“Vince!  Vince, wake up!! You are going to be late!!” Hearing his mother yelling for him, his eyes shot open. ‘Crap i’m going to be late’ 

“I’m up mom.  I’ll be up in a few minutes.”  ‘I hate waking up like this,’ getting his ass out of bed and headed to the restroom to clean up.   This was too damn early for getting up.  It’s not even sunrise yet.  We have to go see the village warden this morning for my sixteenth birthday.  Today is the awakening ceremony and I can finally start cultivating.  We are heading to the Hunters guild for my ceremony.  

Living in a close knit, good sized village, the community donates cores to the guild for this very reason.  The village is a little special, due to frequent monster tides, we developed a safer form of living.  Everyone lives in burrows.  During a monster tide, nearly everyone hides in their homes.  With earth magic, the burrows are more sturdy than concrete walls.  Remodeling your house is easier too.  Enchanted lights and mirrors get light inside and at night, glow in the dark plants light up the entire burrow.  Back to the ceremony.  Nobody wants to have their child not awaken due to not having the 10 cores that are needed for the awakening.  That being said, these are 1 star cores.  If the family has higher level cores, they can provide them for the ceremony and that gives the newly awakened person a better start.

You can only use up to 3 star cores at best when awakening.  The ceremony is to jump starting your body refinement stage with the ceremony.  If you used higher star cores, your body could explode from the overflow of mana into your body. (AN—fire hydrant used to fill water balloon)

Heading upstairs I saw everyone at the table eating.  Mom already got my plate out, Dad had already finished his and was cleaning the kitchen.  Mary was feeding Tami.  Mary was my older sister and is 17 years old.  Tami is the newest family member.  She turned 2 a few weeks ago, she was an oops baby but we all helped take care of her.  Mom and Dad are both still pretty young being in their early 40s.  Dad is in the Heavenly core refinement realm which is pretty good, taking everything into account.  Mom is in the Mortal refinement realm, she is needing either a few 3 star cores or quite a few 2 star cores.  We have 5 two star cores but they want to use them for my awakening.  Adults usually don’t use low star cores on themselves as it takes double the amount to progress since their bodies have stagnated, but if that’s all they have, then they will use them.

Some people are able to absorb enough mana from the environment to break through to the next level but most need a higher level star core to give that extra push.  Mary, my older sister, has already entered the mana refinement realm, which is amazing.  But I have my theory on this and it involves her keeping her legs in the air.

I inhaled my breakfast and gave Mom a nod as me and Dad bounced out the door.  As we left we heard Tami giggling on the floor, she was playing with a toy I had made her.

We didn’t talk much on the way.  Everything had been talked about in depth for the past few years.  Amazingly when you awakened, the awakening would focus on what you prepared for.  Best way to explain it is if you studied a lot, the awakening would strengthen your mentality making the process of becoming a strong mage easier.  If you focused on your physical features such as strength and speed.  It made becoming a knight, ranger or physically demanding profession easier.  Each profession had its strengths and weaknesses. Vince was working on everything, nearly all jack of the trades failed to excel in one. They survived longer than most.

His daily routine would be getting yelled at to wake up, clean up and eat and head out to help his Dad in the woods.  He was one of the hunters for the village.  They would see if there were any missions at the guild and then head out.  Trained to survive in the woods and how to track animals as well as find out what areas to avoid.  How to fight against goblins and numerous other creatures that would occasionally show up from the deep woods.  I could kill a 2 star creature before I awakened, as long I got the initial attack in.  It wasn’t much since we always had Itchy with us, which helped Itchy was our 6 star shadow panther.  Dad found her in a lair 15 years ago.  Her mom had been killed the day before by the village as she got too close to the village killing some of our livestock.  Mary named her Itchy because at that point, Mary was barely 3years old and Itchy’s fur would make her itch.  The rest is history.  Once we headed home for the day I would study.  Anything I could get my hands on I would study and try to memorize such as magic, mana, beast and beast taming, plants, alchemy, and forging.  

