Aeon got up with the support of the boulder. He was breathing heavily and he could feel the burning pain in his throat with every exhale. He was covered entirely in sweat and his bangs were now soaked.
His vision was blurry and he had absolutely no idea what happened. His eyelids were on the edge of closing but he tried his best to fight the dizziness. For a full five minutes, Aeon had been screaming in pain. It was already a surprise that he was able to remain conscious.
While his hand was locked onto the boulder, he watched as the rune slowly crept on the surface of his skin, causing him nigh imaginable pain. He followed it with his eyes, though it left his vision after reaching his cheek. Even so, he was sure that it stopped on his forehead because he suddenly felt a burning pain there.
He lifted his right hand and ran his fingers through his forehead, trying to feel for the wound that the rune made. Strangely, he didn't find what he was looking for. His forehead was still smooth, without any wounds, and he couldn't feel any burnt flesh or anything similar.
Though when Aeon pulled his hand away, he felt a sharp pain on his fingertips along with a short flash of light.
Bzzt!
"Fuck!" Aeon cursed. He repeatedly blew on his fingers trying to alleviate the pain. Through the dark, he could barely make out smoke coming out of his fingertips. Upon closer inspection, he also noticed that they were slightly singed.
What the hell?
Though the sting was quite painful, Aeon couldn't help giving in to his curiosity. He tried to stretch his fingers only to find out that he was unable to do so. In fact, he couldn't feel them at all. His eyes widened in shock and he fell on his butt.
Aeon smiled as he thought about something. Although he was slightly hesitating, he mustered the courage to place his fingers in front of his forehead one more time. He mentally prepared himself for the incoming pain as he slowly lifted his numb fingers in front of his forehead. When his fingers were only about three inches away, there was a flash of light and it happened once again.
Bzzt!
This time, Aeon could see it clearly. He was so focused on the phenomenon that his brain failed to register the pain he should be feeling. Or was it that he couldn't feel any pain at all?
But why would he care about whether he could feel pain or not when it appeared that he had now achieved what he had always wanted?
Awakening!
His fingers still hovered in front of his forehead and electric sparks continuously zapped them. He couldn't tell if it was the other way around. Either way, sparks of electricity were dancing on his fingertips.
Aeon felt ecstatic!
He felt as if he had actually grown another limb. He dropped his hand, but the electricity was still there and it generated a bright light, making him see things around him clearer. When Aeon focused on it, it started spreading on his entire hand and the lighting grew stronger.
I did it! I awakened my element!
"Lightning! It's lightning! PUHAHAHA!" Aeon laughed as his legs repeatedly kicked. He looked like a child who had just received a candy, but he didn't care. No one was there to see him anyway.
While he was laughing, the electricity went out of control and zapped him instead. Aeon grimaced in pain, but the grin on his face did not fade.
Aeon focused on the electricity that clad his entire right hand and it slowly died down. The tendrils of lightning retracted back to the center of his palm while they gave off buzzing sounds that seemed like protests. He smiled smugly having succeeded on his first attempt. Though when he looked around, he realized that he couldn't see anything again. He had gotten used to the bright light, so he had to readjust to the darkness.
For a moment, Aeon sat down to think.
He knew that he wasn't dead because the extreme pain he felt earlier was too vivid. He was zapped by electricity too, so he couldn't be dreaming either.
But how was he able to awaken without doing anything? Was it triggered by the rune? If it was, what was that rune? Where did it come from? How did it have such an ability?
He knew that he could just shrug everything off just like how he always did with his mysterious recoveries, but he couldn't help but be bothered. After all, the rune entered his body and was probably on his forehead right now. He just couldn't see it because he had no mirror.
While his recoveries saved him from death, the rune might have the ability to kill him. Wouldn't that be bad? It definitely has that ability to torture him. It could even swim on solid surfaces. Who's to say that it's not capable of ending his life?
Aeon shivered, facing the unknown.
