"It's an honor to be in a sect. We have everything you could ever need. Why would you ever think it better to refuse our invitation?" - Cyan River Sect Elder

"Alius!"

Opening my eyes just a peek, Alius groaned as the sun sliced against his poor, sleep-dulled face. Today was Alius’s seventh anniversary, his seventh birthday. Traditionally, Alius would take the day off, do some relaxing, have a nice, calm dinner. Maybe celebrate a little.

Today though, today was the day where every child would be tested for their cultivation talent. The testee would place their hand on the talent stone, and various lights would shine around, indicating your level of talent. Differing intensities of said lights indicated further levels of innate talent. Regardless of your birthday, all seven year olds were tested on this day.

Children blessed with good talent were respected. They would have a home banquet, inviting their relatives to celebrate. A quiet thing, no need to involve others.

Children with exceptional amounts of talent were exalted. They would be invited to join a sect by one of the elders overseeing the testing. They all said yes. You would be an idiot not to.

Actually, there was one occasion where someone had declined, but rumors circulating around all said he was mentally unstable. No one ever saw him again.

Children with average levels of talent were accepted, after all, they were the majority of all the citizens.

Children with terrible levels of talent were shunned, quietly pushed to the back of the crowd by sorrowful parents. Most of the time, they would never step onto the path of cultivation at all, instead picking up a profession, without the ability to travel and see the world.

In the eyes of the world, their only contribution to them would be to pick up a profession to get some use out of them.

At least with a profession, they would contribute some tiny amount to the true talents, the cultivators.

"Alius! Get out here! You're going to be late!"

Ah, mother.

Even imbeciles would admit she cared very much about her son's future. She had seen what the lack of talent could lead to, and took talent very seriously. Everything was a worst-case scenario with her. She had even backup plans to help me should I be forced into learning a profession. Of course, this was with good reason.

Our grandfather, Renwald Convario, was just a commoner, but at his talent test, he had made the talent stone shine with a yellow light that forced all to briefly look away. The elders weren't impressed, but the small-time nobles rushed to snap my grandfather up. He ended up under the service of Baron So-and-so, but after he grew older, unable to fight, the Baron turned on him. Now that he was of no use, the Baron offered to keep supporting him if he would take up a profession to continue contriving something to the noble house of blah blah blah. Grandfather gave up his future for his future children, and married another servant of the same noble family. They had my mother, and she married my father, still staying with members of the same noble family. He fought well for the nobles, and pleased, they gave him freedom. Afterwards, he continued fighting for the rewards they offered, and became injured. Dad doesn't like to talk about it, but sometimes I see him stumbling over his own feet while running. He too was offered the same conditions. Become a worker. Serve the family. He too took it.

My mother grew up with all her closest relatives having professions, and she saw how hard they worked, and how little the world cared. Most of the pills my grandfather created were given to noble children as candy, and most of my father's formations we're given as toys, little curiosities. Now, the last thing she wanted for her son was to have him pick up a profession as well.

Alius’s arm dangled over the side of his bed, and it slowly dragged his body off the edge of his H mattress.

"Coming!"

The loudest voice he could manage right now was barely louder than a croak.

Wobbly with sleep, Alius stumbled over to his clothes, and slipped into a pair. A clean, slate-grey short sleeved shirt and comfortable sweatpants.

The floor was hard-packed dirt, as the house was part of the benefits provided in exchange for the service of my father.

After Alius walked into the kitchen, he scarfed down a quick breakfast of eggs, sunny side up.

The walk to the center of the town was long, but Alius managed to amuse himself by seeing all the other children anxiously holding onto their mothers hands, all nervous about what their future would be like. All of themwere told about this world starting from a young age, and by seven years old, we knew what was expected of us, and what this talent test would mean.

The talent test was held in the town square, right in the middle of our community. The centerpiece was a transparent rock that stood straight up, pointing to the sky. Under its surface, milky white lines of light generally swirled around its inner space. This stone had to be carefully selected from an assortment of other magical stones, and then a cultivator would input their qi into the stone, giving it the ability to react to the levels of qi in one's body. This is how the talent test worked. At seven, we.had not started to cultivate yet, so all the qi in our bodies was the result of natural absorption. Based on how much we had, the stone would shine with a light of the colors of the rainbow.

