"W-where are my needles?" asked 101. The last six days were not completely fruitless. Although he failed to find other ways to combat, he did find other things like needles.
The original purpose of those needles was to help chefs nurture some herbs and make elixirs. But he'd found ways to utilize them in various other ways. Out of countless accessories placed in the kitchen, 101 had found the needles most practical and valuable.
He searched the shelf for his special set of tools only to find emptiness. "Oh, that." 18 said as she flipped another page, "84 took it last night."
"And, you let him?"
"Hey, I tried, ok." she scowled. "But he said no, and I said fine."
"What were you even doing here last night?"
"….not eating the leftover Lunar Vilinia leaves."
Slam!
71 slammed the table with his palm, "Who cares about your silly needles?" he frowned. "Do you realize the value of the information I'm giving you now?"
Eighteen ignored him and kept flipping the pages.
"Right. Right. Go ahead." 101 gestured for him to keep speaking while he searched more shelves to see what else was missing.
71 sighed.
Using the Red Moon Cycles narrowed down the number of Manuals to 15. Then, 71 focused on finding the one he was compatible with. For that, he reconsidered one of the facts he had discovered. Fire couldn't burn his skin. Right now, he didn't know whether that discovery was relevant to finding the correct manual, but it was all he had to go on.
Thus, he pondered, "What makes each of us different?"
Physical traits like facial structure, eye color, and hair. Those were common and differentiable traits anyone could spot. He had to dig deeper. Thus, he went to the training room and observed other people. When he saw kids trying to climb the soil beside the waterfall, he wondered, "What's the feature that makes one climb higher than the other?"
"Willpower? Grip strength? Physical Endurance?"
Maybe a little of all those things, but the key to climbing the mountainous surface is being resistant to heat or being able to endure heat to a certain degree. The waterfall periodically shifted its temperature. The one who would be able to adapt to that change would be the one who would reach the top.
He knew he was resistant to the heat. However, that was just one trait. Even when the temperature remained constant, some climbed faster than others. That was due to the difference in physical might.
71 remembered 82 cracked a chalice using only one hand. He himself could hardly do that using both his hands. The difference in brute strength was evident. Likewise, how many traits were there that differentiate each of them?
Thus, he experimented.
"Awareness."
That was the final key to finding out compatibility.
"Huh?" 18 raised her eyebrows.
"Awareness about one's senses."
Vision – The Ability Of Our Eyes To Observe And Notice Details.
Scent – The Ability Of Our Nose To Distinguish Various Types Of Scents.
Sound – The Ability Of Our Ears To Hear And Distinguish Different Pitches Of Noise.
Thermoception - The Sense Of Heat.
Nociception - The Perception Of Pain.
Equilibrioception - The Perception Of Balance.
Proprioception - The Perception Of Body Awareness.
The Radiation Senses: Sense Of Colour, Sense Of Moods Associated With Colour, Sense Of Temperature.
The Feeling Senses: Sensitivity To Gravity, Air And Wind Pressure, And Motion.
The Chemical Senses: Hormonal Sense, Such As Pheromones, Hunger For Food, Water, Or Air.
And more…
"My skin doesn't burn. I, in fact, can notice even the slightest temperature change. Likewise, in the training ground, I noticed 178 has a sense of balance unlike me or others. She doesn't fall even while standing on the narrowest wooden paths or climbing. 18 could tell the concentration of ingredients in a dish by the smell alone. We all have such traits that we would have to discover ourselves. After discovering those, we can compare our uniqueness with the beings we narrowed down from the Red Moon Cycle. In short words, it's a process of elimination."
"That sounds so demanding." 18 sighed.
"Not done yet. That's merely the surface level." 71 added. "The process is rather simple; however, the components that make it work aren't."
"I think I get the gist of it." 101 spoke after he closed all of the shelf doors. "Brief your findings to 82 tonight."
"huh, why should I?...fine." 71 agreed. He despised speaking to anyone other than 18 and 101, but his pride prevented him from letting someone else boast his findings.
Later that night, 82 had a mixed reaction after hearing 71's findings, but 82 acted quickly.
Nineteen days remained.
82, worked together with 178 and 84. Their groups combined made a total of 57 children. After a brief session and discussion, everyone was ordered to start sorting. They gathered all the encyclopedias and started noting crucial characteristics.
Meanwhile, in 71's room.
He was ahead of the rest and had already discovered the manual he was compatible with if his theory was correct.
He gulped.
He sat with legs crossed on the floor and was naked from the waist above. On his right hand was a knife, and in front of him was an opened book with most of its pages ripped.
The ripped pages were spread across him on all sides, almost circling him.
"I'm," he took a long breath. "the very top." He told himself. "the one who stands on the top."
He raised his left hand above the book and, with the sharp knife he held with his right, made a swift but fierce cut piercing his wrist. Blood poured and started soaking the remaining pages of the book.