But, he couldn't help giggling.
He was too excited about his new abilities.
He started focusing on his hand once more and imagined gathering electricity on the center of his palm. Electricity crackled and danced around his palm chaotically. Once more, it brightened up the area around him.
Summoning it came naturally.
Now that he had a closer look, he realized that his lightning element was actually white, just like his father's. Aeon smiled, happy to have something he could make his father proud. Sadly, he didn't know a single method or spell.
Suddenly, the ground started shaking, throwing Aeon off balance. The magic in his hand was immediately cancelled as he fell.
Clack! Thud!
Aeon hurriedly sat up when heard some sort of mechanism click amongst the sound of rocks falling from the cave's ceiling. Once more, he lit up his hand with electricity and extended it forward to serve as a lamp. He moved forward by crawling and looked all over the place to try and see what was really happening.
It didn't take long for him to find out.
The wall behind the boulder he was leaning on was slowly being lifted up, revealing a path.
The cave was actually man-made?
Though mechanisms that could do such were common, for example, it was used to close the city gates, it looked quite unique on the current setting. He couldn't see any machinery around, just a bunch of earth walls, but the people who built it actually made it work.
Aeon knelt down on the ground as it violently shook. He kept on nodding his head in appreciation while ignoring the small rocks that hit his head and back. The craft was truly splendid. He even thought about writing poems for the people who made the cave. He could imagine himself proclaiming it in front of a large audience.
Of course, while flaunting his majestic lightning at the same time.
In the end, the root of Aeon's happiness was still his awakening.
THUD! Dum!
Silence.
After about five minutes, the entire wall had finally been lifted. Aeon smiled as he stood up. He had already recovered from the pain he experienced. He patted his clothes to rid them of dust and dirt. Unsurprisingly, he coughed heavily as he inhaled the dust floating in the air.
Aeon was still having an episode when he saw something move beyond the now open wall. He was about to dismiss it as his imagination when he saw a pair of blood-red crystals glow in the darkness. It was so high up that Aeon had to tilt his head upward just to see it.
Holy shit.
Aeon bent forward then backflipped. He flipped three more times before…
BOOOOM!
Aeon skidded on the ground and he stumbled backwards a bit from the shockwave. A hand—no, a claw—barely visible in the darkness now pressed on the area where Aeon previously stood. It slowly moved up as it was retracted.
Oi, oi, oi. What's that thing doing in here?!
For a mage who had just awakened a few minutes ago, there was only one thing to do when encountering a colossal beast alone.
Run.
It didn't even take Aeon 2 seconds to disappear from the room. When he looked back, he saw that the beast had actually tried to pursue him. Thankfully, the entrance was low and narrow and it couldn't follow him further.
Aeon returned to the room where he was previously sleeping in, but his gaze was glued on the room with the beast. One of its blood-red eyes was still staring straight back at Aeon sending shivers down his spine.
When the beast stopped peeking through the small hole of the entrance and left, Aeon heaved a breath of relief.
But why did the wall suddenly open though?
He didn't know.
Despite all that, Aeon smiled. Because seeing the monster confirmed one thing.
The underground cave could support life. For sure, there were food and water. He just had to know where. Feeling a bit iffy from the darkness, Aeon decided to light the place up while practicing his magic at the same time. To do that, one did not need any incantations; just basic control would do. Well, to begin with, there were never incantations. They were invented to make casting easier and to allow access to stronger spells.
Aeon had to be more primitive. He focused on the palm of his right hand. After a moment, electricity danced around it and slightly illuminated the surroundings. However, this was not what Aeon wanted. That kind of illumination was not enough to get things done.
He squinted his eyes in preparation for his main objective.
Albeit a little, the glow around Aeon started to grow. At the center of his palm, a white sphere was slowly forming. It was a simple ball of condensed electricity that gave off a bit more lighting compared to the strands of electricity that were rather divided.
