The Magnetic powered vehicle was less a train and more a silent bullet firing through the heart of the nation.
Jonah was escorted into a private room by a stern faced guard. It was a small but luxurious compartment that was a world away from his poor home in the Undercroft.
The door slid shut with a soft hiss, leaving him in complete silence for the first time since the painful explosion of his Awakening.
The exhaustion hit him like a physical blow, and he collapsed onto the surprisingly comfortable bed, not even bothering to take off his worn out boots.
His mind was a maelstrom of confusion and pain, but one image burned brightly behind his closed eyes: the complex golden tattoo on his arm. It was a mark of a nine-headed beast, its lines precise and impossibly perfect, glowing with a faint inner light. A mystery he was far too tired to even begin to solve.
What could this be? was his last conscious thought before the darkness claimed him.
He woke hours later to the gentle hum of the train and a feeling of deep seated confusion. He sat up, his body aching as if he'd been in a brawl with an Ant Soldier and lost. On the small, metallic desk bolted to the wall sat a sleek, black datapad. Its screen glowed with a welcome message.
Welcome to the Mystic Phoenix Primer: Rank one Fundamentals.
Jonah snatched it up. Finally. The answers I'm looking for.
He was a scavenger. His life had depended on figuring out how things worked – how to bypass a security panel, how to strip a drone for parts. This was just a new kind of machine to figure out. He swiped the screen, his fingers flying across the surface.
The primer's introduction was full of lofty language about duty, honor, and protecting the nation from the monstrous threats that lurked beyond the city walls. Jonah skimmed past it. He knew all about monsters; he'd grown up with them as his neighbors. He needed the manual, not the sales pitch.
He found the section titled "Foundational Classes of the Awakened." Hope surged in his chest.
Elementalists (Mages): Bearers of flame, frost, and storm marks. They channeled raw mana from the environment to cast spells. Their training focused on control, precision, and understanding the flow of elemental energies.
Manifestors (Warriors): Bearers of blade, shield, and hammer marks. They solidified their inner power into weapons and armor, becoming living fortresses of combat. Their training was all about physical conditioning, willpower, and combat forms.
Summoners: The rarest of the common classes, marked by stylized animal sigils. They formed pacts with existing magical beasts, calling them forth to fight alongside them.
Jonah's thumb swiped faster and faster, scrolling through dozens of diagrams and descriptions. He saw marks shaped like roaring lions, soaring eagles, and coiled serpents. He saw every variation of sword, axe, and shield imaginable.
But there was no mention of a nine-headed golden beast. Not a single word about a mark that looked anything like his.
His search came up empty. He was unlisted.
He tossed the datapad onto the desk, a cold knot of anxiety tightening in his stomach. The manual was useless.
He took a deep breath, pushing the panic down. The instructor had called his Awakening "defective." The other students whispered about a "half-awakening." What if they were right? What if he was just a dud with a fancy tattoo?
No. He slammed a fist into He refused to believe it. The power he'd felt from the Pillar – the soul shattering, world breaking pain that was real. It had to be.
The primer had one last piece of advice, buried at the end of the introductory section. All Awakened, regardless of class or specialty, possess an inner font of power. Your first and most crucial step is to connect with it. Find it. Feel it. Understand its nature.
Fine. If the book couldn't tell him what he was, he'd have to figure it out himself.
Jonah closed his eyes, sinking back onto the bed. He tried to do as the primer instructed, to look inward for that "font of power." He focused, searching for the wellspring of mana an Elementalist was supposed to have, or the core of solid strength a Manifestor would feel.
Instead, as he focused, a new space bloomed in his consciousness. It wasn't a feeling; it was a place. A vast, silent, and utterly dark void opened up in his mind. It was immense, stretching into a starless infinity. It felt less like a part of him and more like something that had been built inside him, a cavernous, empty factory waiting for its machines to be installed and turned on.
His mind spun. Was this it? Was this his power? An endless, empty room in his own head? He tried to interact with it, to follow the primer's instructions for manifestation. He pictured a sword, sleek and sharp, forming in the center of the dark space.
Nothing happened. The void remained empty.
He tried picturing a ball of fire, hot and bright.
He pushed harder, focusing all his willpower, trying to force something. Anything. Into existence. The space remained lifeless and silent, almost as if it were making fun of him.
It was a workshop with no tools, no materials, and no blueprints.
Panic began to set in, cold and sharp.
He had power. He could feel it humming from the mark on his arm, a deep, powerful feeling that vibrated through his soul. But it was locked behind a door he didn't have the key for. He was a warrior with a sword he couldn't lift, a mage with spells he couldn't speak.
The train sped on, a silent bullet carrying him towards the Mystic Phoenix Academy, a place where power was everything – the sole metric of worth, the key to survival, the language everyone spoke.
And he was arriving with a legendary, unheard of mark and a completely useless power. The thought was more terrifying than any monster he'd ever faced in the darkest tunnels of the Undercroft.