⚔️ Ranks of the Path
Initiate
Those who awaken to essence.
Can sense the supernatural but barely wield it.
Adept
Begin shaping their essence into techniques (sword auras, flames, healing).
Stronger than normal humans, but still fragile compared to true monsters.
Exalted
Mortals who've burned away weakness.
Their essence can bend reality slightly—illusions, barriers, or curses.
Capable of standing against Lesser Vampires.
Ascendant
Masters of the Path.
A single gesture can shatter stone, silence flames, or break minds.
Rare, feared, and hunted by night-creatures.
Eternal
The final step—legends only.
Said to be mortals who defied death, stepping beyond human limits.
Whether they truly exist is uncertain.
They say mortals are fragile things, born only to be prey.
Yet among them are those who dare to tread the Path of Ascension, chasing strength stolen from the fabric of the world itself.
The first step makes one an Initiate, eyes opened to the unseen, fumbling with powers they scarcely understand.
Those who press further become Adepts, wielding sparks of flame, whispers of steel, or fragments of healing light.
Fewer still ascend to the rank of Exalted, their essence bending reality itself, strong enough to challenge the cursed children of night.
At the peak stand the Ascendants, whose very presence crushes lesser men, their gestures enough to shatter stone and silence storms.
Beyond them lies the final, shrouded step—the Eternal, a rank whispered in myth, said to be mortals who defied death and gazed upon eternity.
Whether such beings truly exist, no one knows. But every hunter, every sorcerer, and every dreamer fears and hopes for the same truth: that the Path is endless, and those who walk it may yet rival the monsters born of blood.