Victor, who had Lily on his lap feeding him grapes, was enjoying his time under the envious gaze of the crowd. They all had one thought on their minds. "Damn you pervert," while the males had an additional thought, "Why not ME ?",
Most of these guys have never touched a girl before in preparation for the ritual.
After two hours, an elder entered the hall with two assistants. All the participants, including Victor, who swiftly held Lily in one arm and carried her to the ground, had to stand up and salute in respect.
The elder was an old man with purplish white hair. He wore a golden rope and held a wooden cane. Victor recognized him as one of the three keeper elders of the family. Keeper elders have the job of protecting the treasures and performing rituals, so they usually held a Mage player class and were very strong.
After an examining look at the participants, the elder began to speak.
"I want to welcome all of you to the family's awakening ceremony, while some of you have already been informed by your elders, most of you do not have an idea of what to expect so listen carefully, I will make this brief," he said, then cleared his throat and continued.
" In a while, you would enter the jade hall, where the ritual will take place. You will sit down in a circle around the awakening orb, the higher your rank the nearer you sit," he said while turning his head, looking at Victor and Ron.
"In the ritual, you will understand what awakening means. In the beginning, you will be tested by a light passing through your heads. But let me warn you, this test will be painful, it will feel like someone is poking your head with sharp needles at the beginning, so make sure not to resist it, It is the orb's power, examining your potential. It will take roughly five minutes, then you will be presented with a choice." he continued "I can only tell you to try to raise your Authority as high as you can." he said while looking at the unsure gazes of the participants.
"What does he mean?" they thought.
"Don't panic, you will figure it out easily. After the ritual, you would be required to keep in order and wait for further instructions, and I have been instructed to remind you that any trouble makers will be punished by death," He said. Victor could feel Lily beside him flinch, so he squeezed her little hand to assure her.
"Follow me." The elder ordered them, then turned around and stepped out of the hall and the crowd quickly followed him headed by Victor and Ron.
Going through one gilded corridor after another, they reached a heavily guarded closed gate, at last, many elders were standing in formal ceremonial grabs, Victor's father and uncle were here too, they were going to take part in the ritual.
The elder stopped and knocked on the door three times while speaking with an incomprehensible voice, suddenly The gate shone with a faint blue halo and opened to reveal an oval hall decorated with green jade slabs on the walls and shiny black marble floor.
In the center of the hall, placed on a raised pedestal was a sky blue colored fist-sized throbbing Orb, it was as if there was a living heart inside of it.
Looking at the Orb Victor could not help but remember his past life, at that time he had no knowledge of the mysteries of the world and could only be amazed by such treasure, he was so anxious back then he almost fainted.
This Mysterious Orb is an A-level rare natural artifact, it has only one use, granting player status to its users. It's not the only way for someone to be a player, in fact, there are countless methods, but every method or artifact has its rules, and bonuses, While this orb was not the best awakening artifact, it belonged to the top tier. and for the current him it was the only way available.
And after awakening, an artifact like the Orb will have no use for a player.
"Now go inside orderly and sit on the ground near the orb, and wait silently" the elder sternly said before moving to the side to grant passage to the participants.
Ron Moved forward first and found a suitable position near the orb where he sat down and began to meditate, like someone trying to cram before an exam, following him Victor moved forward with the rest of the participants. He seemed to be undecided where to sit, but after more than half of the crowd were seated he moved forward and ordered one random girl to move and make a place for him and his maid.
The girl could only comply and find another place to sit down as she did not dare make any trouble.
The reason Victor did this was to find a position where it would be easy for Lily to have direct sight of her target, so he only took his seat after Guy was seated. The distance from the orb did not really matter as long as he was inside its sphere of influence.
When Lily took her seat behind him he turned his head and winked at her, she responded by nodding, she knows what she had to do.
After waiting a few moments for everyone to be seated, the elder pounded the ground with his cane, then he began chanting with the rest of the elders who strode into the room and surrounded the participants forming a polygon of light between their outstretched hands.
The orb seems to respond with the throbbing blue light in it getting stronger every beat.
Victor reached his hand to the back and tapped Lily on her legs, signaling her to be ready.
...Then it happened…
A bluish white light shot from the orb and filled the entire room blinding everyone. The participants had no time for astonishment. Just as the light faded a little bit, they started to feel a piercing pain in their heads. It was as if the light itself was floating between their heads.
There were a few who could not withstand it. They started to foam from their mouths then fainted. This caused the elders to frown in disgust, but that's all they could do, as they were forbidden from interfering until the ritual was concluded. However, the people who nominated those weaklings would be demoted,
Theodore silently looked at Victor and was relieved to find that he was just sitting there calmly and nothing bad happened to him,
"There may be a chance." he tried to convince himself, then returned to focus on the ritual.
Victor put his hand in his pocket then relaxed his mind, closed his eyes, and only held thought about his future plans to relax in a hot spring with Lily while waiting for the probing to end. This is the first part of the ceremony, the Orb was now probing and examining the potential, suitability, and bloodline of every candidate. The Orb does not differentiate between good and evil, it has no emotions, but it will always be affected by the rules of this world. It is like a machine executing its program.
Just as the pain started to fade away, Victor silently used his hand to take the little black jade from the leather bag inside his jacket and hold it firmly in his hand, Now it can be considered 'equipped' and the test is already over so it will have no bad effect on the results.
After just a few moments, the probing was over.
Victor opened his eyes to find himself in a black infinite void.
The test was finished and this is now the second phase of the ceremony, the points allocation.