The Salvatore family was one of the most prestigious in the Oradale Kingdom, a land steadily growing on the northeastern edge of the Esterios continent.
For generations, they had been loyal stewards to the crown, their legacy deeply woven into the kingdom's history.
But Earth was no longer what it once was. It wasn't a single world anymore.
A plague of dark entities known as Stains had ravaged the land, born from the Underworld.
These malevolent beings, attracted by hatred and negative energy, could only possess the living and wreak havoc on the world.
They were the root of all suffering, spreading corruption, destruction, and death.
After the Stains' rise, the world was divided into four powerful nations, united under the leadership of the greatest magicians of various races.
These rulers, their veins flowing with royal blood and immense mana, used their extraordinary abilities to fight back the dark forces that threatened to destroy all life.
Being a magician was the highest honor, a privilege granted only to those with the blood of the ruling families.
Earth was a place of beauty, created with the hopes of the Gods to house perfect, thriving life. But perfection was an illusion.
Despite the Upperworld's grand design, the world was steeped in suffering, death, corruption, hunger, and pain.
The Gods tried to create life free of these afflictions, but their inability to perfect the mundane led to constant bloodshed.
The endless cycle of love, hate, sin, and pain spiraled on. And in the hearts of all, they blamed the God of Darkness, Erideus, for the evil that tainted the world.
Once a noble and just deity, Erideus had been born from greatness.
But even the highest of beings can fall. His once-steadfast heart was eroded by the endless suffering he witnessed, his desire to end the pain of the living growing into a destructive obsession.
Despite his tireless efforts to bring peace, nothing he did seemed to make a lasting impact.
The endless suffering never ceased, and in his heart, a bitter truth emerged: the world and all life were a mistake. Even his own existence.
Desperation led to madness.
He sought more power than any God had ever wielded, a power that would allow him to erase existence itself.
But Erideus knew the Upperworld gods would never accept his vision.
When the war between the Upperworld and Underworld raged once more, the Gods of Light celebrated a victory they thought was final.
They were blind to the truth.
As they reveled in their triumph, Erideus betrayed them all, declaring himself the new ruler of the Underworld.
The betrayal was complete, and the Upperworld gods, stunned by the treachery, knew they had no choice but to unite.
To combat this dark ruler, they turned to humanity, granting them powerful skills, and forging the four nations as their last hope.
The Salvatore family had long been recognized by Zephros, the God of Chaos and Change, as one of the proudest lineages in the Oradale Kingdom.
Our first ancestor had been a loyal knight who, through unwavering service, secured the family's legacy as commanders of the kingdom's armies.
For generations, they held power, respected and feared by all.
And yet, here I stood, a failure in the eyes of the very family I was meant to lead.
Because I had no skill.
In the Oradale Kingdom, children were given years to prepare before their sixteenth birthday, a time to hone both mind and body.
I trained relentlessly, as any true warrior should, under the firm belief that I could be the next successor.
But in the end, all of that effort seemed to mean nothing. All that preparation, all that sacrifice. Useless.
Today, it was my brother's turn. The day of his awakening.
And there I was, standing in the shadows, not even close to the family, watching from a distance.
My father stood with a hopeful gleam in his eye, desperate to avoid the disaster that had befallen me on my own awakening.
"I'm afraid, Epeculus," I overheard my mother whisper, her voice trembling with concern. I could hear their quiet murmurs between them, too soft for the others to notice.
"No, this won't be like last time," my father's voice was firm, reassuring. "We'll secure it this time. We won't lose our connection to Zephros."
This moment felt like a cruel echo of my own. The moon hung low in the sky, casting the same pale light over the scene.
It should've been a comfort, but all I could feel was the weight of my own failure.
Then, the orb, the Orb of Awakening, glowed with an intensity that seemed to pierce the heavens itself.
My little brother, Zavel, received his skill.
And I stood there, powerless, watching as my family's hopes and dreams were finally realized in the form of a blazing light in my brother's eyes.
"Chrono-Morphosis," the shaman had spoken with reverence.
I was struck speechless.
That was the very skill bestowed upon our first ancestor, the one that made him legendary.
It allowed him to temporarily alter the state of objects, people, and even himself by manipulating the flow of time in short bursts.
But it wasn't about changing the past or predicting the future.
No, this skill could accelerate, slow down, or even reverse the physical properties of things within a fleeting moment.
A brief distortion, a twist in time that reshaped the world around him.
It was the very embodiment of Zephros himself. Unpredictable, fluid, and ever-changing. Zavel's power was a blessing, yes, but also a curse. It gave him the ability to adapt with remarkable speed, but the consequences of misuse were always looming, demanding wisdom and restraint.
And then there was me.
Here I stood, a stain upon the legacy of my family, an absolute nothing, a parasite leeching off the house that had once been my birthright.
While my brother received the gift that our ancestors had fought for, I remained in the shadows, an afterthought, a failure.
And my little brother... he was something. Something that I could never be.