Music for chapter: Tool - Rosetta Stoned
Beneath Kirin Academy, the mountain's heart thrummed with energy.
The great chamber - part shrine, part proving ground - hummed with barely contained power. Massive Aether conduits pulsed along the walls, their blue-white light crawling across ancient stone like captured lightning.
At the center towered the Pillar of Souls. The crystalline obelisk shimmered, its surface alive with swirling currents of light. It didn't just stand there, it waited, resonating with the electric tension of a storm about to break.
Hundreds of students sat in silent rows, dressed in ceremonial black-and-white robes. Professors gathered around the perimeter, exchanging hushed comments, while high-ranking officials and elder cultivators observed the proceedings from the upper balcony.
Aullie sat beside Haru, Aki, and Sora. None of them spoke. Even Aki's usual sarcasm was quieted by the atmosphere. This wasn't just tradition, it was judgment. The moment that would define their future.
The previous day, all students had completed their affinity scans; preliminary tests designed to detect elemental leanings. Students from established bloodlines often already anticipated which affinities they might awaken, thanks to their family heritage. But Aether was unpredictable. As children age, their spiritual resonance could shift, refine, or even fracture. These scans provided both students and instructors with a tentative preview of potential affinities waiting to be awakened.
Still, even showing an affinity wasn't a promise. Some would never take to Aether well enough to produce a jewel. So while their bodies could absorb and manipulate Aether to enhance strength, speed, or stamina, they would never advance to become full-fledged Aether Jewel Masters.
And today, in front of everyone, they would find out which path was theirs.
The Awakening Ceremony had begun.
Names were called, one by one. Students rose, approached the pillar, and placed their hand upon the cool crystal. Moments later, several students stepped back, each with a single glowing bead forming on their wrist; some in fiery red, others in rich green or icy sky blue. Others waited longer, but most succeeded. Only a few left empty-handed.
Then it was Haru's turn.
He exhaled deeply and stood. Aullie gave him a wink and small nod.
Haru took a deep breath, approached the pillar and placed his hand on it.
A low rumble echoed through the chamber. Dust trembled loose from the ceiling. Earth energy spiraled around Haru's arm, golden brown and solid. A single bead formed on his left wrist, dark and earthen, pulsing with slow strength.
A ripple of respectful applause followed. Haru returned to his seat, eyes wide, breathing hard.
"Earth," he said quietly. "I actually felt it. Like the ground was alive."
Aki grinned. "Nice. Guess you're not blowing up after all."
She stood before her name was even called.
As she placed her hand on the pillar, a blinding flash of scarlet erupted, causing several nearby students to flinch. Flames licked up her arms like dancing ribbons. A fire bead spun into existence with a sharp crack.
Aki turned, grinning like a devil, and flicked the smoke off her sleeve. "I'm smokin hot."
Aki's terrible pun momentarily shattered the group's solemn atmosphere, as everyone couldn't help but groan at the awful one-liner.
Then it was Sora's turn.
The mood shifts back to somber.
She walked slowly, almost reluctantly, to the pillar. The moment her hand touched the crystal, the room fell unnaturally still. The Aether conduits dimmed. A soft violet light bled across the floor like spilled ink.
Then came silver.
The two colors twisted around her like galaxies, coiling into both wrists.
Gasps filled the air. Two beads. One black, the other a silver star-flecked gray.
"Space... and darkness..." someone whispered.
"She's a Dual?"
"That's impossible."
But the proof glowed on her skin.
Sora stepped back, face unreadable. Aullie caught her eye as she returned. She looked... not proud or nervous, just calm. Like she'd always known.
Then the hall quieted again.
"Aullie Ikeda."
His name rang across the chamber.
He stood slowly, every eye followed him, every whisper paused.
He approached the Pillar of Souls.
He bounced on his toes and rolled his shoulders an unconscious action.
When his hand met the crystal, nothing happened.
For a breath.
Then everything changed.
The entire pillar went white, blindingly so. The chamber itself seemed to vanish in that instant of brilliance.
Then came the sound, like a storm collapsing in reverse.
When it cleared, Aullie stood at the center. Both arms glowing.
Two beads. One on each wrist.
But not colored.
They were pearlescent white.
The hall was dead silent.
"Impossible..." one instructor whispered.
"Completely abnormal," said another.
Aullie stood still. But he felt it. A deep pull in his chest. A presence pressing inward.