Though after a few moments, Aeon's control over his magic started waning. In a short span of a second, his ball disappeared and he was enveloped by the darkness once more.
Nevertheless, Aeon was not disappointed. He didn't understand the concept of electricity yet. He had just awakened a few minutes ago, what should he expect?
Try again!
Aeon encouraged himself by emphasizing his progress and meticulous control. Lightning was a chaotic element, and it was extremely hard to master. Moreover, one hundred percent of the time, it always hurt the mage who was biting more than he could chew.
Although he was playing with his magic a little too much, except for the moment when he had just discovered that he had finally awakened, he had yet to suffer the attack of a rogue lightning bolt. This was already an achievement for him.
Aeon tried to form a ball of light ten times. He failed ten times too. After failing his eleventh try as well, he finally stopped.
He stopped not because he was giving up, but because he was starting to get hungry. His stomach was already grumbling and he felt that he was really parched. The dry environment didn't help either. In the end, Aeon postponed his magic training and decided to look for anything he could put inside his belly without dying.
First, he went towards the direction opposite to the room he previously went in. It also had a long tunnel that led to an empty room. But that was it. It had no boulder with a mysterious rune or whatsoever. Looking around, there were no other passages as well. He thought about attempting to trigger something to open the wall, but he shivered from the memory of that colossal beast's shadow.
Since Aeon didn't know where north was, he temporarily deemed the room with the beast as so. Currently, he was in the southern room. He had two more rooms to check if there was also one in the east and the west. Aeon started walking back while holding on to his famished belly.
He checked east. There was a room, but nothing inside it. Aeon shrugged it off thinking that it was normal. He couldn't hope for a miracle. Just because he needed something to eat doesn't mean that the Gods would drop him a plate full of magical beast meat.
He checked west. There was also a room. An empty one too.
Okay, no big deal. Then I'll just check the north.
Aeon picked on his nose as he walked towards the northern tunnel. A few steps in, he stopped.
…
Wait. What?
At the end of the tunnel, a bloody red eye glowed and it stared straight at Aeon. Lost in thought, Aeon stared back at it with droopy eyes.
...
He only realized what he was looking at after a good five seconds of staring.
The colossal beast! It must've heard Aeon's footsteps and came to take a look.
Aeon was late to realize that he had no more room to search. North, East, West, and South; he had already gone to the rooms of each direction. Which meant that... there was nothing available for him to eat or drink!
There was little to no moisture inside the cave and the soil beneath him was as hard as a rock. Only a few plants would grow in such an environment. Unluckily, there were none of those too.
Aeon's knees hit the ground. His gaze was empty, and he looked like he had aged a couple of years.
Am I going to die right after I awaken?
Aeon was lamenting when he suddenly heard some sort of snickering. The blood-red eye at the end of the tunnel started bobbing up and down.
Aeon's eyes refocused. His hand fell on the ground, grabbing a fist-sized rock. "You dare laugh at me, you piece of shit?!"
He threw the rock and it shot through the air. However, the beast casually moved aside to avoid getting hit on its eye.
Filled with rage, Aeon kept throwing rocks at the beast. "I'm fucking hungry and you're right there laughing! Here! Eat these rocks!"
Despite Aeon's wild episode, the beast kept staring at him with mirth on its eye. It was enjoying seeing the human act all crazy and it kept snickering. Or at least Aeon thought so.
After some time, after ridding the area around him of rocks, Aeon finally felt exhausted. The last rock he threw didn't even reach the beast's snout and it rolled on the ground a few times before stopping. He was panting heavily and was sweating. Now, he was even more parched. But, he didn't regret it one bit!
Fuck that shit!
It's making fun of me because I don't have food!
…
Or do I?
Aeon looked at the beast manically. "Hehehe…"
Sensing Aeon's change in demeanor, the look on the beast's eye suddenly changed. It started to widen.
"Thanks for the meal!"
….