The village library would give out a max of 3 books at a time.  I was well known for always being at the library in the evening.  Last year our library reached out to the neighboring town and did a book swap, just for me to get some new books.  

I was determined to have a great awakening.  Some of my friends only started training a few months before their awakening.  Dad started training me when I turned 5.  He started training Mary at the age of 10 and that pretty much doomed me once she showed great results after her awakening.  It went from a loving training and fun workout to ‘it does more pushups or it gets the stick.’  Not all families would do this as cores are expensive and unless you're out in a community like the Burrows.  You would have to pay gold for cores.

Mary would be heading off to the awakeners academy this fall, in 5 months after her 18th birthday.  It's held in the capital, a 4 week trip by horse.  The academy is mixed with commoner and nobility.  Surprisingly no real issues have arisen from this in a long time.  Around 150 years ago, they still had class together but the nobility would bully and abuse the commoners.  A few commoners left and returned when they were powerful and destroyed that kingdom and whipping out those families.  Well that started a trend and within 30 years nearly 70 percent of all nobility had been destroyed around the known world.  Many kingdoms collapsed and were destroyed.  Many of those kingdoms were then invaded and finished off by others.  Now all headmasters are powerful commoners to prevent this from repeating.  Any sort of corruption will lead to heads rolling.  Occasionally you hear about something like this happening.  A noble house being destroyed over the weekend is the kind of event you don’t forget.

We finally arrived at the Guild HQ and headed downstairs.  Vince waved at the receptionist who was a pretty elf.  Her name was Emmy, she was your typical wood elf.  Red hair, green eyes and beyond beautiful.  Going downstairs through the reinforced dirt walls.  We arrived at the ceremony room.  Walking in I see quite a few people here.  I figured there would only be a few people in here, considering it's not even 5 am.  I saw Uncle George, who is my mom’s brother.  Next to him I saw my neighbors Matt and Rebecca and the town butcher Frank.  

“Morning everyone, is everyone here ready to watch something amazing?”  He smiled at them, smirking.  

Uncle George walked over and smacked the back of my head.  “You owe each of them, you little shit.  They all wanted to bring something for your awakening ceremony.  They all brought some cores for your ceremony.  We won’t be using any 1 star cores for your ceremony.”

He stepped to the side and I saw that all the parts of the formation were already filled with cores.  4 of the cores were larger than the others and I knew they were 3 star cores.  

“Who brought those?” I pointed at the bigger cores.  I couldn’t hold back how excited I was.

“Well 1 of those is from me and the other is from Frank.”  George was patting my back while filling me in.  The others were gifted to you from some of your friends.

“Don’t say anything you little shit.  Take this as a thanks from the village.  From all of the donated food you have brought to me.  You could have easily saved enough money to buy a few of these cores if you had sold the animals you killed to me.  Just take it as a thank you and don’t disappoint us.”  Frank smiled with his arms crossed.

“The others are from the rest of the town and a few are from Matt and Rebecca.  Now get in the formation so we can get this over with as we still have to work today.”  Uncle George nudged me forward.

Stepping over the lines and sitting in the center of the formation had caused sweat to appear on Vince’s forehead.  Relaxing as much as possible was not as easy as I thought.

“Remember to deal with the pain and do not pass out.  The Longer you stay awake the better the result.  Give me a nod when you are ready.”  Uncle George was standing next to one of the 3 star cores.

Calming down took a minute and he nodded toward him. Uncle George smiled and smashed the 3 star core.  A flash blinded me for a second, then I saw the mana flow through the formation lines and hit the other cores.  The reaction was instant, the second the mana hit the core they would shatter and increase the mana within the formation.  It slowly started spreading toward me.  Once the mana hit me, I bit the side of my tongue.  Not on purpose either, the pain felt the same as the time I was bit by the army ants.  The feeling of having skin ripped off would have been better.  All over the body was stinging pain, he wanted to scream but had no ability as his body wasn’t responding.  