"Argh!" Pain engulfed not his wrist but his head as his black eyes lost color. The inscriptions on pages scattered in the room started to emit a shade of black.
It was dark.
The pain faded. In a trice, two of his palms covered his ear. His body started to sweat.
"stop…" his voice quivered as he heard the sound of the wind howling.
"where.."
His mental state eroded as the wind howling started to get louder.
His body felt fine and undisturbed by the wind, yet the sound felt surreal. Blood dripped down his ears, and his heartbeat soared.
The noise was not the sole disturbing factor. The skin around his left chest felt a sensation he had never felt before. It was burning. He felt like a burning red nail was being hammered into his left chest.
The noise and the burning started to get more fierce.
For the first time in his life, experiencing such pain, he began questioning himself.
"Why should I endure this?"
"Why do I try so hard?"
Among everyone, 71 believed himself to be the one who spent the most time trying to figure out everything. Be it learning the language, studying, or training. He always gave everything he had only to find himself in such agony.
"Was it worth it?"
"Why…"
"Why do I exist?" he cried.
His eyelids began to close. It was too much but then he remembered a comforting feeling. It was when he would retire in his bed after a long and tiring day. Right now, his carving to sleep intensified.
"after all I have done.."
For a moment, he believed he deserved to rest. As his eyelids closed, a thought popped into his mind. It wasn't about what if he never woke up. It was what happens after he wakes up.
What if the mark doesn't awaken because he couldn't endure?
What if he's the only one who fails while the rest succeed?
He found himself in the middle of his class, with everyone glaring down at him.
Their eyes, he recognized that look. Should he fail, would they look down on him like he looked down on them?
Where would he stand? What would be his value?
A suffocating feeling engulfed his heart. He couldn't breathe.
"This feeling," his eyes opened. One feeling numbed him while the other reminded him. His colourless eyes started to regain their shade of black.
At that moment, the wind no longer howled. It was quieter, but he could hear something moving.
His eyelids abruptly opened, and so did the creature's eye in front of him. All he could now see in the darkness was the blue slit eye, so near and so colossal yet majestic. Whose eye it was, he could not see. The bright light emitted by the single eye surrounded him.
Uof!
The paper covering his mouth flew across as he released a sudden burst of breath.
Ha!
His breathing intensified. He found himself back in his room. His vision had returned, and the book pages covered every part of his body from head to toe.
The pages coving him soon fell on the ground. Now there were empty pages, with all the previous incantations written nowhere to be seen.
"Did it work?"
His eyes swiftly fell toward his left chest. Now, there was a scar, almost like a tattoo with a shade of black, symbolizing the maws of a wild sea beast.
Three days later.
It was almost noon. The library had a gloomy atmosphere. Nearly all of the kids had been working for three days straight.
During the three days, many problems arose.
For some kids, discovering their traits came naturally as they had previously trained a lot and discovered their self. Regarding the process of elimination, some got luckier than others.
Naturally, those who discovered the manual they were compatible with wanted to try using it. But both 82 and 178 forbade it.
They commanded that those who found their compatible sentient being help others find theirs. Being group leaders, both of them realized if they let the kids out for themselves, the smart ones would move on while the less cunning ones, in the end, would get left behind and fail mark awakening. 82 and 178 didn't want their group member's number to diminish, nor did they want any burdens.
Due to the bulk numbers, finding the compatible sentient being for each one was not difficult. The tricky part was the professors only gave 58 Dark Summoning Arts Manuals, while there were over 100 encyclopedias. Those compatible with a sentient being outside the 58 manuals would have to study the principle behind all other Manuals, replicate it and create a unique one using the knowledge provided by the encyclopedias.
It was a tedious and almost impossible task. If only a few people were compatible with a sentient being outside the 58 manual, then 82 and 178 would have failed to convince everyone to work together.
However, over 20 kids didn't find a manual for the sentient being they were compatible with, including some of the class rankers.
After two more days of hard work, 84 finally figured out the process of replication and got recognized as the class genius.
It was the 16th day after the professors distributed all the manuals. Now, everyone had gotten their hands on the manual they were compatible with and began the mark awakening process.
Everyone except two individuals in the kitchen.
"No one enters here nowadays." 18 sat leg cross above a kitchen desk while reading a book.
"Everyone's busy training." 101 sat properly in the chair with a book on the desk. Since everyone had started the awakening process, no one came to the kitchen today. It had been five days since they last saw 71.
The two now used the room as the private library, where 101 would study the medicinal arts while 18 would keep leafing through a variety of books.
101 had no interest in learning the dark summoning arts. "Why are you not training again?" 101 asked out of curiosity. Eighteen seemed too free-spirited, even to his eyes. She didn't seem to care about what the others were doing and their reasons.
"Want to know a secret?" She smirked.