“Put the boxes on the table here”, Old Man Caine pointed to a table at the center of one of the opened rooms.

Max and the two students entered the room and followed the Keeper’s instructions. “Remove the covering lid”, instructed Old Man Caine as he entered the room.

The three hopefuls removed the covering lid and all four sides of the wooden box fell, revealing the power stones placed inside.

“Now touch the power stones for five seconds and I can directly determine your grade”, directed the old man. His eyes were filled with clear anticipation towards the results of the younger generation.

Simultaneously, the three of them touched the power stones and the room was suddenly enveloped with different kinds of light.

After the receding of the glaring light rays, Old Man Caine’s attention landed on the power stone held by Max. It gave off a shockingly brilliant rainbow light. All of the colors intertwined around the power stone, colors like bubbles but in the form of light rays.

“A mythical spirit body?”. Caine blurted in shock. He did not expect Max to possess a mythical spirit body. Earlier, at his first glance, he expected Max to have a legendary spirit body at most. Surely, he was again taught that expectations are far from reality.

Caine cannot contain his excitement to the point that he even forgot the assessment of the other two. After the initial surge of elation, he composed himself and looked at the power stones held by Mike and Romeo.

White light was given off by both the power stones held by the other two students, an indicator of a common spirit body.

Common spirit bodies give off a white light, while rare spirit bodies emit silver light. On the other hand, golden spirit bodies release golden light, and mythical spirit bodies effuse rainbow light, as demonstrated by Max. As for divine bodies, Uncle Arthur stated that they can sometimes be mistaken as mythical spirit bodies, therefore, it can be deduced that they also gave off rainbow light.

After knowing the results, the two students were also clearly surprised by Max’s results. Different questions were asked in their respective minds. “Will he be as powerful as the founder?”, “Will he also awaken a mythical spirit relic?”.

But after some thought, they ignored Max and focused on their spirit bodies. They both heaved heavy yet sorrowful sighs. All kinds of hope were extinguished in their eyes.

On the other hand, Max was still in a daze clearly disbelieving of his own results. He was only awakened by the loud laughter of Old Man Caine.

“Good, very good! A mythical spirit body! The heavens have blessed our academy!”, the old man said in jubilation.

Max composed himself, tears swelling at the corner of his eyes. His tears were about to drop, but he held himself. These are tears of joy! Tears overflowing with hope! “Surely, lady luck blessed me this time!”, he mused to himself.

Before Max can celebrate further, Old Man Caine was stirred with agitation. He quickly disturbed the students from their inner contemplations and drove them out of the room.

Little did they know that inside the rainbow light emitted by Max’s power stone, was very black light. The light could be considered the darkest shade of black as if it was the void, as if it was the nothingness. However, its peculiarity was concealed by the rainbow light, therefore, escaping the attention of the peering eyes.

“Quick, quick. These are spirit stones! Place them in your hands and absorb the spirit power contained through meditation. It contains a very high concentration of spirit power, far greater than what your spirit bodies can handle”, Old Man Caine explained as he gave them each a spirit stone.

Spirit stones were stones produced in areas with extreme concentration of spirit power. Due to the overwhelming amounts of spirit power, it began to condense and gradually formed into spirit stones. These spirit stones were very important resources for spirit relic users in spirit warrior realms and above.

The scattered spirit power in the atmosphere was too minuscule for the continuous advancements of spirit warriors and above. Hence, spirit stones became one of the primary meditation commodities. Just like spirit power, spirit stones were also readily available since time immemorial. However, humans without spirit bodies could not sense the presence of spirit power inside and could not distinguish them from normal rocks.

“The extreme surge of spirit power will destroy your spirit bodies and awaken the spirit relics hidden within. Remember, the process is torturous but don’t let yourselves lose to pain. Your many years of education and meditation have prepared you for this very moment. Good luck and I hope that you can bring the academy some great results,” the keeper’s tone became serious.

As they walked towards the floor interior, Caine let them enter separate meditation rooms one after another. Unlike the meditation rooms on the lower floors, the meditation rooms here are sturdily fortified to withstand outbursts of spirit power during awakening.

Max was the last to enter a room. Before stepping inside, Old Man Caine tapped his shoulders gently and left with the words, “I hope you can awaken at least a legendary spirit relic”.

Max smiled as he watched the old man’s back gradually becoming further away from him. “I hope so, too”, he silently replied within his heart.

Heaving a deep sigh, he entered the meditation room in a calm and composed manner. The words left upon by Uncle Arthur were still clearly imprinted in his mind… stories start from blank pages... and paintings are produced from empty canvases.

Holding the spirit stone in his left hand, he calmly seated himself in a meditative position. After clearing his thoughts and emptying his mind, he started meditating. He steadily absorbed the massive amounts of spirit power in the spirit stone, until…

Boom! Max felt his ears were ringing from the very loud sound coming from his body. Afterward, he experienced tremendous pain as if his organs ruptured one by one, his veins asphyxiated, and every cell in his body burst.

Gritting his teeth, he kept on emptying all the painful thoughts inside his brain. After a minute of what felt like an eternal restructuring of his body and of his very existence, the process gradually calmed down. All the spirit power in the spirit stone was furiously absorbed by his body.

After almost five minutes of consolidation of the process, he opened his eyes and took a deep breath. With feelings of excitement and anticipation, through his consciousness, he entered his spirit world.

There, he froze. His once spirit body was now formed into a mirror. However, that mirror was broken. He saw his reflection looking back at him, but his reflection was distorted, was cut, even some areas were blank. It looked like the mirror was shattered and was put back in place even with some broken pieces missing.

The mirror reeked off an aura of mysteriousness and at the same time, ancientness. Although the mirror looked like a certain style from the previous era, the feeling of ancientness did not vanish. It even gave off a feeling that it was even older than the planet itself, or even than the known universe.

After looking at the mirror, new information was transmitted to his brain.

[Name: Unknown

Grade: Ruin

Attribute: Space/Illusion

…]

Before Max finished reading the transmitted information, his bright eyes gradually lost their luster. He was shaking his head. His body was convulsing as if he was on the verge of collapse. He kept uttering the words “No”. Tears quickly formed at the corners of his eyes. No, no, no, no….

Moments later, he broke down. He was gasping for air. Looking very pitiful, numerous depressing thoughts occurred in his mind. He kept crying and crying, tears and snot were scattered around his face.

"No, no, no, no…". He kept mumbling and crying. His heart was filled with pain. The once flame of hope was extinguished and turned into the smoke of despair that gradually ate him inside and out.

This burden was too much for a twelve-year-old to handle. This feeling was too heavy for a young heart. After a couple of minutes of bawling, Max eventually passed out.

At the same time, on the skies above the Azetric City. Dark clouds churned, encompassing the whole city. It even continuously expanded outwards. After a couple of seconds, hundreds of square kilometers of the sky were covered with darkness. The once bright sunny afternoon became dark as the night - giving a gloomy feeling to the city. Then…

Swoosh! A flash of very bright and thick lightning streaked at the center of the clouds whose appearance now became similar to a supertyphoon. The very fast lightning strike emitted a blinding light during the dark moment. Then, Bang! A resounding thunderclap followed.

All the citizens stopped what they were doing. Disturbed by this phenomenon, they looked up at the skies in adoration and resumed their work. In their minds, ideas of powerful spirit experts fighting in the skies above surfaced.

On the other hand, at an inconspicuous shop at Seychelles’ Business Street, an old man vanished from behind the shopping counter.