The young man walked steadily towards the altar in the center of the room and placed his hands on top, facing the smooth stone.
Ten seconds passed and nothing had happened yet, the man was clearly disappointed and it seemed that he was going to leave that place, when suddenly the stone began shining with a white-colored beam of light that ended with a silent explosion of light.
Concussed the boy opened his eyes, still disoriented, and looked at the back of his right hand and saw a mark that represented a straight sword crossed behind a shield, the old man that was aiding this ritual took a peek at his hand and announced for everyone in that room to hear that the boy had received the mark of the knight, and that he was the first one from the town in the past ten years.
Silence filled the room for a moment and then a loud cheer was heard on the whole villa.
The Ritual of the Mark was taking place, an event that took place the last day of the year everywhere in the world, where everyone that had turned 16 that year went to the ritual stone of the town or city they lived in and received their mark, which granted them the potential to evolve the abilities of the profession assigned to them, represented by the mark on their right hand.
After the newly discovered knight and everyone there had finished celebrating the line began to move again, first a hunter, then an alchemist, another pretty rare profession, a baker, banker, and many farmers came out of the building that housed the mystical stone.
Finally just three remained to receive their marks, the first one of the three advanced decisively towards the stone and placed his hands over it, seconds passed, more than it had taken the stone to shine when the knight was born, yet nothing happened, the old man, in whose right hand you could see for a moment some sort of cane, talked to him in a way the other two could not hear anything, the young man looked saddened but left without saying anything and the sorcerer made a gesture to the girl for her to go to where he was standing, she placed her hands on the stone and immediately the stone started changing colours, first blue, then red, blue again, green, white and then nothing, just as it started shining the stone lost all colour, the girl seemed confused, but the old man was visibly surprised, then, from nowhere, a ray of light came out of the stone and flew high up, as the girl lifted her head to look at it, the beam that had stopped and turned itself into a blue ball of light rapidly fell towards her.
The ball of light pierced her right hand, the man that was still waiting for his mark could not see anything more than that.
The last boy was waiting for the sorcerer to announce what her profession was, but he said nothing, just talked to the girl for a bit, and she left, covering her right hand, the boy tried to see what the mark was, but couldn't see what it was.