The sky above Eronix Academy darkened—not from weather, but from tension. Every elder seated in the Awakening Chamber felt it.
Something ancient had stirred.
Kael Saran stood frozen at the center of the dais, the afterglow of his awakening flickering behind his eyes. But unlike the other students, there was no elemental pulse, no martial aura, no visible Qi bloom. Just stillness. A terrifying, complete stillness.
"Did… did his seed fail?" someone whispered.
"No," Elder Veyr muttered, her brows pinched, voice sharp with unease. "That boy didn't fail. He awakened something. Something we can't see."
The crystal orbs in the observation ring buzzed, then cracked. Even the formation stones lining the chamber trembled, lines of glowing script flickering in erratic, foreign patterns.
Kael blinked. His body felt light—yet heavy with something he couldn't name. He could sense… stars. Not the metaphorical stars of destiny, but actual celestial bodies in the far reaches of the void. They pulsed in time with his breath.
He wasn't just connected to Qi. He was tethered to something older.
A voice returned inside his mind, slow and thunderous:
"Now it begins, Heir of the Seed. Your path shall split stars and silence gods."
He didn't understand. But he would have to, fast.
A loud voice shattered the silence. "This Awakening is tampered!" Elder Juno rose from his seat. "We must isolate the boy. This aura is not normal cultivation. It's alien!"
Kael's stomach turned. Alien? What did that mean?
Another elder stood. "He's dangerous!"
"Silence!" Headmaster Oryn's voice thundered. The old man stepped forward, eyes locked on Kael's. "You will not touch him."
"But he—"
"I said silence." Oryn raised his cane, slamming it down. A ripple of power flared out, silencing even the murmuring formations. "I recognize this energy. This is not demonic. It is old. Older than Eronix. Older than the cultivation orders that came before us."
The old man approached Kael slowly. "Tell me, boy. What did you see?"
Kael swallowed. "A tree," he said softly. "A dead one… in the void. Then it burned and scattered its seeds… into stars."
Oryn went still.
A hush descended across the chamber.
"You're not a mere cultivator," Oryn said, almost reverently. "You're a bearer of the Primordial Seed."
Kael blinked. "I… don't know what that means."
Oryn looked at the elders. "This changes everything."
Back in the outer courtyard, news had already begun to leak. Kael hadn't just awakened. He had done something unprecedented. Rumors spread like wildfire.
Zeryn leaned against a pillar, arms crossed. "Well, that was dramatic."
Arla stood beside him, her expression unreadable. "If what we saw was real, Kael Saran won't just change his destiny. He'll change ours."
Zeryn smirked. "And now the real game begins."
Meanwhile, far above Eronix, deep in the outer planetary systems, a signal blinked in an ancient satellite buried under cosmic dust. It registered Kael's awakening signature and transmitted a single line of text:
"PRIMORDIAL SEED DETECTED. SUBJECT: KAEL SARAN. INITIATE OBSERVATION PROTOCOL."