A few minutes earlier

In the ceremony, there was one guest that has remained outside public eyes all this time, eventually even the hosts have completely forgot about it's presence. And it didn't mind it in the slightest since mingling with Frontier nobles would just be a waste of it's time.

While Alabaster was submerged in the lake, an old woman that has a few strands of white hair leaving her hood, she had purple eyes that were both alluring and intimidating and she was wearing a thick and ornamental robes.

She is Salasha Naaga, an representative from the Void-weaver order that has been sent to accompany his awakening and see if he has any talent as an conductor, if he is deemed worth the investment she is to immediately invite him to the order so he can be groomed into an important pillar for the order.

To be honest, she has been pissed ever since she was assigned this shitty assignment. Not only she sees this as a waste of precious time she could be using for her research, the noble she was assigned to was someone who has no conductor family members making the chances of him having an aptitude slim.

Although being born from conductor parents doesn't guarantee that he will awaken and vice versa, it would increase his chances exponentially.

She releases an internal sigh, she can only blame her own lack of talent, even though she has experience and seniority, her position in the order is very low since she lacks the qualification to progress the ranks.

Each and every person who forms their circuit has their limit to how large and resilient their circuits can become, with the more rigid and firm the circuit is the greater it's limit, while more elastic and malleable ones tender to be on the smaller side.

Hundreds of years ago the ancient conductors while faced with this limitation tried to think various means to bypass this imposed limit. Eventually in their search they found a method that could be used to bypass those limitations, but the method that was found turned out to be quite ruthless to the one using it.

Refinement of the void circuit or simply condensation. It's a method in witch you compress/refine your circuit when you reach your limit, making it stronger and denser allowing for an greater upper limit. But the cost for it was the sacrifice of all previous hard work having to start over from the bottom. Because of this many who had lacking talents like her, wouldn't dare to refine her circuit since she knew her chances of getting back her power in her remaining lifespan was minimal.

Of course, in the hundreds of years this method has been used, many others were also found that incurred a much smaller sacrifice, but these methods were either zealously guarded by those who discovered it, were considered unorthodox and looked down upon or were outright forbidden by the order. Though they still keep copies of it.

There lies their biggest hypocrisy, although they keep preaching about sharing knowledge and the enlightenment through exchange, specially when someone uncovers an artifact they want to study, they make sure to keep their own knowledge firmly within their grasp. Outsiders and low level members like her are barred from all of it under the excuse of 'safety' and 'keeping it out of the wrong hands' but everyone knows that they just wish to hord it for themselves, still, no one has the power to call them out for it.

Salasha moves on from her own depressing thoughts and continues waiting in the sidelines for the boy to emerge from the lake.

To her surprise, he does after only four hours of being submerged in the fluid that the members of the order refer as 'Heavens dew' making her mind try to formulate various rational causes for such an anomaly. Since she could clearly detect that he had successfully formed a circuit

'Normally the test takes from 6 to 8 hours to be complete with most only completing it after dawn, but he completed it 2 hours earlier, I checked the solution and confirmed that it is an lower grade heavens dew and no other conductor was present to give him aid, maybe he has an unusual constitution?'

But quickly, all surplefuos thoughts were discarded and she regained her composure.

'It doesn't matter. In my long years I have experienced countless abnormalities and in my pilgrimages I have seen many awakenings that had some strange fenomenon happen in the middle. So even if it is even stranger than most others it doesn't necessarily mean that he has an special constitution.' She calmly articulated in her brain while still holding a little expectation for the result of the ceremony.

But when she saw him colapse on the ground and start spamming she felt a bit of kinship since she was also awakened with an low grade solution and had to suffer from its side-effects like she once had decades ago, so she quickly went towards him and gave him an antidote despite her job being only to observe and report to her superiors since she felt pity for him.

After ingesting the antidote without putting any resistance, not that he had the strength to do it anyways, she hears him speak in an coarse voice:

"W-Who are you?"

She doesn't respond immediately since it would be useless, I will take a bit longer until the antidote takes effect and he can understand what she says.

While he is slowly recovering, she gestures with a wave of her hand for the guests that had aproached him to see if he was alright to give them some space and also put the finger on her lips to make them stay silent.

Although most of them can't identify her as being a participant or being present in the ceremony they could all identify her robes and they all showed respect and followed her instructions.

