As the carriage carried John towards the academy, John began to examine the engraved mark that his father had placed on him. He tried circulating aether towards it and suddenly a quick strand of aether slithered away from the mark and entered his core.
After quite some time, John remarked, "This aether technique is truly wondrous but the name is… lacking." It turned out that John's father had left the aether technique in a strand of aether, and John had just received the aether technique.
The name of the aether technique was… the Verrien Family Secret Aether technique. Very generic and not something one would expect much from. However unlike the name, the aether technique was nothing to scoff at.
Normally, for Awakened Core Mages, in order to advance, they would polish up their aether pathways and compress their core. Then, finally they would expel impurities from the aether core, and engrave aether lines within their purified core, which all together makes the core ten times faster and efficient, advancing to the next stage, the Developed Core stage.
However, depending on the different aether techniques, the degree to which mages polish, compress, and expel varied, meaning that in the developed core stage mages strength varied greatly.
For the Verrrien Families aether technique, along with polishing one was able to add new pathways. They would also be able to expel and compress much more compared to regular mid ranked nobles, and most importantly the aether lines which they engrave within their core was able to amplify the core's speed by over twofold.
All of these boosts added up together meant that mage who used the Verrien Family aether technique would be at least five fold stronger than a regular mage using a mid ranked noble families technique.
But, all of this was not enough to make John remark how wondrous the aether technique is. The true reason was that just like how John's core had an automatic breathing technique engraved onto it, the Verrien family's aether technique also allowed for one to engrave a chosen spell into it, making the spell much more stronger and reducing the amount of aether needed along with other benefits.
Fully immersing himself, into the intricacies of the aether technique, John didn't even notice when the carriage carrying him touched the ground.
"Young Lord John, we have arrived," said a voice from the front of the carriage. "I see," replied John before stepping out of the carriage.
Looking up, John was temporarily stunned. In front of him, or above him to be exact, spanned a massive floating citadel suspended by clouds. On the top of the citadel stood a massive colosseum, with flashes of light emerging from it. Looking in front of him, John saw a marble staircase reaching towards the clouds, leading up to the grand entrance of the citadel.
Observing his surroundings, John found many nobles already congregating in small groups. John even spotted some familiar faces, such as Amber Stratos, Michael Caelthorn, and some of the other ten awakeners in the awakening ceremony.
Looking at the clothing of the different nobles, John saw that most of the Celeste Kingdom nobles wore clothes that were grey or blue, while other nobles wore other colors, all corresponding to their kingdom's most prominent aether element.
While looking around, John noticed that most of the nobles were around the ages of 10-15 with only a few being around ages similar to his. "Hmmm," thought John, "This is probably due to the timing of the awakening ceremonies. It appears that the awakening ceremony is very important for mages. Makes sense, I probably wouldn't have formed such a powerful core if there hadn't been so much pure aether assisting me."
While contemplating, John suddenly heard sounds of commotion and quickly looked up. Looking towards where most of the Celeste Kingdom nobles were congregating, John quickly spotted a group of Ignis nobles gathering.
"Well, well, well, look who it is, the son of the disgraced noble, Michael Caelthorn," heard John. Looking at the source of the sound, John quickly identified who it was from the conversations beside him.
"Oh dear, poor Michael is going to be beaten up." "Yep, that's the son of the Ignis's kingdom's top duke, Duke Embercrown, Evan Embercrown the man who defeated Michael's father during a skirmish on the borders a few years ago."
"Yep, I heard that Duke Caelthorn has yet to appear in public. Even during Michael's awakening ceremony he merely sent one of his trusted vassals to accompany him."
Turning his attention back at the two young nobles, John observed as Evan continued taunting Michael.
"Looks like the failure's son is also a failure. Oohhhh, are we getting angry? Are you trying to get burned like your father? Hahaha."
Observing Michael, John quickly detected a subtle stream of aether gathering at his fingertips, however Evan didn't seem to notice this and continued his merciless taunting.
"If I wanted you to get burned and sent home crying like your father, I can do it, y'know? It's not that hard for me, after all how hard can it be to defeat a failure's son like y- ARGGHHH -MFFF."
Suddenly a vine materialized out of nowhere and struck Evan right into the mouth, silencing him and pushing him to the ground. "HOW DARE YOU ATTACK THE YOUNG MASTER!!," as soon as Michael's attack struck two lackeys beside Evan quickly conjured up fire and burned the vine.
Panting Evan got up slowly with fury in his eyes. "Looks like the failure's son didn't learn the lesson his papa learned…. I'm going to burn you until you cry and beg for mercy."
Raising his hand John observed as strong currents of aether gathered beside him, a sign that his core was spinning at max power, gathering aether within his body , with some of the aether leaking.
Seeing that Evan was gathering aether for a spell, Michael also quickly started gathering aether, "You're going to be the one crying for mercy," he said in a resolute tone.
However before both of them could attack, a voice suddenly sounded from the citadel above.
"Enough, cease this at once." A booming voice resonated throughout the air and along with it a powerful presence descended.