From somewhere in the back of the hall, Shinku let out a low growl.
Aullie gasped as one bead on his right wrist twisted, shifting from white to violet.
Void.
Pain bloomed behind his eyes.
His body locked up like he'd been electrocuted as his body adapted to the void.
Then it stopped.
He straightened slowly.
One pearl-white bead.
One violet void bead.
And the entire room was frozen in stunned silence.
Professor Tsukino stepped forward. Her voice was tight.
"This... This can't be. Void affinity and a corresponding beast hasn't been seen since..."
Another elder cut in. "Since Forrest Diechman."
The name sent a ripple through the staff.
Forrest Diechman. The only human to ever wield Void. Dual-affinity: Void and Lightning. The man who had slain the Void Demon; the other known wielder who killed the leader of the first invasion.
He had died from internal collapse at a later date due to the fight.
Aullie lowered his hand. Shinku padded forward and sat at his feet like a shadow reclaimed.
In a separate room, the instructors and cultivators argued furiously.
"He's a threat."
"He's a variable. One we don't understand."
"He must be monitored."
"We should seal the Void bead until we know more."
"No. We can't afford another Forrest Diechman situation, what if his body can't handle it?"
"The cat forced the bond. That thing isn't normal. It might be manipulating him."
"He could destabilize the entire balance of our rankings. The Royals will not stand for this."
Their voices grew louder, more frantic.
And then, everything went silent.
The pressure in the room shifted, sharp and immediate, as if the very air had turned to lead. One by one, words halted. Breaths shuttered. The cultivators stiffened.
An oppressive force had filled the chamber, unseen but undeniable. It pressed down on them like the hand of a god.
The door opened without a sound.
A tall man in a black-and-silver military-style coat stepped inside. His presence was effortless but overwhelming. His blond hair was neatly tied back, eyes calm but gleaming with contained power. On his left wrist shimmered seven Aether beads, each glowing with practiced brilliance. His right wrist bore seven as well. This alone identified him as a Dual Jewel Master who had achieved the absolute known limit of seven jewels per wrist.
He possessed the affinities of Light and Darkness, two opposing forces widely believed to be fundamentally incompatible. Yet Dane Cartwright had mastered both. He was the only person in recorded history to do so.
But one of the jewels on his right wrist was darker than the rest. It's color too deep, too still, almost hidden in plain sight. Most would assume it was just another Darkness affinity.
But those who looked closely…those who truly knew, understood.
It was Void.
A secret only Dane and one other had ever known.
"Enough," he said, voice quiet but impossible to ignore.
The staff parted instinctively. A few bowed.
"D-Dane Cartwright..." someone whispered.
Britain's number one Jewel Master. A legend. No one had known he was here.
"He's not to be touched," Dane said. "Monitor him, yes. Train him, guide him. But if anyone lays a finger on that boy with intent to harm..."
With a wolfish grin plastered on his face, his aura flared just slightly, enough to send hair standing on end. "I'll have to insist we have a little chat."
Silence returned.
Unbeknownst to them all, Dane had arrived weeks earlier with the explicit permission of Kirin's headmaster. He had been watching quietly, waiting. Not just as a guardian of balance in the international cultivation scene, but as a man honoring a promise to himself.
Decades ago, he had grown up in London. There, he'd met Brynn, Aullie's mother. They had been inseparable once, until his fathers new job had torn him away to Los Angeles.
Later, he heard she'd married. Had a child.
So Dane watched from afar. Just in case.
And when he learned of Aoi Ikeda's death, he began watching more closely.
As Dane watched the boy awaken Void, the same power once wielded by his best friend Forrest Diechman, he instantly recognized that his past and future had collided in this moment.
Outside, Aullie stood alone in a quiet hallway.
Sora approached first. She looked at his wrist, then into his eyes.
"I knew you weren't normal," she said softly. "But... natural affinity to anything and then your first jewel being void?"
Aullie looked down at Shinku, who now sat with tail curled around his bead-marked paw.
"Yeah. Void."
Haru and Aki appeared behind her. Haru gave a low whistle.
"Well. That explains the nightmares."
Aki crossed her arms. "Guess we'll have to keep up, huh?"
Aullie smiled, faintly.
"Let's just survive the week first."
That night, the dreams returned.
But they weren't memories.
They were something else.
A throne of bones.
A voice whispering through endless dark.
And eyes. Crimson, ancient, endless.
Waiting.
Watching.
Calling.