Azrael wakes up to a ray of sunlight falling right onto his face.
He yawns—still sleepy, but pushes himself towards the bathing room and gets ready.
Afterwards, He takes a seat on the balcony, enjoying the morning view with a cup of tea in his hands.
He calls for a maid and orders his breakfast to be delivered to his room.
He does this occasionally, so nobody finds it strange.
A short while later, a maid enters the room with his meal, and before leaving she says,
"Young master, Instructor Howard has asked for your presence in the library to begin your training."
"Is Instructor Howard my teacher?" Azrael asks the maid.
"Yes, young master."
Azrael nods, and the maid leaves.
Once he finishes his meal, he heads to the library.
When he arrives, he notices the layout has changed. The usual tables and the sofas are pushed into the corner, leaving only a single table with two chairs in the centre.
On one of the chairs sits a middle-aged man with brown hair, a beard lightly dusted with grey, and calm, steady eyes.
Noticing Azrael, the man stands and walks toward him.
"Good morning, young master Azrael. My name is Howard and I'll be your teacher for the next four years."
"Morning, Instructor Howard. Nice to meet you." Azrael replies with a soft smile.
"Shall we sit?" Howard points at the table in the centre.
Azrael nods and takes his seat. Howard sits opposite him.
"I've been told you spend most of your time in the library. So I took the liberty of arranging our meeting here. I hope you are not offended as I made a few small changes." He gestures towards the shifted furniture.
Azrael smiles.
"Not at all, Instructor. I am glad that you chose this place to be the start of my training, as you said I'm here most of the time. So I like this place a lot."
"Hahah, good to know, young master." Replies Howard.
"I assume you have some basic knowledge of Terralon, so let's start with a question from you about what you want to know the most."
Azrael appears calm, but inwardly he is excited, because he didn't expect to get to learn about the tiers on his very first day.
"I want to know about the tier system." Azrael answers instantly.
Howard smiles knowingly.
"I expected that question. It's the one topic not found anywhere in this library."
"But it has a valid reason, as the awakening which I presume you know about is very dangerous, and we don't want people attempting it recklessly."
"Though the process of awakening is improved over the ages with many research and experiments, it is still life-threatening without supervision."
Azrael nods, urging him to continue.
"There are eight-tiers in total. Right now, you are tier-0—a mortal. After the awakening, you become a tier-1 warrior."
"The awakening is performed by integrating the blood of an awakened beast, ranging from Tier-1 to Tier-8.
The higher the tier of the beast's blood, the stronger you'll become and the greater the abilities you'll inherit. With enough talent and hardwork, you may reach the beast's tier—or even surpass it."
"After integration, you can cultivate using an energy called "Enos," present in the air all around the world. With the help of Enos you will cultivate and advance to higher tiers."
Azrael falls into deep thought. Seeing this, Howard waits silently.
After a moment, Azrael asks,
"Is blood the only thing we can integrate from the beast to our body?"
"Yes, young master. We have tried other things but all of them only result in death of the recipient."
"After many trials and errors, we have come to the conclusion that blood is the only thing for integration." Howard replies.
Azrael remains silent and just nods.
A few minutes later—Howard continues:
"Now that you understood the Tier-system, let me explain the plan for the next four years."
"Okay," Azrael replies.
"I have divided the training plan into two parts, the first two years you will be learning about different beasts, medicines and the unique combat styles of the enemy kingdoms."
"The second part, which constitutes the last two years. We'll be doing actual combat to strengthen your body and mind to prepare you for the awakening."
"Is the training plan clear young master?" Howard questions
"Yes." Azrael replies.
"Good. Then for today let's begin with your first lesson, which is wilderness survival. If you are...."
Howard continues the lesson, and Azrael listens carefully, asking questions when needed and answering when asked.
This continues until evening.
"That will be all for today, young master. I will be expecting you here tomorrow at the same time as today." Says Howard.
"Alright." Azrael bows slightly and leaves the library.
**********
In Azrael's room,
Azrael and Master White both are seen standing in the middle of the room discussing everything learned today.
"Let's ask the system," Master White suggests.
