Inside the bedroom of an art shop, the rustling of the blanket could be heard as a young man was currently twisting and turning on top of the bed. His face was ridden with frown lines, seemingly experiencing great pain. Could it be a nightmare?

Seconds later, the boy suddenly woke up while gasping for air. The room was then filled with sounds of heavy breathing and panting. Sweat was trickling down his young hopeless face. Dull reddened eyes, dry lips, and a face full of fatigue - this was Max Enderwood.

He adjusted himself to a seated position on the bed. He collected himself and recalled what happened moments earlier.

[Name: Unknown

Grade: Ruin

Attribute: Space/Illusion

…]

“No, no, no, no, …”

After remembering the prior occurrence, he couldn’t help but not believe it. He kept on shaking his head, apparently denying the current reality. He couldn't control himself as tears were now welling up in his eyes, “Reality must be playing me”.

“This must be an illusion”, Max kept on consoling himself. “Or this could be a nightmare, I better wake myself up”, saying that he gritted his teeth and raised his hands. He was about to slap himself awake when the bedroom door suddenly opened.

“Stop it”, an old man in his fifties entered the room. Wearing a simple white shirt and navy blue jeans, Uncle Arthur walked towards Max and sat beside him.

“It has been hard on you”, Arthur gently caressed Max’s back while rustling his hair. He looked at Max dotingly, plastered on his face was a very comforting smile.

“This kid was similarly devastated when I first saw him, but somehow he was able to hold on. I wonder what happened?”, Arthur introspected. However, he had a little bit of inkling as to what had occurred. After all, he already knew that his spirit body was anything but ordinary, “Then, it must have something to do with his spirit relic”. Unlike spirit bodies which experts of higher realms could investigate, spirit relics were concealed from anyone unless taken out by the user.

“Can you tell me what happened?”, asked Arthur. Max looked at him while the latter sighed internally.

“I- I- I possess a mythica- cal spirit bo- body”, Max said in a hoarse and quivering voice. “Bu- bu- but, the spirit relic I awakened was a- a- a- ruin”, he couldn’t help but bite his lower lips to prevent himself from crying.

Uncle Arthur sighed, “But what about it?”.

“Wha- What do you mean?”, asked Max

“Have you finished digesting the information transmitted to you by your spirit relic?”, inquired Arthur as he looked at Max amusingly.

“I- I- did not. After knowing that it was a ruin-grade, I- I- broke down”, Max replied with an ashamed look.

“Okay, then check it first”, Arthur instructed.

Max eventually nodded and following that, he entered his spirit world. He first examined the broken mirror. Giving all of his attention to it, he realized that the mirror was designed intricately. It was laden with some of the past era’s baroque style elements. Although the mirror itself was left with broken shards and missing pieces, the mirror frame was still intact.

Finished with a dull bronze color, the frame was considered to be ordinary if not for the elements embedded in it. Dominated with curvy leaves and shell motifs, feathers of unknown origins, phantasmal masks of varying emotions, and small blank figurines - the mirror radiated with a cinematic feel. The designs felt like stories of different existences from various spaces.

Although the frame was extraordinary, some areas were coated with rust. It looked like it underwent a very long passage of time. From the looks of it, it felt like it witnessed very significant events in the fabric of time - a chaotic space, battlefields of endless blood, the life and death cycle of the living, destructive calamities, the budding and fall of empires, or god knows what other trials it was subjected into.

The more Max looked at the spirit relic, the more his heart was pounding. However, he once again regained calmness after remembering the preceding events.

He was taught with reality, toyed with fate, and even laughed at with the universe, that hope was just hope. It wouldn’t fulfill your expectations, it only served as a driving force for an individual to continue to live. Losing hope, for some, meant that their lives would end, that their cinematic plays would finish - no more part two’s, nor trilogies, nor a never-ending series.

Max, after his spirit relic awakening, seemed like a walking corpse. His will to live dissipated for his very flames of hope extinguished. After all, how can one expect a child to bear all this burden? Although he was tested with time and trialed with his parents’ death - it would not change the fact that he was broken.

A broken gadget would eventually malfunction, a cracked vase would eventually break. One may wonder that wouldn’t these experiences would only temper your will and further strengthen your resolve? Continuous application of stresses and forces to a vessel riddled with imperfections would ultimately shatter it.

