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Chapter 1
With the warm rays of the morning sun streaming through the window, Liam, a young man who had just celebrated his eighteenth birthday yesterday, woke up. With his dark brown eyes, he looked around, still a bit groggy from sleeping late due to the celebration. He walked to the bathroom, next to the kitchenette of his small house, located on his family clan's property.
As he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, he bumped his knee on the corner of a square table, where his mother had placed a glass jar with a beautiful blue flower with lilac lines on all its petals. Due to the impact, the jar was thrown against the wall. Still, luckily, his mother, who had been in the kitchen preparing his last comforting breakfast for at least a week, as if her body were made of wind, practically teleported due to the speed with which she moved to save the glass jar with the flower.
Startled by the event, Liam froze until his mother gave him a sharp tap on the head. "Boy! Watch where you're going. You almost destroyed the offering to Yaaly! Now, go take a bath."
With his face flushed, Liam felt like opening a hole in the ground and burying himself. To made such a silly mistake right at the beginning of his journey to achieve his dream. Dragging himself into the bathroom, he took a good shower. Soon after, while still undressed, he went to three water tanks made of clay, each containing a type of 'pure' water to be used in the purification ritual taught by the Goddess Yaaly herself to the ancestors of humanity.
Starting with the water collected from the morning dew on the leaves of the Aroeira tree.
The second water is collected from a well with walls engraved with symbols representing 18 different nebulas.
The third water is collected from a natural body of water.
During the purification process, he had to use a shell made from the core of a centuries-old Juazeiro branch to pour the three waters first on his head and then drink a shell full of each of the three waters while reciting "May Yaalya purify me" 9 times.
At the end of the purification, symbols in primary colors appeared on his forehead, on his chest, and below his navel, representing that the purification was successfully completed.
After the purification ritual, Liam dressed in a set of white linen clothes and had breakfast that his mother had lovingly made while she tried, but failed miserably, to hold back her tears. Although Liam was her third son, due to the peculiarity of his fearful personality, the chance of him dying on the other side is enormous.
Many times, she had tried to persuade him to join the order of defenders, where he could gradually, with training, overcome his fearful personality and better prepare himself by having access to superior energy control techniques and methods. But, despite being against it, she respected his decision to become a hunter, and along with the rest of his family clan, despite it being a small clan, they bought the best silver-grade equipment, ensuring that he had parity with most common-level beasts.
Saying goodbye to his mother with a hug, Liam closed the door of his small house with a click that resonated in his heart, and with trembling hands, he picked up the mask of courage and put it on his face! As if in a magic trick, in the time of a snap of his fingers, his heart, which was beating like war drums, calmed down.
With his mind free from his fear, he began his journey with one step, followed by the next, which led him along a street paved with simple stone bricks, which soon was replaced by a dirt road. The village where his family clan lives is surrounded by a forest with its northeastern part connected to the city of Grisa, a beautiful inland city.
Whenever he passes through the Forest of Freedom, Liam marvels at its beauty! Despite being a forest with dense treetops that almost completely block the sunlight. However, because of the moonlight flowers, which emit a soft navy blue light, the forest has a fantasy atmosphere.
While marveling at the beauty of the Forest of Freedom, he saw a pair of squirrels, and due to the current time of year, they were on a journey to the edge of the forest to collect dream grass to build their nest. Admiring the courage and determination of the squirrels, he maintained his pace while watching them, but, midway, a pygmy eagle that was lurking swooped down towards the pair of squirrels, capturing one of the squirrels that cried out in pain while the other ran for his life.
With a bad taste in his mouth, he continued his path, which, in thirty minutes of walking, turned into a paved road, leading him straight to the city of Giza in 5 minutes. Upon arriving in the city, he did not linger and went straight to the teleportation center.
Arriving there, Liam went to a self-service totem and bought his ticket to the state-level teleportation hub, where his novice hunter test would be held. While he was checking how long he would have to wait and which room he would use, he heard someone call his name.
Looking to the side, he saw a small man coming towards him with a broad smile on his lips. "Liam! How lucky to find you when you are about to become a hunter." While wiping away imaginary tears, the small man continued to speak, "You facing your fears and becoming a hunter fills my chest with pride, and speaking of the chest, how is Lana doing?"
"Married! And keep your eyes off my mother, fuck."