The mana was destroying and rebuilding the body.  The more mana, the more rebuilt the person would be.  Mana breaking into his pores and tearing apart Vince’s flesh.

What felt like forever passed before a feeling of being punched in my gut hit me.  I could barely breath before now the wind was knocked out of me.  Everyone said it was painful but nothing like this.  Gasping for air while trying to ignore the stinging pain all over my skin.  I wanted to cry, hell just screaming would be a let off.  

Finally tears came out of my eyes.  The pain was easing off.  Fucking hell finally over. 

“AAAAGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!” My limbs felt like they were being yanked apart.  “FUUUUUCCKKKKK!! STOP IT!!!!”  I screamed at the top of my lungs.  Hours were going by and all I felt was extreme pain.  I couldn’t see, could barely breath and only I felt pain.  I couldn’t hold on anymore and wanted to give up.  Tears flowed out my eyes, having let everyone down.  When you failed to make it through the awakening, you most likely would end up a cripple.  Your spine would snap from the mana blow out.  Those truly unlucky would die.  

Picturing Dad and Tami crying over me, made the pain double for whatever reason.  The pain doubling woke my reasoning up.  Focusing on getting through this I am determined to make it through.  

Time flew by as I was in a living hell.  The thought of going to sleep kept calling to me as a sweet voice of temptation.  

Time never flowed so slowly, but finally the pain was easing up.  It stopped hurting so much and opened my eyes and saw Mom.  “Mom, when did you get here?” Was all I could say in a whisper.

“VINCENT!! What the hell did you do?”  She came over next to me from her chair.  “Are you okay?  Does it hurt anywhere?”  She was holding my shoulder pretty tightly.

“You're squeezing my shoulder too hard Mom, and I’m just a little sore.  How did you get here?  How long was the ceremony?”  I felt a breeze and looked down, noticing my birthday suit.

She handed me some clothes.  “Let’s get you home and talk about it.  We need to get you in bed but first put these clothes on.”  She let me go and stood up.  She left the room before I even stood up.  No clue on how my other clothes disappeared but glad to not be streaking around.

Standing up, Vince noticed a big difference.  “What the fuck happened?”  He went from being the same height as his mom, to a head taller.

Stepping out of the room, he found his annoyed mother, “Your ceremony went a little off.  Let’s get you home and we can talk there.”  We walked up the stairs slowly.  I am trying to get my feet underneath me.  Walking and balancing are taking a bit to get used to.

Finally making it upstairs, walking into the main lobby and saw Matt and Emmy.  Both of them had shocked expressions on their faces.  Emmy bolted over and hugged me tightly.  

Matt walked over examining me, “are you okay bud?”

Smiling at him, “yeah, just a bit sore and obviously getting used to this.”  I pointed at myself and he nodded.

“Do you need a hand getting him home?”  He was looking at Mom. 

“He should be fine but I won’t say no to an extra hand.  Thank you Matt”. She smiled at the extra hand

Emmy let me out of the hug, not that I didn’t enjoy it.

We left after Mom and Emmy chatted in the back area.

When we got home, it was an empty house.  It was dark outside and as far as I could tell, the sun had yet to come up.  Everyone should have been home.

Finally making it downstairs I laid in my bed.  What the hell happened.  I never heard of anything like this or even read about something like this.  I put my head down to relax and while waiting I passed out.  

“Glad you survived little one, get stronger and absorb better cores so I can help you out.  Don’t let the legacy of shadow dragons be tarnished by you.”  

I sat up so fast.  Covered in sweat.  That dream was weird.  I was in total darkness before seeing a giant claw fly toward my head waking me up.

I looked around the room and saw light coming in so I guess I slept a few more hours. 

Rinsing off in the shower and finally headed up to the living room.