Azrael nods and calls out
"System."
[Yes, Azrael.]
"What do you understand from this world's Tier-system?"
[From the earlier conversation, I can say with certainty that the world of Terralon is primitive and follows a crippled cultivation system.]
"Crippled..?" Master White murmurs.
[Yes, Master white.The information they have on cultivation is incomplete. They only know to assimilate beast blood and as they don't assimilate other crucial factors their foundations become crippled.]
[At best, they can brute-force their way to Layer-2. Beyond that, it is impossible for them to cross any more layers. Hence the people who use these kinds of methods are essentially crippled cultivators.]
Both of them are too stunned to even speak,
but who would blame them as they just got to know that the whole world of Terralon is crippled.
"This is too much." Azrael mutters.
Master white says nothing.
After a while—
Azrael collects himself and asks,
"So when should we do our assimilation?"
"Let's do it now." Master white replies.
Azrael blinks, taken aback as that was too sudden.
Seeing the confusion on his face, Master white explains,
"We wanted to know about the tier system because we were expecting to compare it to the cultivation system given to us by the system and know about the pros and cons of both the methods."
"But the situation has changed completely now, knowing that the tier system is incomplete there is no point learning about it anymore."
Azrael nods,
"But this is still too abrupt, won't the changes that we will experience after stepping into the first realm be noticeable?" Azrael voices his doubt.
This time the system answers,
[Don't worry, Azrael. As the blood you will be assimilating is of the highest-tier. It will take some time to integrate fully. And even if it happens early, you have "the veil" to hide anything about you.]
Hearing the system's answer, Azrael thinks about it for a while and says.. with a big smile.
"Let's do it."
Master white also nods expectantly.
[Then retrieve the blood from the system space, and leave the rest to me.]
Azrael focuses—and a transparent cube wrapped in ethereal blue light materializes in his hands.
Seeing the cube, both Azrael and Master white tremble with excitement, as this thing is going to change their lives forever.
But when both of them try looking through the blue light, they see nothing.
Concerned, they ask the system.
[The blood of the highest existence is not something a mere mortal can see. If you acknowledge, witness or even hear the name of such an existence...
..You will die!]
Azrael and Master White are stupefied and terror fills their entire being.
The idea that merely by knowing the existences' name and acknowledging it, will result in death is something incomprehensible.
It completely shatters their worldview.
After a long silence,
"Is it really okay to assimilate such a being's blood, system?" Master white finally asks breaking the odd atmosphere.
[It is impossible to assimilate the blood of such an existence. But that is why I'm here—to mitigate the process of assimilation and prevent any errors.]
[And it is not going to be immediate assimilation like how it is normally done, it will be slowly integrating into your body, ensuring no complications.]
[Which is why I said, there won't be any immediate changes you both will experience.]
Azrael and Master White stare at each other for quite a while, trying to gauge each others thoughts.
Suddenly they come to a conclusion, and call out the system at the same time.
"System, Let's begin."
Just as they finish speaking, the white cube in the hands of Azrael slowly starts to expand and before they understand, it has already encompassed the whole room.
They find themselves in a completely empty blank-white space and it appears endless.
Both of them look around nervously.
Then, they hear the system.
[You are inside the cube, where the assimilation process will be carried out.]
They look around and still it is all empty, there is nothing in that space except for the two of them.
[Are you ready, Azrael?]
Azrael turns towards Master white and nods.
He nods back.
[Before we begin, let me warn you that although the process itself isn't life-threatening, you will experience excruciating pain—far beyond anything you can imagine.]
Hearing that Azrael appears concerned and looks toward Master white.
"White, It's best if you take the body, you know I'm not good with pain as much as you are." Says Azrael
Master white nods, and they switch places.
"We are ready, system."
[Brace yourself, hosts.]
"Wait—why did you say hosts...?"
Before Azrael could complete,
they both fall to the ground convulsing and screaming in pure agony.
It is as if every muscle, tissue and nerve in their body is being torn apart. They are unable to make sense of anything.
All his senses register only one thing:
Pain!
They try to cling onto their consciousness desperately, but eventually they lose their hold and pass out.