In front of Damian stood beasts in their habitats, with symbols and colors placed at various observatory areas showing their threat levels and hence giving one a sense of their classes.
Damian grabbed a catalog and browsed through; he decided to start from where he was. He stood in the grey section, a floor meant for the relatively less dangerous beasts the pen had. He passed Púcas, a bunch of shape-shifting creatures looking at him mischievously. Next were the sylphs, graceful air spirits whose pen were filled with girls due to their friendly nature. He roamed around till a loud voice announced it was closing time—he had wandered around till nightfall, and he wasn't even done with the grey section. He bought some snacks and headed towards the library.
The library, a huge structure built around an even bigger tree with strange glowing writings in different colors, gave an eerie feeling—that was until he entered. At the center stood the tree, with its gnarled roots spreading everywhere across the polished wood floors. The tree's branches stretched high above, forming a lush canopy over the readers. Above, translucent manta rays glided gracefully, retrieving and delivering books with fluid precision. The air was filled with a soft glow and the scent of old paper mingled with the earthly aroma of the tree. Damian felt a sense of calm and belonging wash over him as he wandered the aisles. The tree's lower branches formed comfortable sitting spots, which Damian could see was a favorite among the readers. He was thinking of what to read when sword fighting popped into his mind. A huge manta ray swirled around him and dropped a book into his hands and sped off attending to other patrons. He leapt onto a branch overhead and plopped into it. The book had an ancient feel to it; its leather cover was cracked and worn, and it bore the title "The Civean Codex: Mastery of the Sword.". Intricate designs of crossed swords and swirling patterns adorned its surface, hinting at the wealth of knowledge within. As he opened the book, the pages revealed detailed illustrations of stances, parries, and strikes, each accompanied by meticulous instructions written in a strange language. As he peered closely at the texts, they actually began to make sense; he could read them despite him seeing such writings for the first time. He proceeded to read the book, and soon enough was once again oblivious to the world around him. The first chapter gave history about some swords of strange worlds and realms and some people worth noting with names he'd never heard before. The remainder of the chapters were of actual sword fighting with which he needed a sword to practice with, not just read. As he stood up, a manta ray swiped the book from his hand and sent it back to the tree.
Damian looked up above as he got out of the library at Nox. It was getting late; getting caught after hours led to punishments and penalties he did not want to incur right when he just started. He walked instead of tearing through the sky because the senior students had already begun flying around looking for newbies to punish. He nearly had an encounter with Mordred and his entourage; apparently his girlfriend might miss a significant part of this year, meaning an actual repetition. Damian still had no idea what happened after the night he was humiliated and just stole pass the senior students into his room.
Eitan and the others were still awake, and Damian decided to join them. "So, I heard there was this guy who got personally punched by a professor just for him to awaken!" said Cole with pure awe on his face. Eitan laughed, and Keith did also, but quite nervously, and asked, "That can't possibly be true, right?" Eitan agreed while Cole swore furiously that it was true. "I've heard that everyone awakens differently, and those who don't are taken to some place to be awoken by an oracle, but that's just rumors, the latter one that is," said Eitan after convincing Keith he was not going to be punched should he not awaken.
Keith turned to Damian "Where have you been, Damian? We haven't seen you all day.".
"Just roaming around, I went to the beast pen and library."
"Dude, we've not even begun taking classes, and you already in the library?" said Eitan looking at Damian with mild shock. Damian laughed and told him he was just reading about the animals he saw at the pen.
"What's with the awakening and stuff you guys are yapping about?"
"Don't you know all unawaken first years have Pre-awakening class starting tomorrow?" Cole asked. Damian said otherwise, and they continued to talk for hours before they eventually turned in for the night.
The next day, they all dressed up and went to the same building they had been to for the orientation. To awaken was pretty simple; all one had to do was place his or her hand on a floating orb. The color it showed determined the affinity. Red is for fire, blue for water, yellow for earth, and a pulsing of white meant air. Rare affinities like space, psychics and spellweavers do not light up the stone at all and private testing is done to determine one's affinity. Of course there are variants for each of the elemental affinities. These also sometimes fail to show and private testing is also done such situations. Such occasions occur in one of fifty students.
Damian and the others, along with the rest of the students were lined up and soon the awakening began. Eitan awakened the fire affinity, he wasn't surprised his family consisted mainly of fire users and fire variants, Cole awakened Earth; and Keith awakened the rare crystal affinity, a variant of earth. Soon it was Damian's turn; the orb didn't display any color, and Mordred, one of the senior students overseeing the event, chuckled with his cronies. The headmaster was particularly focused on the orb, though nobody paid attention.
The orb gave a slight hue of black and shuddered; no one noticed it.