Tiffany was in front of the awakener. Grabbing the mana ball, she could feel excitement coursing through her veins. Looking around, she could see everyone were focusing on the hand holding the device.

Jennifer, was extremely excited and was smiling brightly when Tiffany met her eyes.

“Good luck Tiff!”

”Same to you Jenny.”

The feeling of raw mana being forced into your body was a novel experience. A warm current was spreading through her body following after some times, she felt saturated with mana. She was wondering if there was a problem but after observing the rest of the class and remembering that the more mana you could have, the higher the skill you could awaken.

Feeling satisfied with her reasoning, Tiffany stopped worrying and left the awakening process to its own device.

With a burst of glory, golden light shone from Jennifer’s star that had just materialised.

Shock and disbelief could be felt from everyone present.

The dean, was the first to react. One second he was standing at the podium and the next second I’m he was standing by Jennifer.

“Keep going and don’t be distracted. I am here and nothing will happen. Just focus on completing your awakening”. Reassured the dean.

Three more thatchers appeared to stand guard by her a few seconds after the dean. No one would have expected that the protocol for an S class awakening would be put into place in a country side college.

After a few minutes, the awakening was completed.

Tiffany was proud that her best friend awaned a powerful skill. She would have to wait for the ceremony to complete before finding out what skill she has gotten.

Tiffany realised that the mana was now leaving her body and started to materialise her stars. That’s right stars!

Two stars were forming above her head. Tiffany was thanking the transmigration god with all her might. She was a genius! Her life will be smooth from now on. She was one amongst billions, a legendary dual skills user. None of the previous dual skills user ever ranked below S. One of the six SSS hunter was a dual skills user.

The dean immediately went to her side, however what he said next surprised her.

“Anyone coming within 10 meters will be killed!”

After this declaration was broadcasted with mana, the top 10 strongest staffs of the college surround her in a circle with all kind of imposing weapons. All facing outwards, ready for any signs of hostility. The dean was right next to her, holding two sinister daggers. They seemed to be made of the claws of a deadly monster. Which one? Tiffany had no idea.

”Focus and don’t worry about anything else”. The dean reminded her.

Even if no skill were used, a dagger could still kill a newly awaken and he couldn’t afford to let a genius perish under his eyes.

After, a few more seconds which seemed to have lasted an eternity, an imposing force started to be generated from the two stars. Bright red light flooded the auditorium. The source of this imposing momentum was Tiffany.

Tiffany herself was in a daze. She couldn’t wait believe what she was seeing. The two dark red stars were slowly rotating above her head.

She could already see the sponsorships rolling in and she would be able to buy whatever she wants. Let her parents live the life they want. She could finally get rid off that scar and the irregular pains that she had tolerated for two years.

Just as she was about to scream from joy, her scar started to burn. She felt as if someone was running a knife through her scar. Just as she felt it was too much, her scar exploded out. Her shout of joy turned into a scream of pain.

Bright blood stained her uniform. Her nerve system overloaded and she lost her consciousness. When her body fell towards the ground, unbeknownst to her, the sea of red collapsed back onto the stars and the colour changing. From red it became dark gold, then gold, silver, bronze, purple, blue, green, yellow and finally settling down at white.

From SSS ranker to the lowest rank. From genius to cripple. From king to slave. It would have been better to have simply awakened a civilian skill in the first place.

The dean who caught her before she hit the ground was perplexed. He couldn’t believe what just happened. Never in history had an awakening ceremony been dangerous. Even if you let go mid it, you would be safe.

Jennifer could only watch from afar as her friend was being transported to the infirmary. Tears were forming in her eyes as she could only wait and guess what the cause of her friend trauma was.

~

Tiffany woke up in a dark ward. The smell of disinfectant told her right away where she was. She had spent a month in rehabilitation after waking up from her coma. She never liked hospital.

She could only open one eye. Touching her face she could feel the right side of her face was numb under her bandages.

Tiffany had no courage to look at her status. She had heat too many times the story of over excited students who lost their future due to the fact they could not follow the simple instruction of “Do not let go of the awakener”.

After staring at the clock for 1/2 hour and seeing that the time kept moving forwards and not backwards, Tiffany sat up and call for her status and looked at her skills.

Skill 1: Rank G - Ma…

Closing her status as soon she saw the rank, Tiffany was not interested in anything else.

if someone had walked past her door, they could have hear the sobbing and despair of a young lady who had lost everything before she could have the chance to prove herself.

However, reality was harsh and cruel and no one came to comfort a broken soul in early hours of the morning. After some time, the sobbing became less and less and was replaced by the peaceful sound of sleep.

Waking up the next morning, she called for the nurse. Instead of the nurse, a middle aged lady with red and puffy eyes rushed in and hugged her.

Tiffany could feel her mom’s body trembling. This started another bout of crying.

Her father, like any other man, had no idea as to what to do in this situation. He could only wait in silence wondering how could women cry so much.

