11:58
11:59
12:00
It was right when the clock struck midnight, right when the night was at its darkest hour, that he felt it.
While sitting in the lotus position with his eyes closed, he felt as if something were tugging at his soul, and his heartbeat quickened at the same moment.
Just then, he began to notice the difference. The air he breathed suddenly felt as though something foreign had mixed into it.
Warm.
But at the same time, a chill spread throughout his body, making him tremble.
However, that was merely the calm before the storm hit his entire being. It was as if something were telling him to contain the whole brutal, violent storm within his mortal body and forge it into something other than a mere human.
The process he had learned from his mother was simple — or so she'd said. The invisible energy called mana would first make contact with the person undergoing the awakening by being absorbed through breathing, entering their bloodstream.
This part allowed their heart to pump the purest form of energy through their body so it could become accustomed to it, before the second part began.
It was then that he felt it.
Countless invisible threads and particles gathered at a single point, like a vortex at the center of a hurricane. Except in this case, he was the center of that massive, swirling energy.
This part was the most crucial, as the violent energy would forcibly enter both body and soul at the same time to form something called a core, which would act as the foundation of the energy, much like a heart did for blood.
If one wasn't careful, it could lead to death — the body simply imploding under the sheer, overwhelming force ravaging it. That was exactly why it was recommended to have an expert guide a person through the process.
But Caelan had no one but himself. He would have to get through this carefully if he wanted to succeed.
Just as he thought that, the violently swirling raw mana above him surged through his pores all at once.
"Urgh!"
He jolted in surprise. The sheer volume of energy entering him was far greater than he'd expected. As it crashed into him, he felt his body changing instantly.
No — not just his body. For the first time, he could sense and feel the existence of his own soul, the mana cleansing it of impurities he never even knew were there.
To his surprise, his soul felt impossibly vast and expansive, as though it could stretch to cover an entire realm.
It was then that he understood why the mana felt like so much more than it should have. But if this kept up, his body wouldn't be able to endure it. It would implode — the mana felt as though it would never stop pouring in.
"Kurgh!!"
Blood began trickling from all of his orifices as his bloodstream filled with something other than blood, overflowing with mana instead.
He forced himself to focus on controlling the flow. He had no idea how. But he had to. He needed to figure it out before the worst happened.
Unfortunately, no matter how hard he tried, it was no use. The energy was far beyond his control, as if it refused to listen to someone so small and insignificant.
His small, malnourished body began to swell, glowing faintly in an otherworldly white. Seeing this, he panicked — for the first time in a long while.
But before the emotion could drown him entirely, a cold, almost emotionless voice resounded in his head.
"Calm down."
The voice did nothing to calm the energy itself. It was never meant to.
But hearing it, Caelan was able to calm down. Only a little, but it was enough to bring back his superior cognitive skill.
He inhaled deeply and forced every unnecessary thought from his mind. He let go of his rage. He shoved his hatred to the very bottom of his mind. And finally, he accepted his mother's death.
The glow grew brighter by the second. But he forced himself to stay calm and think it through properly.
'I can't control this energy, and I can't expel it either. But maybe I've been thinking about this wrong.' He ran through the process again, from the beginning. The volume of mana was far greater than normal because of his vast soul. Since his body couldn't handle it being funneled into a single point, what if he split it into two?
Normally, that would be impossible — the human mind couldn't focus on two things at once.
But he had always had two minds inside him.
Himself, Caelan.
And the voice in his head.
Ren.
Taking advantage of that, he calmly gathered the energy toward two points in his body. One in his lower abdomen. The other in his heart.
According to his mother, people typically placed their core in the lower abdomen, since placing it in the heart was reserved for the genius and the exceptionally brave — and even they needed expert guidance to keep their heart from rupturing.
What he was about to attempt had never been done before. Or — maybe it had, by some.
But none of them had lived to tell the tale.
And none of them had had the advantage of two minds, the way Caelan did.
So he slowly guided the white energy toward his lower abdomen while Ren guided the rest toward his heart. With this method, both his body and soul would have two sources through which to receive and store mana.
Slowly but surely, the swelling and the glow began to subside, disappearing entirely after a full five hours.
With the second part complete, it was finally time for the third and final stage of the awakening. It wasn't as crucial as the first part, nor as gruelling as the second, but it was the part most people who survived the process looked forward to most.
Element awakening.
If there was any blessing to being born human, it was that every human carried the potential to awaken any element in the world — even though, in the end, only one would actually manifest after the process completed.
But 'any element' also included none. Meaning there was always a slim chance of awakening with no element at all, leaving someone elementless for the rest of their life.
There was also the matter of lineage — the element one awakened was often tied to one's parents.
So it would be a lie to say Caelan wasn't both excited and nervous. Coincidentally, his mother had been one of the unfortunate ones who awakened with no element at all. As for his father, Caelan didn't know if the man had one — he'd never seen him use any kind of element, not even while beating the two of them.
Actually, now that he thought about it, he had never seen anyone in the city use an element at all. He doubted it was due to some kind of regulation, since laws barely existed here in any meaningful sense. He couldn't help but wonder if being elementless was far more common than people let on.
Then, without asking for his permission, the barely-stabilized cores in his lower abdomen and heart suddenly began to emit light, making his skin glow. His heartbeat accelerated with excitement, pumping his mana-filled blood faster.
'What is it? What is it? What is it?'
He didn't have to wait long before the light began to fade. From what he'd learned, the colour of the core would reveal which element had been awakened.
He'd never actually learned which colour corresponded to which element, though. It hardly mattered — once the awakening succeeded, he'd be able to use it himself and find out soon enough.
When the light finally faded completely, to his utter disbelief, the colour was exactly the same as before. As if nothing had changed at all.
"Did I fail?" he thought nervously. "No — that can't be it."
It was simply impossible to fail the third part. To make matters worse, he'd hoped that having two cores might mean two elements. But reality was cruel — or maybe he'd already burned through all his luck surviving the second part — because both cores remained the same pale white. Though the one in his heart now carried a faint silvery tint.
Caelan sighed deeply. Not that he hadn't half-expected it.
"You fool!" The voice in his head — Ren — sounded furious.
"W— what?" Caelan asked, startled. "What did I do wrong?"
Ren sighed, the way one might sigh at someone particularly dense.
"Did you not notice the silverish tint on the core in your heart?"
"Of course I did! What about it?"
Ren sighed again.
"You — we — just awakened the time element, dumbass."
!!