The morning sea shimmered brighter than usual. It wasn't just sunlight — it was something alive, pulsing through the air.
After completing the lessons of the first five masters, I felt the island shifting. The sound of the wind had changed, the trees hummed more softly, and the silver roots of the great tree glowed faintly whenever I walked near.
A part of me understood—I was ready for the next circle.
Master Aarion once told me, "The first five teach you to see yourself. The next five will show you the world beyond it."
That day, as dawn spread golden light across the water, I stood at the edge of the shore. The waves parted slightly, and twenty figures appeared faintly in the mist, though only five stepped forward. Each carried an aura unlike anything I'd seen before — calm, vast, limitless.
The Sixth Master – Seraphina Dae, The Voice of the Eternal Strings.
She appeared first, her silver hair fluttering like ripples of moonlight, carrying a harp made of light itself. Her presence vibrated through the air long before she spoke.
"Every sound is alive," she said. "You have learnt form; now learn feeling."
From her, I learnt music — not as art, but as energy. Every note she plucked could shape wind, calm storms, make flowers bloom, or lull the forest into sleep. She made me understand frequency — how emotion vibrates as sound, and sound changes the world.
Sometimes, she made me play beside her, guiding my hand over invisible strings. When I struck a wrong tone, the air shuddered as if the island itself flinched.
"Do you see?" she said softly. "The world listens to your heart, not your mistakes."
Her lessons opened something new within me — the ability to hear beyond sound. I could now sense emotions carried by the wind, the mood of running water, and even the silent dialogue between leaves. The world was no longer quiet. It spoke.
The Seventh Master – Thalon Korr, The Sculptor of Eternity.
He came next — silent, towering, with eyes carved from patience itself. His muscles moved like stone brought to life, and his workshop looked like a temple of frozen time.
Thalon didn't speak much. When he did, his voice rolled like thunder, murmuring through the earth. "Creation demands understanding. You cannot shape what you do not respect."
From him, I learnt the discipline of endurance — to shape matter through energy. He taught me how sound from Seraphina's harmony could fuse with form, how music could carve metal, and how focus could turn imagination into substance.
One evening, he gave me a stone and said, "Shape what you miss."
I closed my eyes and thought of my family, and my hands moved without command. When I opened them, I saw a small, rough sculpture of my mother's face. Imperfect, yet alive.
Thalon stared at it long, then smiled for the first time. "You just learnt creation's first truth — pain gives shape to beauty."
Under him, I gained Resonant Craft, the power to fuse emotion into matter. Anything shaped from my heart carried energy — warmth, vibration, even faint light.
The Eighth Master – Alden Crios, The Judge of Balance.
When I met him, he stood in a glass hall where wind echoed like thought. He looked strict and precise — his silver robes folded neatly, his eyes sharp yet kind. "You have power," he said. "Now you must learn judgement."
Alden taught me law — not of governments, but of existence. Every motion, every choice, every word emitted energy that balanced itself somewhere else. "You will soon touch forces beyond control. So before you do, understand the consequences."
His training wasn't physical—it was internal. He made me relive moments through meditation, forcing me to analyse not what I did, but why I did it. "Intention defines destiny," he repeated.
Through him, I learnt restraint, the strength to decide when not to act.
One day, he handed me a crystal scale that glowed evenly on both sides. "Keep this in your mind forever," he said. "Justice is not about what's right—it's about what's balanced."
His gift awakened the ability I called The Pulse of Weighing—a sensory harmony that helped me feel imbalance around me, whether in nature, emotion, or energy.
The Ninth Master – Kael Draven, The Shadow of Truth.
Where Alden stood for law, Kael stood for deception — and how to see through it.
His appearance was swift and quiet, his cloak fluttering with smoke that never touched him. He moved between light and shadow like both were home.
"The world isn't what it looks like," he said. "Sometimes, truth hides to protect itself."
I learnt the art of perception from him — ancient techniques of silence and modern logic of infiltration. He showed me how illusions bend around focus, how to read the smallest flicker of energy, and how to disappear by being unseen, not invisible.
He asked me one question again and again: "When you look at yourself in others, do you recognise the truth—or the mask?"
When I learnt energy and his deepest technique, Phantom Sense, I could extend awareness like a whisper, feeling others' intentions before they spoke. It wasn't mind-reading—it was empathy sharpened into instinct.
"Truth, he said before leaving, "isn't light breaking darkness—it's seeing darkness without fear."
The Tenth Master – Orion Vael, The Star Reader.
And finally came Orion, the man whose eyes carried galaxies.
He stood on the Celestial Terrace beneath endless stars that glowed closer than ever. "You are connected to them," he said, pointing to the constellation circling above us. "They follow you because you remember them, though you do not yet understand why."
Under him, I studied both ancient astrology and modern cosmic mechanics. With every night of charts and meditation, I began to sense the pull of the Seven Stars on my neck, aligning with the ones above.
"These marks," Orion said, touching the faint light on my skin, "are not symbols. They are awakenings. When the first circle of ten completes, the stars within you shall remember their path."
And they did.
One night after final training under Orion, I sat on the terrace, the island whispering around me. The Seven Stars above spun slowly in a perfect circle, and the mark on my neck glowed so brightly that the sea reflected its shimmer.
The light didn't burn—it hummed like the same rhythm Seraphina had taught me, balanced like Alden's scale, shaped like Thalon's stone, silent like Kael's shadow, and alive like Orion's sky.
And then, I felt it — a pulse deep within my heart, steady and growing stronger.
When I opened my eyes, a stream of golden energy stretched outward from my body, connecting with the stars above. My surroundings blurred for a moment, and I saw flashes of the world beyond — distant lands, people who looked familiar, and faces I didn't yet remember, but my soul did.
My heart whispered: 'Family'.
That was my new ability — Astral Link.
It connected me to the emotions of the world beyond the island — voices of my loved ones echoing faintly like music through time.
I smiled through tears, whispering to the stars, "I can hear you, Ma… Baba… Anand… Kavya…"
The wind rose softly, as if answering me.
And under that same sky where destiny first found me, the boy lost to the ocean finally reached his first awakening — one step closer to going home.