He was a simple man. He had lived his entire life with a civilian skill and managed to support his family. He never wanted his daughter to risk her life in dungeons. For him it was a stroke of luck that she had her wings clipped before she could fly.

Despite his view on the subject, seeing his wife and daughter in such a state, he felt powerless on the matter. He then made the best decision in his entire life. He didn’t interrupt the emotional reunion between mother and daughter, he simply stood there and kept himself from explaining his view on the matter. This definitely saved him from sleeping on the sofa for the next months.

“Mom… it’s okay. I am fine. I guess I will stay with you now.” Said Tiffany while forcing a smile on her face.

“I am so sorry. I am so sorry.” Her mother kept repeating between sobs.

“It’s our fault that you fainted during the ceremony”. Said her father.

“What do you mean?” Asked Tiffany.

Her father hesitated and told her briefly the reason for her accident.

“2 years ago, when you were assaulted, raw mana lodged into you face. This should not have happened as the body will reject any foreign mana but for some reason your body which was in a coma did not reject it. The doctors don’t know why this occurred. By the time you woke up the mana was trapped inside your scar”. Explained her father.

Tiffany immediately understood what happened. She had to pay a price for her new life. She could have avoided the whole situation if she had told her parents about the irregular pains but having just transmigrated, she wasn’t familiar with her parents and didn’t want to add any more burden. She had already told them she had partial memory loss to cover her changed behaviour.

After ensuring that Tiffany was “okay”, her parents left to go back to work. Tiffany understood this, everyone needed to survive and the fact that her mom brought her clothes, daily necessities and most importantly her phone, she was okay.

No that would be a lie. She was still very upset and doing her hardest to not show it. She felt that she was the main character of this world. It took her 1 year to acclimate to this new foreign world and not freak out every time she met a gnome or an orc.

After finally coming to terms with all this, she was impatiently waiting for her golden finger to arrived. Destiny showed up and slapped her right in the face. All her previous works, dreams and hope turned to dust.

Hearing someone knocking on her door, Tiffany frowned, she didn’t want more visitors but knew she had to face reality.

”Come in”.

Jennifer opened the door. This was different from her usual self of being cheerful to the point of annoyance. She seemed reserved.

”Hey Tiff, how are you?” Said Jennifer with hesitation in her voice.

“I am good. I don’t think that I can fall any lower.” Replied Tiffany with a hollow laugh.

Seeing Jennifer fidgeting with her feet and hands she could see that she was afraid to speak.

“Go ahead and tell me what’s on your mind. Seeing you standing there not knowing what to do is driving me nuts”. Said Tiffany. The tremble in her voice could not mask her anxiety.

“I am sorry Tiff. I am leaving for the capital tomorrow.”

“What?! What do you mean?” Tiffany was panicking. She felt like shit and her only rock in this tumultuous period was the knowledge that her friend will be there for her.

“The clan is calling me back. I am now a candidate for the position of the clan princess.”

“Clan? What clan goes by Hawkins?” Asked Tiffany in a bewildered voice.

“That’s my mom’s maiden name. My father last name is Merelyth.”

Shock, confusion, jealousy and finally forced acceptance tinged with envy fleeted across Tiffany’s face.

The Merelyth name was the symbol for high elves royalties. Only descendants with C rank skills could come back and join the clan as rightful members. Offsprings of this clan could only use their mother’s maiden name if they awakened any ability below C rank.

This seems cruel but none of the branch members were left out they would always have enough to survive. If they wanted more, naturally they would have to work for it.

“Can you show me your skill?” Tiffany asked in a low voice.

“Show skill and talent.” There was no hesitation from Jennifer.

A system window flashed in front of Tiffany.

 

Name: Jennifer Merelyth

Race: Human (90%), High Elf (10%)

Skill: Rank S - Resurrection: you can bring back to life anyone whose corpse is mostly intact and whose death was not longer than 5 hours ago. Cannot be used one someone who died of natural death.

Talent: Rank SSS - all for one: you can use all the lower skills belonging to you original skill branch.

 

Tiffany was dumbstruck. Resurrection was the highest known skill on the healing branch. This means Jennifer was the ultimate healer. No wonder her clan ran back to her to rope her in. Usually, resurrection skill user would need a lot of resources to grow their mana to the point they could use resurrection. It was extremely costly to grow such a user.

User from the healing or support branch would gain experience from healing or supporting others. Therefore, someone who has the resurrection skill but could not cast it due to the mana consumption would always be tied down by a harsh contract to pay back for the resources used.

Jennifer’s talent bypassed all this. She could grow to her full potential by starting to cast low level heal.

Seeing Jennifer’s pure joy, Tiffany forced down her envy and kept talking to her for the next ten minutes.

Jennifer had to go but she made Tiffany promise that if she ever come to the capital, she needed to come and see her.

Tiffany lied back down in her bed. Destiny proved her wrong again. She wasn’t slapped once, but twice. It seems that Jennifer was the main character of this world and she was just an ordinary cannon fodder.

It was just an ordinary transmigration.