Cohen lived in a residential complex owned by the Heavenly Spire Guild—a reward for years of hard work under them.
It was late in the night, and he had just returned from a long day at work.
He fumbled with his key as he tried to open the door when he felt the ground shake.
'...Did a gate open nearby?'
Cohen remained calm as he finally found his key.
But the tremors became worse.
Dust fell from the building structure. Panic was rising as sounds of worry began echoing.
Before he could think further, the low yelp Cohen heard from inside cleared his mind of other thoughts.
He opened his door. There, in front of the couch, lay his sick mother.
The moment he took a step forward, the shaking intensified violently.
It felt like the apocalypse all over again.
Cohen felt the structure of the building begin to collapse.
Still, he strode forward.
"Mum!"
Clouds of dust swelled as a building, made of fortified materials, collapsed.
As he ran across the room, a piece of the ceiling fell on his head.
Cohen's fell, his sight darkening.
"C-cohen!" this was the loudest his mother's voice had been in years.
Even in the claws of death, Cohen heard it.
'Fucking hell!'
Swallowing the blood in his mouth and moving despite his red vision, Cohen shifted what fell on him and stood.
His legs were shaky, but his determination cleared physical limits.
At the very least, he was going to carry his mother out.
His mother… he was never going to give up on her.
Walking like a man who had been stabbed with multiple weapons, he reached her.
He raised her and carried her on his back.
He didn't know how he was going to reach the ground floor amidst all these earthquakes and collapsing.
Yet he moved towards the door.
One step. Another.
A weakness crawled through his legs, slow and unyielding.
His legs failed.
The world tilted, the cut of air shrieking past his ears as he fell.
He stopped mid-fall.
Dust froze mid-air. Concrete stopped crumbling. Even pain went mute.
'What is happ–'
When reality returned, he was no longer in his home.
He floated in a void of burning stars.
Alone.
He didn't bother studying his surroundings as he shouted,
"Where is my mom? Take me back!"
Silence answered him.
"I must protect her!"
The words trembled out of him. The helplessness from earlier still clung to his chest like a weight.
"Please…"
At that moment, the blazing sun hanging in the void split open.
Cracks tore across its surface, forming holes that resembled eyes and mouths.
One by one, the surrounding stars changed as well.
Countless eyes turned toward Cohen.
"Your mother… I can save her," voices said. "But I can also grant you the power to protect her."
"Power…"
Cohen remembered how helpless he had felt earlier. The terror. The inability to do anything.
And the world was only getting worse.
"What are you?" he asked.
Voices of different pitches answered him at once, echoing across the void.
"I am Primordial, yet New. I am what is null… what is neutral.
"The grey between black and white.
"I am beyond your comprehension."
Cohen felt time pressing down on him. He swallowed whatever thoughts he truly had and asked instead,
"How will I gain this power? Will I get a Class?"
"Indeed.
"A Class. A Talent. And many more. You possess the special abilities to withstand my power and those who are special should be treated well.
"But know this… A price is always paid for what is bestowed, whether even I want it or not."
Cohen fell silent.
Memories flooded his mind in an instant; The years of struggle, the life he had endured, the rare moments that had been worth living.
Was this the opportunity he had always wished for? A way out?
"I'm tired of that life," he said quietly.
"Give me the power."
"We have a deal."
The words came out before his usual caution could stop them.
"Your will is my will… if my Will is your Will."
The chorus of voices thundered through the void. Their weight pressed against Cohen's mind until it felt like his skull might split apart.
"You are strong and commendable, child.
"I am glad I met you."
As the voices faded, the stars began to move.
They spiraled together, forming a massive vortex with Cohen at its center.
Light swallowed him whole.
And that was the last thing he remembered.
* * * * *
The first thing Cohen registered was a white ceiling and white walls.
The sterile smell of mana-infused antiseptics.
'Hospital?'
He sat up, slowly. He felt no pain, making him wonder why he was here.
There were three people in the room.
Two he recognized as guild officials by the emblem stitched into their formal wear. The Heavenly Spire's sigil, a tower cresting through clouds.
The third was a healer who moved to stop him from rising and then thought better of it when she saw his face.
Cohen blinked.
The images came back in fragments. The tremors. The ceiling. His mother's voice, the loudest it had been in years, calling his name.
"My mother," he said. His voice came out rougher than he expected. "Where is she?"
The two officials exchanged a glance. The older one, a broad-shouldered woman with silver threading through her dark hair, stepped forward.
"She's alive, Cohen."
He exhaled with relief.
"She's alive," the woman continued, "and largely unharmed. With the collapse came a protective field that was activated before the worst of it reached the residents. Your mother was shielded."
"And the others?" the words slid out of his mouth.
"No deaths. And the injuries are minimal."
Cohen nodded slowly. Reached up and touched the bandaging wrapped around his skull.
"Alright," he said. "What else?"
The second official, a younger man with the careful, measured posture of someone trained to deliver information without giving too much away at once, cleared his throat.
"There is bad news," he said. "But there's good news as well, and we'd like to start there, if you don't mind."
Cohen minded, actually.
He was the kind of person who preferred to receive the wound before the salve. But something in their demeanor told him they weren't going to offer him the choice, so he said nothing.
The older woman leaned forward slightly.
"Cohen. Last night, during the destruction, did you, at any point, feel as though you were being watched… or did you see the eyes?"
"...Yes," he said. "I saw the eyes."
He had almost said 'I spoke with whatever owned them.'
The words had formed and then stalled on his tongue.
Because he noticed, in that half-second before he'd answered, that they hadn't offered it as an option.
They had asked if he saw the eyes. Not if he'd spoken to anything. Not if anything had spoken to him.
They didn't know about the conversation.
Cohen decided, quietly and without any visible deliberation, that they didn't need to.
"Several people reported the same vision," the young official said, his tone climbing with something that resembled carefully restrained excitement. "Which brings us to the good news."
He paused for effect.
"You've awakened a class, Cohen."
Silence sat in the room for a moment.
"You are twenty-one years old," the woman added, "and you had no awakening stone. Neither did the others who experienced the same phenomenon last night.
"By every conventional metric, what happened to you shouldn't be possible.
"Awakening this way—spontaneously, at your age, triggered by what appears to be direct contact with a higher entity—is unprecedented."
"You're an outlier. All of you are."
Cohen turned this over in his mind with the same methodical calm he brought to everything. He didn't feel the urge to celebrate.
Being an outlier… wasn't a good thing most of the time.
"The bad news," he said. It wasn't a question.
The two officials exchanged that glance again. This one was heavier.
The woman spoke.
"The mana event that triggered your awakening was... significant. When a Class awakens under conventional circumstances—with a stone, within a prepared environment—the mana is contained. Last night was none of those things."
She paused. "In those closest to you during the awakening, we've detected traces of mana corruption. Minor, in most cases."
Cohen's jaw tightened, barely perceptibly.
"Your mother," she continued, "is among those affected."