[Congratulations Zaharian! You've reached the Castle of Light.]
The hexagonal panel appeared in front of Leo as the voice echoed in his ears.
The castle loomed over him like a conceptual spectator. Leo felt the Castle of Light served as a bridge between time differences. No, it wasn't only time; maybe it was also the point where reality, time, illusions, and the existential met.
If that was right, then why did this place feel divided and yet whole at the same time? One could say the light itself—representing pride, blissfulness, and life—was a definition meant for the Celestials following the Path of Ascension, while the shadow the castle bore wasn't only its flaw but represented vileness, evil, and death, serving as a definition for the Tenebris following the Path of Corruption.
They were both divided and yet a whole, brought together by a single entity: Aura.
If so, was the Aura System alive? Considering the gap between the two factions of Aura, it took a working mind to bring these two together. Then again, a network capable of bringing the two together could be created by someone. Yet the system is seen as nothing but a string that connected Primoria to Aura fully.
It was either created as a string that was neither mindless nor sentient, or it was created from a living mind to possess the ability to transmit aura and turn it into different categories of mechanisms for Primoria.
Who created the system in the first place?
Unfortunately, Leo wasn't interested in thinking about such twisted issues. He was injured, almost dead... or already dead. All he wanted was to get back home and rethink his life choices of wanting to become an Aura Farmer.
Although he didn't want to think about it, he was forced to consider the rudimentary part of it. What he noticed was that he wasn't in the space occupied by the Castle of Light, nor was he in the space occupied by the endless shadow of the castle.
He was in between.
This shouldn't have made any sense to him, but strangely, it did.
If his theory about the Path of Corruption and Ascension was right, then shouldn't he be placed in the path where he would eventually awaken? Why was he in the middle?
His thoughts were interrupted when the system chimed again and echoed in his ears.
[Congratulations! You've passed your Awakening Seek!]
[Prepare to receive your rewards!]
[You've earned a Vestige: Shell of Dread]
[You've earned a Vestige: Yielding Spine]
[You've awakened your Living Seed]
[You've awakened your Divine Seed]
[You've awakened your Power Seed]
[You've awakened a colorless Aura Core]
"Huh?"
The system wasn't done yet.
[You've earned a Skill Tree: Weapon Will]
[You've earned your Awakening Branch: Weapon Fluidity]
"A skill tree?!"
[You've awakened a Skill Grass: Intent Mastery]
"A skill grass also?!"
A Tree was the main ability of an Aura Farmer, while the Grass was a passive skill available to those who awakened the Oracle volume. But awakening a Skill Tree and a Skill Grass simultaneously was just... legendary.
A Skill Tree could only be awakened by an Oracle and the mysterious Advent, with only a few people in Primoria having such abilities, while a Skill Grass was especially rare—not because it was a treasured boon, but because it provided passive abilities that aided the active abilities of an Aura Farmer.
Possessing not one, but two abilities of the Skill rank was a great boon.
[You've earned your Awakening Grass: Survival Intent]
[Preparing your summary...]
[You slew a Condemned Sagittarius, Eye of Dread]
[Your summary is ready...]
'Hmm... I guess it didn't announce my kills of the shadows since they were already dead and not living.'
[A mad snake had traversed the hellish landscape of an endless obsidian desert searching for a way out. Hungry. Angry. Sad. The snake kept scaling the desert until one day, it found a ship buried under the sand.
Filled with new hope, it dug the vessel out, studied it, and entered it, only to be met with the responsibility of changing its past.
In its past, it was a human. A brother of brothers. It was an engineer. The engineer decided to save a realm from evil. He built a ship, battled madness in a great ravaging storm, and led the people of the realm to their doom.
Everyone died. He failed. No one survived, but he did change the past—]
Leo frowned. 'Huh? Didn't everything go back to the way I saw it when it had already been destroyed?'
Well, the system wasn't done yet.
[—He was sad. He was mad. He was aggrieved, but he never ran mad. He never became a snake. He didn't have to bear the burden of thousands of deaths.]
[Your pride is great and boundless. Your ego is precious and endless.]
[You've earned a Mark: Pride]
[You've earned an Awakening Recognition: Sole Witness of the Silent Redact]
[You've earned a Celestial Noun: Solstice of Despair]
"A Celestial Noun?! Ah, why does it sound so sorrowful?"
[Begin your path of As_($$8#Co+&(3+#$rup...cens#(_8@#]
"Huh?"
Before he could even think of what the system was trying to say, everything went dark.
The light disappeared. The shadow buried into the darkness. The injuries Leo felt vanished as if they had never been there before.
Crack! Crack!
Leo slowly opened his eyes, hearing the crunching of wood. Everything was blurry at first, but when he finally regained his sight, he was at a loss for words.
In front of him was a familiar tree with its vines curling around his extended hand.
The Awakening Tree!
He looked around frantically; in a few seconds, he was back home. Jean was still petting Mirage. Fang Rui was Fang Rui. Taren still had that smile.
Time didn't pass at all.
Crack!
"Huh?"
He turned back to the Awakening Tree and saw a crack running across its stem, the vines slowly retracting from his hand.
[Able to farm!]
[User shall neither follow the Path of Ascension nor Corruption!]
[He shall choose his own path! Carve his own path! For he is a... Bastard!]
[Path of a Bastard!]
The tree cracked more and more and suddenly exploded, sending Leo and the organizer flying.
A shadow tendril grabbed Leo before he hit the stone wall, making his heart skip a beat, but when he saw it was from Fang Rui, he calmed himself. That was the bastard's ability, after all.
'Wait a minute, how did he know I was going to be thrown aside so soon?'
There was actually no time to ponder. The shadow tendril placed him softly on the ground. Everyone had weird expressions on their faces. Leo looked at Jean, expecting to see the same expression, but his father was just there with the same indifference as Fang Rui, as if they'd both seen this countless times.
In order to avoid problems, the organizer immediately stood up and addressed the issue, stammering.
"People of... Primoria. Today we witness the birth of humanity's strongest. A Bastard who can carve his own path! Leo Atlantis!"
Everywhere was silent at first; then someone yelled.
"Nonsense! He blew up the tree! How are the rest supposed to awaken?!"
After that, agreeing murmurs followed.
The organizer cleared his throat. "There are more than one ways to awaken. That would be sorted out."
The murmurs calmed, and everyone turned to Leo with a piercing gaze. Then, jubilant roars filled the room.
A drop of sweat fell from Leo's forehead as a twitching smile appeared on his face.
'Humans are so gullible.'