Interrupting my thinking, a quiet voice echoed throughout the crowd, but everyone could hear it as if it was speaking next to their ears.

"All of you, thank you for coming today. Every year, we hold a test, to see which among you have the talent, the potential to become one of us, to be able to fight for your own future. I wish you all luck.”

With that, the elder turned around, and motioned his hand towards them to go. The annual talent test had no particular order, if you wanted to go, you walked up to the stage. There were not many rules, but the only one enforced by the elders is the rule that only one person was allowed on the stage at a time. Pointless brawls often broke out, parents fighting to let their children go, but most of the time, it resulted in both parties giving up and having to wait even longer. When one adult won over the other, the losing party often had to leave to have their injuries treated, and they would take their children with them, robbing them of their opportunity to see their future path.

Everyone was silent after the elder’s announcement, as no one wanted to be the first to go up on the stage. After half a minute of waiting, a raven-haired mother finally brought her daughter up to the stage, leading her by the hand. The girl walked up the steps and across the platform to place her hand against the testing stone. From my vantage point, he could see her slowly close her eyes as she reached out to touch her hand to the transparent surface. As her skin made contact with the stone, the white lines of light slowly drifted over to the area where her hand was. They all lined up, spiralling around the stone, and the string closest to the girl reached out and touched her hand. After sharing a moment with her, the string slowly turned a dull orange, and the color slowly began to spread out from the point of contact. The girl had an average talent, just like all the others in the village. She would neither excel nor fail, instead keeping an average speed, living an average life.

After staring at the beautiful sunset orange color the stone had created, the girl shyly turned around and ran back into the arms of her mother, who was wearing a sad smile on her face. Orange grade talent was average, but the light shone brighter than most, so the girl was a little more talented than the average, but nowhere near the exceptional genius that all parents hoped their children would turn out to be.

Much of the rest of the afternoon was more of the same. People milled about in a crowd in the beginning, but started to form lines a little bit afterwards. We were in the middle, an estimated half hour away from the pace people were taking. Luckily, our town was small, so it wouldn't take an overly exaggerated amount of time.

There was only one noteworthy event, one boy had a green color shine when his talent was tested. This level of talent could be considered talented, enough to be noticed in a sect. The sect elder extended an invitation, and after glancing at his mother and father, who were hugging each other and nodding encouragingly, he thanked the sect elder and entered their sect. When he returned the mother and father embraced him, although their son would soon leave, he would have a great future, as sect members typically received more benefits and with them, more power.

Slowly, our position inched towards the stage, countless flashes of light sprung up in front of us, and with each one the line shuffled another few steps forward. The closer Alius got to the stage, the tighter the claw around his heart became. Slowly, but surely, the testing stone took up more and more of his vision, with each result making it shine, sometimes at a warm glow, other times with a resplendent brilliance that left me seeing spots.

This continued for more people, until the boy in front of me went up. When he put his hand against the stone, the rock lit up with a bright, emerald green glow. The plaza fell silent, with everyone standing mesmerized by its mysterious glow. The boy went back to his parents with a proud smile, and they welcomed him with smiling faces. They knew that the sect elders would extend an invitation to join after the test. He would definitely have a brighter future.

His time was finally up. Alius gulped as he looked up at the now looming staircase, each step seeming to extend infinitely into the heavens. The stairs and the platform represented an omniscient presence that would decide his future fate. Where he would be in life. How people would treat me. A low talent, and Alius would be less than the dirt he walked on. A good talent, and he would be acknowledged, respected even. A great talent, Alius could only hope for one. But with it, he would rise like the sun.

Each step Alius took up was like another roll of the dice, gambling to control his destiny.

When he reached the flat top of the platform, Alius could see the stone right in front of him, but at that instant, it seemed to be unreachably far away. Then, with a blink, it snapped back in front of him, with his hand almost touching the stone. Crossing the last inch was the hardest, but his fingers contacted the smooth surface of the stone, slightly warmed from all the previous children who had come before me.

Just like all the ones before, the milky white strings came swimming over to his hand. Almost cautiously, they touched his fingertips for just a moment before backing away. But they did not light up. The strings let out not even a glow as they crumbled away, taking the magic with them. A terrible pitch-black spiderweb spread from the core of the stone before the entire thing, the rock that would decide the fate of all the children in the village, shattered into dust.