After staring at the boy who had approached him from behind for a while, Kalon let out a sigh and said gently:
"I'm Kalon, but you can call me—wait, umm… I don't really have any friends, nor a nickname."
Looking at him as if he had just said the strangest thing ever, the boy spoke again:
"I don't care about that. We're both ascenders, so let's get along."
Then the young man, Dick, looked scared — but only for a second. Composing himself again, he stared at Kalon with a bit of amusement in his eyes and spoke once more:
"You don't have a shadow—are you a vampire? Do you have a reflection—ohh, do you eat garlic?"
Looking at the young man with utter terror visible on his face, Kalon shook his head and tried to walk away. He wanted to hurry and get into the academy, hoping he wouldn't have to put up with this "weirdo" anymore.
"Stop!"
"We got off on the wrong foot. Sorry, I've always been interested in the different abilities ascenders have. Please, let's be friends."
While Kalon didn't really like the idea of always having another person around him, he didn't particularly dislike the thought of having a friend either.
After a conversation that seemed to take forever — yet no time at all — in front of the academy gates, the boys walked in together.
A young girl was standing at the corner of a room so large it could also be considered a hall, filled with new enlightened students — all of them wearing bright smiles on their faces. She, however, had no interest in them. Rather, her attention was on three people at the center of everyone's gaze.
Two girls, both with blond hair and dressed in blue battle robes — obviously from a well-off family — and a young man in a wheelchair beside them. They were all prophets, just like her. But unlike them, she was weak.
There was always an easy way to know how powerful a prophet was: the clearer and further into destiny one could see, the greater the backlash their ability would have on them. The two girls had gone blind from the backlash, while the boy's body from the neck down had gone limp. They were obviously powerful — unlike the lonely girl staring at them from the corner, every part of her body functioning properly. After a young man had once told her that the only thing she could do was predict the weather, she had crawled into a shell and chosen to stay there.
That was until two boys walked into the room together.
One of them was quite short for his age. He had onyx-black hair and matching eyes. Dressed in outdated but casual clothes, he looked as pale as a ghost. Yet, the moment he entered, the room seemed to darken slightly, and the girl felt a cold energy wash over her, giving her goosebumps all over her body.
In contrast, the boy by his side was taller, with bright red hair, jade eyes, and a brilliant smile plastered across his magnificent face — a face that looked like it had been chiseled from stone by a master sculptor. His presence, however, seemed calm and serene, like the ocean before a storm.
The two boys were different from the rest of them. They seemed completely indifferent to those around them.
Kalon had never been good at socializing with kids his age, so as he grew up, he gradually lost interest in them. Dick, however, was a different case.
As the boys stepped into the large room, Kalon looked around, and for a brief moment, he felt a terrifying presence watching him. But just as suddenly as he felt it, it was gone. Turning toward the least populated corner of the room, he saw a girl who looked about his age. She had long, straight blonde hair that reached her waist, and a pair of deep blue eyes. Everyone ignored her as if she had no importance — which, for some reason, deeply interested Kalon.
Ever since his enlightenment, he had always found himself drawn to strange and mysterious things, his curiosity often getting the best of him.
Walking over, Kalon glanced at the girl for no more than a second before sitting a few chairs away from her — though still within the invisible barrier the other kids had left around her. Dick followed, sitting directly next to him.
After about half an hour, a woman in a tight training suit stepped into the room through a different door than the one the kids had used. They immediately went quiet, realizing she was one of the academy's instructors.
After glancing through everyone in the room, she said:
"All of you, get into a line and go through the door when your name is called to have your interview. No need to get nervous — it's just questions about the powers you awakened."
As soon as Kalon heard this, however, he became anxious. After all, he had never received formal education, so he didn't know how to use the sovereign system to check his attributes, abilities, or even the name of his title.
"Kalon, no surname. Step forward."
"Yes, ma'am."
After nervously navigating his way into an office, he came face to face with another female instructor — though this one looked much kinder. Kalon explained his situation.
After hearing him out, the instructor chuckled.
"Using the sovereign system isn't actually hard. You don't need to say or do anything — just deeply imagine wanting to see what your powers are, and a screen with runes will appear in your mind. Oh, don't worry about the runic language — the system will automatically translate them for you. Simple, right?"
Kalon did as instructed. At the moment the screen appeared in his mind, all the shadows in the room moved to his feet, taking the shape of what his shadow would have been — if he still had one.
Looking at him in surprise, the instructor said:
"I guess you've activated the system."
She was right. In the brief moment before his surprise overwhelmed him, Kalon had seen his status appear.
Runes:
Name: [Kalon]
Title: [Shadow Spawn (Born of Shadows)]
Description: You are a being born of shadows and created by shadow. You were once blessed by the God of Shadows a long time ago and possess many strange abilities. You are naturally drawn to mysteries, and wherever you go, death follows.
Shadow Core: [First Stage]
Attributes: [Shadow Flare, Death Lightning, Death Will, Pristine Soul, Shadow ——, Shadow ——, Shadow Companion]
Most of his abilities were self-explanatory, aside from two — and the others which he couldn't see.
After explaining his abilities and title to the instructor, he left the room and was led into a courtyard, where he saw Dick waiting. After they met up again and exchanged a few words, they both went their separate ways.
As soon as Kalon arrived at his dorm room, he glared at the place where his shadow — and the pseudo-shadow that had formed during his interview — should have been.
He recalled the description of the Shadow Companion attribute:
"The Shadow God never lets his children wander around alone. To many it seemed ironic that the spawns of shadow had no shadow of their own, but they were wrong. Your shadow is your friend. Bonded to your soul, it will remain alive as long as you live, devouring shadows to grow."
Reaching deep into his soul, searching for something, he suddenly felt it. As soon as he did, he tugged on it — and a jaguar, or maybe a leopard, came flying out of his body.
The moment it did, he felt his mind tearing apart as his senses enveloped almost half of the massive academy. Right before he passed out, he realized what was happening: the shadow panther in front of him was the amalgamation of his shadow and the others it had consumed — his Shadow Companion. Upon its manifestation, his Shadow Sense had activated, and, unbound by his control, it spread across the academy.