He opened his eyes to find himself looking at a ceiling. He had been bound to a stone slab with translucent symbols of magic binding his elbows and ankles. A bunch of the mages stood around him, chanting spells in unison. Concentric circles appeared right above him, and one of the mages pierced a broken crystal into his forehead—he felt nothing, the other half of the crystal the mage pierced into his, and continued chanting. Both crystals turned dark and instantly disintegrated. They immediately stopped chanting and looked around at themselves in surprise. This had never happened before; was the crystal corrupted? They repeated this a number of times and decided to try a new strategy. A long crystal was broken into seven pieces; one was given to Damian as before, and the rest were used by the mages in the room. The mages or monks, as they basically took care of this particular temple, each drew similar alchemy inscriptions and shapes in the air and began chanting, this time louder than before. The crystals glowed—they didn't turn dark, a scream from Damian overpowered the sound from the monks, his eyes glowed, and his faded pupils turned pure magenta, which spread over his eyes and cracks light matching his eyes' color appeared around them. Shadows in the room moved towards him and materialized, curled around the magical symbols, and erased them. They climbed over his face and connected to his eyes. Aydha had not been allowed into the room, so there was virtually nothing she could do here to aid him.
The shadows carried Damian like some sort of king and placed him on his feet. He released an absurd aura different from anything the mages in the room had ever felt in their lives; the walls began to crack and shake. Dust rained from the ceiling, and every spell woven in the air shattered and disappeared. The students waiting their turn outside felt the ground tremble and saw some of the statues in the temple crumble and fall. Some of the monks began drawing green alchemy runes and shapes; others were chanting, and the remaining were creating barriers should things get out of hand. One forced himself through the energy surrounding Damian and compressed all the green runes into and around Damian's eyes. Once he was done, the energy abated a bit—allowing them to wrap a blindfold around Damian's eyes, which finally drained the remaining energy. The chaos stopped, and nothing shook or trembled anymore. The shadows slowly reverted to the nothingness they were, but still kept a close distance to him. The monk who had forced his way through was severely damaged and bleeding. He drank a potion he had just conjured in the air and slowly began to heal.
"You, my friend, are something else. We've never encountered anything remotely similar to yours. We have cast a protective seal into your eyes to seal away most of your power. Don't worry though, as they will weaken and be broken after you've been able to master the small portion you have now."
"The blindfold you have on now is to serve as a backup should our spells prove ineffective." Chimed in another monk; by this time, they were taken to Damian. "We've enhanced it with first-grade seals, a tad inferior to the ones basically protecting this temple." They ushered him out. He was teleported back to the academy, and he made off to his room, He would have waited for Deimus but he was very tired and felt sluggish. Aydha was also teleported along with him, but she went off hunting as soon they had entered the academy, so Damian had to walk up flight of stairs. He was knocked out as soon as his head hit the pillow. He met none of his roommates on his way, so no one pointed out his new choice of fashion. He woke up the next day feeling disoriented, he felt around his face and touched the blindfold, yesterday's events came rushing. The beast with the likeness of a lioness, covered with scales instead of fur, equipped with a thick tail that divided into two long, sharp straight stings and two pairs of wings—the grylock, fighting the blood tendrils, him awakening, and lastly the monks sealing a significant portion of his power—the shadows. As soon as he thought of them, the shadows in his room moved in his direction. They were slower than when he first used them; this was because of the seal that had been placed on him and also because of the blindfold. These restrictions didn't not inhibit his previous ability that Khorpius had helped him to acquire. They completely enveloped him and soon he looked like a grim reaper without the scythe. He looked and the shadows did exactly what he was thinking. They stuck him to the ceiling at the exact moment Keith walked in. He shrieked so hard Damian lost concentration and fell hard.
"What the fuck was that?" he asked with shock and a mixture of curiosity. "That was fricking scary; you almost gave me a heart attack. What sort of affinity is that anyway?" he continued in rapid succession.
"Yeah, I'm not hurt or anything," he said sarcastically. "As for the affinity, I've got no ideas; all I know is I can bend shadows to my will."
"Really, that's all? I've never heard of an affinity like yours before; it must be new."
"Yeah, the mages at the Azel Temple said something like that." The statement made Keith's eyes widened and bulge in disbelief.
"You were part of the guys who went to Azel? Dang, then your affinity should be doing more than just covering and sticking you to walls. And while we're on that subject, what's the deal with blindfold? You look like a frail, bald old man trying to make a fashion statement."
"Goddamn bro, I'm just trying to take away attention from my colorless eyes."
"Uh huh, and putting on a blindfold just achieves that." Keith said and started laughing; he continued to do so till he left the Damian's room. The others came to look at it and thought it was kind of cool, though they made a couple of jokes at it. They asked about his affinity and basically had the same reaction as Keith. "This is going to make the royals so jealous!" said Eitan with a grin.
"Alright, hurry up; we gotta group up again at the orientation center."
"Why?"
"Damian, you really don't look up information on the notice board, do you?" Eitan said with exasperation. "Freshen up and put on some clothes; we will be waiting in the common room."
After he was done, Damian joined his roommates, and together they headed towards the center—where they were divided into groups based on their affinities, taking into meticulous account whether they were variants or not. Damian's ability, because it was not documented, was placed in the variant group, the same as Deimus, who possessed the Lightening affinity. In addition, Prof. Amon, who now showed interest in Damian, offered to take him under his wing.
"In the next couple of weeks, you are going to be passed through immense training, and we will evaluate you due to your performance. I encourage you to do your best, my dear students, and surpass your limits," Prof. Alaric said to them, and with that they adjoined. Damian's group was taken into a huge room filled with weapons.
"Now, based on affinity, some of you will without doubt be already categorized into a position in a five-man cell. The majority of ice and plant users get support positions. Psychics and blood users fall into espionage positions, and most of the remaining fall into attack and defense positions, and the spellweavers in particular are fairly distributive, meaning they have an equal chance of falling into any of the positions," Prof. Nix informed them.
"All people choose your weapons and let's get to work!! Oh, and I cannot stress this enough; no use of your powers!" she shouted. She swiped the air, and the center of the room sunk down into an ovoid depression, and seats appeared on its circumference.