At some point, the young boy could feel his consciousness receding as if he were being pulled away from his current location.
"Cyril! Cyril!"
A voice shouted in his ears.
"Hm?"
The young boy slowly opened his eyes as he felt someone shaking his sleeping body and shouting his name at the same time.
"Cyril, wake up!"
The owner of the voice spoke once again as they shook him gently.
"What happened?" He murmured.
The young boy thought he was still in his dreamscape and blankly spoke in confusion.
"What are you doing sleeping on such an important day? It's already the afternoon, and you're still sleeping! We're going to miss the ceremony at this rate!"
The owner of the voice said to him impatiently.
'Ceremony?'
The young boy was still in a confused state of mind as a result of the event that occurred in his dream earlier.
"Silvia, just leave him alone. It might be a good thing if he doesn't go through the awakening ceremony today."
Another voice indifferently said at this time.
'The awakening ceremony? Wait a minute, today is the day of awakening?!'
"Oh no! The awakening ceremony!"
When the young boy heard and recalled the meaning behind these words, his eyes fluttered wide open, and he exclaimed. He was jolted awake after realizing the implications of the words spoken by the owners of the two voices and immediately sprang up from his bed with disheveled and thinning hair covering his wrinkled face.
The young boy, referred to as Cyril, brushed his thin black hair back, then turned to the corner of the room and asked: "Did you just say the awakening ceremony, Liam? What time is it right now?"
Cyril realized that he was no longer in his dreamscape. With that realization, he completely awoke from his reverie and looked to his right as he asked these meaningless questions to the owner of the second voice, whom he referred to as Liam.
Standing at the corner of Cyril's right, there was a handsome, young boy who looked much taller and bigger than him in every sense of the word, leaning against the wall with his arms folded in front of him with a slight frown on his face.
The young boy was Liam; he was Cyril's childhood friend.
Next to his bed, Cyril saw a young maiden with delicate and attractive features staring at him with a worried face. She still had her hand on his ragged shirt, as she had been tugging it to shake him awake earlier.
The young maiden was Silvia; she was also Cyril's childhood friend.
"Hmph! If you hadn't woken up just now, you would have missed your only chance to participate in the awakening ceremony. Not like you had a chance to awaken anything decent anyway, with that weak and frail body of yours!"
Liam, the tall, handsome young boy, answered condescendingly.
"Liam! What's wrong with you?!"
Silvia, the attractive young maiden, shouted to reprimand him, as his words were overly insensitive toward Cyril, their childhood friend.
"What?"
Liam calmly turned to Silvia and said indifferently: "Am I wrong about what I said just now? Isn't it better for him to sit this one out? At least he wouldn't be embarrassed about his awakening result later."
Silvia frowned, displaying her displeasure clearly on her pretty face, and she wondered why Liam always picked on Cyril, their childhood friend.
"Liam, I've been meaning to ask you this. Why do you always pick on Cyril? Weren't you guys best friends when we were kids? What happened to you guys seven years ago."
She asked and then demanded: "Tell me right now!"
As she spoke, Silvia recalled an event in the past and looked sternly at both Liam and Cyril, one after the other. She wanted to know what happened to them seven years ago, on the night of her birthday party, as both of them had started acting strangely ever since that night. Every time she had asked them about it, they always shirked it off, claiming that it was a matter between guys. Therefore, they refused to say anything to her all this time.
Both Cyril and Liam stared at each other, their gazes full of meaning, but they still didn't say a word in response to Silvia's question. Instead, they remained silent as they recalled what happened seven years ago.
That day, on the night of Silvia's birthday party, they had a secret meeting and made an agreement that whoever awakened the best talent and ability would have the right to protect Silvia, their childhood friend.
Liam was the one who suggested the meeting, and Cyril didn't think too much about the agreement they made back then. To him, it was only obvious that the two of them should protect Silvia, who was their only true friend in the orphanage. As for the other kids in the orphanage, he couldn't care less about them.
Before he met Silvia, Cyril had always been alone. The other kids in the orphanage ignored him as if he were some plague that needed to be avoided at all costs. It was all because of his languished and wrinkled body, which made him look sickly as though he was riddled with so many diseases in his body.
Although the kids in the orphanage didn't directly bully him, they never got close to him either, which was more unbearable in some ways than gaining attention or being bullied directly. He lived a miserable life of complete solitude and seclusion because of them.
The loneliness was oftentimes insufferable for Cyril, so he turned to read books in the orphanage's library to pass the time. Silvia, who came to the orphanage when she was five years old, was the only one who approached him in a friendly manner and offered to play with him.
Cyril remember that he refused her kind gesture on multiple occasions with various excuses. Even then, he couldn't stop her constant invitations.
One day, Silvia forcefully dragged him around while he desperately insisted that he wanted to read books, but he couldn't resist her powerful grip because of his weak physique that didn't allow him to have much force in his muscles. Not that he would have been able to resist Silvia's overbearing strength, even if he had a healthy body.
Naturally, because of the way he was treated in the past, Cyril was wary and awkward toward Silvia at first. However, over time, he appreciated her company, which brought many changes to his boring daily life.