriel go to the academy, he planted the seed of curiosity and interest before dropping a pause to the conversation, like how if an episode of an anime is over but you can't wait for what happens next, you go and read the manga.
"Sigh, okay, tell me about the academy and the world of awakeners at least."
"Yes, my lady. I could do that."
"There are eight main organizations in the world: the seven churches and the awakening association. The seven churches created academies in their cathedrals, and every time an awakener awakens, they will be taken into these seven academies based on their religion, and it is not forceful, but it is compulsory to do that, as an awakener's duty is to protect the normal humans and other living beings from the demons and monsters that come into this world. If one doesn't comply with that, they will be branded as a traitor of humanity and get hunted by the whole world. This is also why Master insisted on sending you to the academy, my lady."
"These church people are all fanatics of gods and use religion as the basis to preach about their gods and rule everyone in this world with the rules they have made, sigh." Uriel cursed as she said to the masked group, "Okay, let's go then."
"The academy opens in two days, so you take rest in the Awakeners Association, and also the young master of the Ashborn family is coming to this place and going to the same academy as you."
"Since the Ashborn family prays to the Chronis Church, my lady, you will also go to the same place, and also because you are engaged with young Master Aeren, Master is sending you there."
"Oh, that's great." Uriel was embarrassed at the hearing of engaged.
From when she was a kid, both Uriel and Aeren were close friends, and though she didn't have any feelings for Aeren, they were slowly being born in her mind recently. And when she heard the engagement announcement, she became so shocked and shy, and also happy. (This is not NTR or anything to MC since her mind was manipulated and she forgot everything about MC, and I don't like NTR.)
For the next two days, she stayed in the Awakeners Association, and there she found her type of element and manifestation. With the help of masked people, they can only help with that only, and Uriel didn't ask any more than that since it is useless to talk with people like robots.
She sensed the colorless core in her heart and found out about her affinity at that time. The type of affinity can be told if one is awakened, and only then can they properly sense their affinity that has given birth inside their core.
And Uriel saw a small golden light inside the colorless core and instantly understood what her affinity was, and it was time, and the manifestation is time.
She told the masked people about it, and they found it shocking since time is not only one of the unique affinities, but it was also the affinity related to Chronis Church. And the number of people who got time affinity from the beginning of time was less than twenty.
And this is from the information stored by the Awakening Association and churches.
Uriel didn't know how to master the time affinity since she still didn't have the method to absorb Leym energy, as she had not thought about this method; she only found out about her affinity due to her gaining the inner sight technique.
She learned about this technique from the masked people, but they only told her that everyone has it and one needs to find it, and Uriel found it on her first try and comprehended it, and gained the technique.
On the day she is going to leave for the academy, Aeren Ashborn has arrived at the Awakeners Association.
[End Of Chapter 56]