"…ness…Your Highness!"
Ray finally woke up from his sleep.
Slowly sitting up and rubbing his still half-closed eyes, he looked around to find who pulled him out of his dream. As his eyes drifted to his left he saw a well endowed woman kneeling by the entrance to his room, looking at him with a kind smile on her face.
Wearing a maid outfit that highlighted her curves, the fair skinned beauty that would undoubtedly throb many hearts kept kneeling and waited for the young man to properly wake up.
Ray recognized the woman at once.
"Head maid Adrianna… what is it?"
"The Empress has asked me to wake you up. She has also summoned you to her room before you get ready. As you know, today is your awakening ceremony. Guests will be arriving soon. That's all, your highness."
"Alright. You may leave."
Adrianna stood up, gave a deep bow which flashed her deep cleavage and closed the door behind her, leaving without any sound.
Now alone in his gigantic room, Ray had an incoming headache.
'I'm finally eighteen. That thing will come to haunt me again…'
Rubbing the bridge between his eyebrows, Ray changed his clothes before walking up to the mirror to inspect himself. After all, he had to meet a few important guests.
Staring at his reflection, his lips slowly stretched to form a charming smile as he inspected himself from top to bottom.
Smooth silky silver hair, the trademark of all Celestial royal family males, abyssal deep black eyes, a perfect face with smooth skin and no visible blemishes, well formed muscles from years of training, and a lean muscular build with no apparently visible imperfections.
As his completely black outfit consisting of a black trouser and black shirt with sleeves rolled up perfectly complemented his white skin, he looked majestic and regal, fit for a prince.
'Man no wonder the palace maids keep peeking at me and blushing…'
Ray wasn't being narcissistic in the slightest. Ask anyone, whether male or female, once they had looked at Ray, they would get slightly infatuated with him.
'Well, let's go meet mother…'
Using his fingers to sweep through his hair he made his way out of his room and started walking to the end of the corridor.
The second floor of this massive building, adjacent to the palace had twenty rooms arranged side by side. Separated by thick walls, each room was lavish to the extent of overbearing and sound proofed by magic. The room at one end of the corridor belonged to the ruler and the other end belonged to the official heir of the empire.
The other eighteen rooms would belong to the empress, concubines or the other children the emperor would have.
'Well, officially a woman cannot be the ruler of the empire but my father somehow managed to kill himself even before I was born. So only mom could hold the throne until I grew up and awakened.'
Finally he reached his destination.
Here he stood face to face with a large intricately carved wooden door. This door might look like all the other nineteen doors on the second floor, but the room was not. After all, this was the room where the ruler of the kingdom stayed, and after his father, the Emperor died, only his mother could live here.
The relatives and servants could only enter the room after knocking and waiting for exclusive permission, however this didn't apply for Ray.
'Mom really dotes on me too much…'
Even if he was the son of the Empress, in any other empire entering the room of the ruler without permission would have been instantly punishable by death and rightfully so because there have been numerous cases where the successor slaughtered entire families including his or her own to usurp the throne. But Ray being the sole prince of the kingdom was guaranteed to inherit the throne, and above all, his mother didn't follow any rule when it came to him.
Verifying his mana signature on the door to confirm his identity, he pushed it open. Walking in, he was startled for a second before calming down and shutting the door behind him.
"Good Morning Mom!"
Isis Celestia, his mother, the Empress, the greatest healer of the kingdom and one of the greatest beauties in the empire, immediately turned around to face Ray with an extremely cheerful smile, overflowing with excitement.
"Ray! You woke up pretty early today! How did you sleep?"
Isis was wearing a violet sleeveless slightly see through nightdress, and Ray could see her wearing black laced underwear beneath.
Since Isis always had a bubbly personality when talking to Ray, she moved her hands a lot. Her huge milky breasts bounced up and down as she moved, threatening to pop out and creating an extremely seductive sight.
Even with those huge breasts, there was no sign of any sagging and they appeared firm and supple.
'Must be anti-gravity magic...'
Suppressing his weird thoughts he kept smiling without showing any other emotion on his face. After all, he was used to such sights for a long time.
"You know me, sleep is my forte."
"Well there was this one time you suddenly woke up in the middle of the night screaming 'Ice-cream' and then again…"
"Okay stop. I slept well… how did my dear mother sleep?"
"How could I sleep? I was looking over preparations for your awakening ceremony today!"
"Then why are you in your sleepwear?"
"Well… I came to my room just an hour ago, took a bath and was about to choose a dress to wear to the ceremony."
"Why even bother. Just wear anything. You'll look beautiful either way."
Isis' smile grew wider.
"I know."
"Wrong! This is where you deny it, blush and appear embarrassed."
"Why would I deny the truth?"
Ray and Isis looked at each other for a couple of seconds before they started laughing.
While Isis was thinking how her son was the only one who could make her smile, Ray stopped laughing and a serious glint crossed his eyes before it vanished.
'Unfortunately these cheerful days will soon come to an end…'
Thinking so, Ray sighed.
"Anyway, I told you it's just a normal event, and the servants are already taking care of it, why would you even need to supervise over it?"
"No, you only have one awakening in your life and I couldn't afford anything going wrong. So? Are you excited?"
"Excited for what?"
Isis pouted and tilted her head slightly.
'Cute.'
"It's your awakening day you know? An important day that will set your destiny, determine your future… shouldn't you be excited about what type of system you obtain as a blessing?"
"Awakening…"
Every living sentient being has one opportunity in their lifetime to completely change their destiny. When they reach their eighteenth year of life, they conduct a ritual to ask for a blessing from the Gods.
This blessing comes in the form of 'Systems'. A system can be basically seen as a link to a source of power.
Like one uses a pipe to draw water from a water body, systems provide various functions and missions which on completion reward with specific powers from some unknown source.
The ranking and nature of the powers depend upon the systems.
There were millions of different systems… Ruler Systems, Necromancer Systems, Hero Systems, Villain Systems and many more.
Thus depending on the strength and nature of the system, one could either become a hero going down in legends, or someone evil only looked upon with disdain. Some even completely ignored the systems if the missions didn't match their principles and remained weak forever.
In a way this could be a very difficult situation for someone like Ray, the prince to a kingdom.
What if he obtained an extremely evil system? What if it forced him to destroy everything?
But heirs to kingdoms didn't actually have to fear that much, since the royal palaces had people set up for this specific reason.
People with appraisal skills to find out exactly what system the heir obtained and rare people with one-time system reshuffle skills to reshuffle the disposition of an evil system. In other words, there was no need to worry.
Thus, with the worry gone and a few reshuffle chances at hand, any young man or woman going through their awakening would feel excited at what he or she could obtain.
Ray however…
"Yes… I kind of feel excited!"
… was not excited in the least.
After all… this was his fourth awakening.