The Awakening Sanctuary of Slagtown was a miracle born of brute adaptation: a relic of the Old Age's forging workshops, violently repurposed for arcane rites. Under the soaring dome, massive steam pipes snaked alongside colossal gears embedded within the walls, their grinding rotations a cold, industrial heartbeat that powered the sanctuary's mystical core.
At the center of the steel floor lay a vast circular glyph, its intricate lines etched in mithril and now glowing with a faint, eerie blue pulse. The air was thick with the scent of machine oil, dust, and alchemical reagents used to stabilize the energies—a faint ozone tang that made breathing heavy, almost suffocating.
On the dais, a group of inspectors sat like statues, silver-blue uniforms of the Silver Star Academy contrasting sharply with the deep-gray robes of the Magic Association. Their eyes were calibrated probes, scanning every youth who would step into adulthood. At the forefront sat Inspector Walker, a third-tier Mindwhisperer whose rigid features and knife-sharp gaze could pierce thought itself.
The ceremony had begun. One by one, the youths stepped into the glyph.
A broad-shouldered boy entered. The glyph flared to life, burning a fierce crimson. He let out a low roar; his muscles tensed visibly beneath metallic sheen skin.
"Sequence: Vigil. Initial Tier: Perceiver One. Success!" Walker's voice was cold, yet carried a faint undertone of satisfaction. The boy threw his fists in triumph and stepped down.
Next came a pale-faced girl. The glyph glowed a soft, milky white, ripples radiating faintly through the surrounding air. Her eyes closed; emotions of those nearby seemed drawn along with her, trembling like gentle waves.
"Sequence: Weaver. Initial Tier: Empath One. Success!"
Elara Thorne waited in the antechamber, heart hammering against the rhythm of grinding gears. She clutched the small glass vial hidden in her sleeve—the Cloaking Elixir already swallowed. A strange warmth spread through her, simulating psionic waves. Almost immediately, however, her alien soul instinctively recoiled from this foreign, imposed energy, sending subtle tremors through her body and a faint nausea up her throat. Suppressing it required every ounce of her focus, just to maintain a veneer of stability.
Her gaze darted through the crowd, settling on a thin, hunched figure. Lionel Evans—a boy from the far reaches of the slums, always clad in faded clothes, silent as a shadow. Elara sensed the faint, gloomy aura that clung to him, the residue of Slagtown's filth, but did not dwell on it. Now he stood rigid, lips pressed tight, hands clenched until knuckles whitened, eyes fixed on the glyph with a desperate, all-or-nothing intensity. For youths like them, Awakening was the only chance to escape their fates.
"Next: Lionel Evans."
The boy inhaled sharply and stepped into the glyph, stiff-legged. Light wrapped around him, but the surge of energy never came. The glyph flickered weakly at his feet, colors unstable, failing to settle into any hue representative of psionic power. He clenched his eyes shut, veins standing out on his forehead, trembling as if summoning the unreachable stars themselves—yet nothing answered. Minutes passed in suffocating silence.
Walker's brow creased. "Energy detection below threshold. No Stellar Core resonance detected. Awakening failed. Next." His words struck like a cold verdict.
Lionel's face drained of color, his body staggering back from the glyph. His eyes were hollow, the weight of the world pressing on his frail shoulders. He retreated into a corner, swallowed by shadows, humiliation and despair threatening to consume him.
"Next: Elara Thorne."
Her chest tightened. She stepped forward, feeling the steel floor beneath soften and warp beneath her weight. Standing in the center of the glyph, she closed her eyes and fought to restrain the potion's raw power, which threatened to erupt in rebellion against her soul.
The glyph flared around her. Immediately, the simulated psionic waves surged violently—light flickering between the milky white of a Weaver and an unstable, near-transparent void.
Walker's brow furrowed sharply. "Focus! Feel the guidance of the stars!" His command rang with psychic weight, hammering against Elara's already fraying control.
The alien force of the potion clashed violently with the chaos in her soul. She felt herself on the brink of shattering.
Then—
The brass gear pendant Kaelan had "gifted" her before leaving suddenly warmed against her chest. The delicate charm was a prearranged psionic beacon and amplifier. A near-invisible, exquisitely pure thread of thought pierced space itself, connecting directly to her consciousness.
"Elara, focus," Kaelan's calm, unyielding voice echoed in her mind, unnervingly vivid. "Your waves are chaotic—let me help." From the Silver Star Academy, he projected his vast Sage-level psionic power, attempting to forcibly intervene in her Awakening, to "guide" her non-existent Stellar Core.
The external force collided catastrophically with the chaos within her, threatening to tear her apart.
"No… Get out! Leave my mind!" she screamed inwardly, resisting both intrusions. The glyph's light erupted in chaos, flickering wildly, sometimes sparking dangerously.
The chamber erupted in alarm. Fellow candidates stumbled back, instinctively retreating. Inspectors on the dais rose, uncertain and wary. Guards at the sanctuary flanks gripped steam crossbows, weapons aimed at the red-haired girl.
Walker's face darkened. "Priority override! Maximum alert! Target: Aberration! Guards! Suppress it! Evacuate all candidates!"
Elara stood trembling in the glyph's calming glow, pale and stunned, staring at the twisted figure consumed by unnatural force. She had narrowly escaped, but a far darker, more merciless reality had already ripped its curtain open before everyone's eyes.