A pity for a child full of hope to be ridden with despair. But who knows? Maybe someday, in an hour, or even a minute later, this extinguished flame would once again spark.

Max heaved a sigh and exited his spirit world. He then closed his eyes and dug the relic’s information from his consciousness. He saw a holographic-like panel inside that entailed the mirror’s details.

[Name: Unknown

Grade: Ruin

Attribute: Space/Illusion

A previously ownerless mirror of unknown origins.

Owner: Max Enderwood

Skills:

Space Attribute

Space of Shards (LOCKED)

Illusion Attribute

Will-o’-the-wisp (LOCKED)]

“Eh?” Max narrowed his eyes after digesting the missed information. Ownerless? It was repeatedly pointed out during their lectures that all the spirit relics were owned by at least someone from the Age of Gods, or from the age of the primogenitors as taught by Uncle Arthur.

To his surprise, the spirit relic he awakened was not a part of those gigantic empires, nor of those small civilizations, nor of those unknown tribes. Excalibur was a sword from the Arthurian Empire while Gungnar was of Scandinavian origin. On the other hand, Ethan’s hammer originated from the Empire of the Greeks while Miranda’s necklace came from an archipelagic civilization.

“Isn’t it odd?”, his eyes were clouded in confusion. Thinking hard, he could not even remember any historical expert who suffered from the same fate. Furthermore, all spirit relics should have a name.

The more he looked at it, the more his mind stirred. After arriving at the skills portion, he was flabbergasted upon seeing the words, (LOCKED). “The heavens must love toying with me. Giving me a ruin spirit relic and locked skills on top of that”, he surmised lifelessly.

Getting two skills after awakening a dual-attributed spirit relic was the norm, however, all initial skills should be usable directly after entering the realm of spirit masters. Having locked skills was unprecedented. However, it was to be expected because ruin spirit relics were being equated to disability.

Bewilderment appeared on Max’s face the more he read the details. “Surely, ruin spirit relics are unusable with the skills locked”, he thought in disappointment.

Uncle Arthur observed Max’s contorting facial expressions. Max’s initially excited look became perplexed, his face in a deep frown. After a couple of seconds, he heard a sigh deeper than the ocean trenches escaped from Max’s mouth.

“How is it?”, Uncle Arthur asked Max as the latter slowly opened his dead eyes.

“It is bad”, Max chuckled with a hint of ridicule towards himself. “The awakened skills are locked. Furthermore, the spirit relic appears to be previously ownerless”.

Uncle Arthur’s lips formed into a wide smile upon hearing his words. His face was clearly exuberant and was only a couple of seconds away from laughing.

Max’s face was riddled with question marks after glancing at Arthur’s elated face. His wide smile even strengthened his foregoing impression of him, “Ironic! Really ironic! Why is this old man smiling like an idiot? Can’t he see the current situation? Sigh, he is beyond saving”.

Arthur noticed Max’s lifeless eyes glancing at him as if he was an idiot. He shivered at the young man’s thoughts. “Why are you looking at me like that? Between the two of us, I know I’m not the stupid one”, he uttered before breaking into a peal of wild laughter.

Max’s face was crestfallen hearing the old man’s laughter, “The universe has forsaken me!”.

A couple of seconds later, Uncle Arthur’s laugh came to a complete stop. However, emotions of joy and gratitude were still clearly evident on his wrinkled face.

“An ownerless spirit relic meant that it was destined for you, that it was made only for you. The preparatory academe did not mention this, but, all the great primogenitors from the age of the beginning started from scratch, started from nothing. They honed, they practiced, they learned as they progressed. Historical records even stated that they possibly acquired their might from chaos, that they were given magical powers by the beginning itself”, Uncle Arthur's eyes sparkled as he talked to Max.

“Sure, a divine spirit relic is amazing, it is beyond our reach. But the wielder will only follow the path carved by its predecessor, by its previous owner - in divine grade’s case the primogenitors. But what does an ownerless spirit relic entail? It signifies that the owner shall not be shackled by the chains of the past, shall not follow the road taken by many, shall not be caged within the confines of the known. Rather, you are free from the shadows of the ones before you, you shall follow a trail untraversed by many, you shall explore the limitless possibilities brought upon by the unknown”.

Max's breathing became ragged. Deep inside his heart, the smoke of despair gradually vanished, replaced by a flickering new flame of hope.