"Move! Move! I am so late for the ceremony" says the 18 year old boy, Levi Anderson.
Around 5 feet tall with a fair face, short black hair and slightly strong build than average thanks to his unrelenting training, Levi ran through the bustling streets toward a white temple that is visible from every point in the city.
The first son of the Anderson Family, Levi though belonging to a rich family lived by himself in a rented apartment in the Dusty Ridge city. Today was a special day for every kid who has turned 18 because the awakening ceremony would begin today at the one and only Awakening Temple of the Dusty Ridge city.
Reaching the gates of the temple panting Levi took a break before entering the temple as he did not want to embarrass himself on such an important day.
'Alright, this is it. After this day I will no longer have to listen to the ramblings of the Anderson Elders, And finally get some power in this Hell Hole of a family.'
With his head held high, he entered the gate and navigated through the temple to the awakening space where hundreds of kids had gathered, waiting to get their talent awakened. Levi kept surveying his surroundings in search of someone when suddenly a noble looking kid jumped up to get his attention frantically.
"Hey! Heyyy! Levi over here! Hereeee!"
"Easy Caleb, I can hear you even from outside the temple."
"You're exaggerating, besides how do you feel? This day must be more to you than just awakening a talent, right?"
As his childhood friend Caleb and Levi were like blood brothers who would not hesitate to help whenever and wherever. Caleb Stone was also from one of the prosperous families the Stone Family of the Dusty Ridge, a family whose grade was slightly higher than the Anderson Family. Levi was valued in his family just for being friends with Caleb, something he disliked very much. But none of them took out matters of their family on each other as if an unspoken rule to not taint their brotherly bond.
"I am fine. I can't wait to get this started and get the hell out of this family. That aside, I thought I was late, what's going on ?"
"It seems that some big shot has appeared in the Dusty Ridge City and was invited by the City Lord to see today's awakening ceremony. They should be waiting for them to arrive. By the way, our families would be present too for this occasion, seems like this big shot has a very high sta..."
Levi had a darkened face after hearing about his family, Caleb instantly went silent when he saw this, feeling guilty. Levi knew what his friend was thinking, though his family was taboo for him that doesn't mean he would get into a sour mood every time they were mentioned. That would be very petty of him.
"You don't need to be so cautious while mentioning my family it's not like anything is going to change whether they are present or not for this ceremony."
"That's right this is going to be exciting. My father is going to give me a weapon of my choice from the treasury after this. We can go together to the Shadow Wood Forest to hunt."
Levi was speechless, even a low-grade weapon from the treasury is of very high quality though they are used by low level hunters they do give a massive boost for people starting to hunt for their first time. Alas, he would never get one, nor was he asking for one from the Anderson family.
From the corner of his eyes, he noticed people with noble clothing appear on to the stage as if they appeared from thin air, without making a sound.
"The ceremony is going to begin. Best of luck." Said Levi one last time to his friend, looking grave as the moment he would awaken his talent was nearing.
"You too man." Said Caleb while bumping his friend's shoulder with a confident smile as if there was no way he would awaken a low-level talent.
After their appearance on stage, the crowd was riled up and began murmuring. When a single man emerged from the 15 people on stage. His appearance was of an old man but his vigor was something that betrayed his old countenance, releasing his tremendous aura the crowd soon began to feel the pressure of a true expert and settled down. Nodding to himself after seeing the crowd's reaction he spoke.
"Welcome to the awakening temple, today I, Hans Silver, will oversee the process of your awakening, I understand as a fellow human being about your excitement however you must keep in mind the decorum to maintain until the awakening ceremony ends."
"This batch of awakeners are lucky since you are in the presence of the blade that protects the empire, Thunderlord of the battlefield: General Thunderstrike"
Hans said while extending his hands to point at the person beside him who wore rough heavy armor that had gone through a lot of wars, had the build the size of a bear, and a scarred face running down from his left eye to his lips, while disinterestedly looking at the audience below.
The crowd swallowed saliva in shock as if looking at a living legend however they were just as much excited to awaken their talent in front of such a legend. This was an opportunity to showcase their talent, they might even get selected by the general for training, that would be a ladder to success without any obstacles. Hans Silver knew about this and took the chance to introduce him, since that would mean one of their own from Dusty Ridge City would go to the Capital of Empire, this was a heaven-sent opportunity not many cities would receive.
"Now without any further ado let me explain the rules and some common information."
Then Hans began to explain the types and grade of talents that people can receive although most of the time they are random, however, people from clans and rich families with powerful bloodline will almost always awaken a better talent than others there are many reasons for that including bloodline and secret arts however these things are tightly guarded by the clans and families and treated with importance as a heirloom.
Talents are powers awakened from the soul one can feel and use them right when they awaken them as another limb of the body, and gain countless information about how to use them through their soul.
Talents have affinities, the most common are fire, water, wood, earth, air and so on. However sometimes there are also miscellaneous talents that do not have any natural affinity but are different altogether, they are called Arcane talents, which include talents related to time magic and space magic.
Talents have grades namely Normal, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Diamond. Two people might awaken the same talent but have a different grade but this difference says a lot. These are the grades that are currently known to the current empire. Whether there exists anything above Diamond Grade is not known until now or has not been made public.
Diamond talents are already the top pillars of the empire, like General Thunderstrike who has the Diamond Grade talent - [Thunder Fist] capable of manipulating thunder and lightning to cover his limbs giving a substantial boost to his physique making him invincible on the battlefield killing enemies like cabbages and appearing and disappearing anywhere on the battlefield.
That is why the awakening ceremony is given much more attention to nurture excellent people to become the next generation pillars of the empire.
While Hans was explaining in brief about the grades and awakening process, General Thunderstrike, or Thor Thunderstrike was already bored. The only reason he came here was because his soldiers were exhausted after a long day of travelling he had no other option but to stay in this city. After all, he needed to show some face to the higher ups of the city to let his soldiers stay, so he decided to entertain by coming to the awakening ceremony. Since this was the only thing that could garner his attention.
'I hope this little city has some nice potential otherwise I would have wasted my time for nothing.' thought Thor, when the ceremony was beginning finally.