After a few minutes, Alabaster was able to get back on his feet and return to his normal self having been completely rid of the side effects with the antidote. The first thing he does is put all his clothing back on and express his gratitude and repeat his previous inquiry now in an much better state.

"Thank you for your help elder, my name is Alabaster von Graad as you must already know. If you hadn't given me that antidote I would have to experience that torment for a while longer. Could I know my benefactor's name?" She is quite pleased when she hears that. It is not often you find such a humble noble and being treated with respect as an elder is quite nice.The boy currently holds a lot of goodwill from her, if his results are good she might even accept him as an disciple. 

"There is no need to be so polite, I only saw you having a hard time and gave you a little help it hardly deserves that much gratitude and my name is Salasha Naaga, a representative sent by the order. I'm here to observe your awakening and gauge out your potential as an possible recruit." She just waves of the flattery bluntly tells him her purpose so that they can move on to more important matters.

The boy experiences a few changes in expression including shock, doubt, awe and finally settles in curiosity. Most wouldn't be able to tell his expression as he maintained a poker face the whole time but she is too old and knowledgeable to miss it.

She isn't very interested in prolonging the conversation and moves over to check his circuit so she can leave and report the results to the Order. After it she will be free from the shitty task she was given.

She moves her hand to catch his wrist wich he doesn't put much resistance since he realized that she is by far the strongest person present and he couldn't see any signs of hostility in her so he let her do as she wishes.

An conductor's circuit isn't something physical and can only be detected by the use of void energy from another conductor to probe it making any machines or other methods useless and is the main reason she was sent there personally.

She injects her energy and leads it to his circuit in order to gauge the first-competency of an conductor: 'affinity' wich dictates one's ability to attract void energy and replenish it. When her energy approaches it's target, it starts to be under the effect of an suction force wich tries to consume her energy, she struggles for a while before finally regaining control of her energy leaving her shocked. Judging by the force, she can easily classify him as having an monstrous affinity with energy.

'He has one of the biggest affinities among the humans i have tested, this can help explain how he was able to absorb the energy necessary to form a circuit so fast, I wonder if he will have any more surprises.'

Having finished the first test, she moves on to test his 'control' wich is self explanatory. 

"I will need your cooperation from now on, please, start circulating the energy within yourself the fastest you can while making it pass through the whole circuit without exception. Don't worry if you can't do it perfectly, just do the best you currently can." She instructs for which he nods and starts to circulate the energy inside of him, without the effects of the medicine he realizes that it is more difficult but he quickly gets the hang of it.

If the previous result has left her shocked, this one has made her start to question her sanity! Affinity is something that can be high right off the bat but control is something supposed to come with time, as you slowly make the energy obey you. But then comes this kid moving it like one of its limbs without any problems, in a few years he may even surpass her in this aspect.

In her mind she changed her vision of him from being [a pitiful and polite kid] to [a monster]. And with this he lost all the good will he had previously earned from her by using a cheap dew and being respectful. But on the other hand he also basically guaranteed that he will recieve an invitation to join the order at the end of the ceremony. Perhaps under one higher up from the order, where he would recieve resources that she wouldn't dream on getting her hands on.

Regardless of her opinion on the matter, she continues with the last test to determine his 'capacity'. That will determine the size and width of his circuits as well as its characteristics.

She again sends an stream of energy inside his body, but this time it directly invades his circuit and starts to push against the boundaries to see its resistance and give her a good feel for his circuits.

Though this time her expectations that had increased with the first and second test where not reached, by the contrary, the results were deemed quite underwhelming for her standards.

'His pathways are quite elastic, they can absorb void energy faster but they will need to be condensed more times to catch up with others along with being very fragile and susceptible to injuries. And it's size is very small, How does someone with such an absurd affinity has pathways this small? Maybe his circuits can't keep up with his body's absorption and fell behind?.' That was the best explanation she could come up with to explain this discrepancy.

But it didn't matter much, even with this bad result the previous ones more than make up for it. And he would still earn himself a good teacher with loads of resources.

"He-he, you are one very lucky brat. In regards to your affinity and control, they are second to none within human beings, although your circuit pathways are lacking you still can be considered an genius." 

The outcome falls within Alabaster's expectations with the exception of the last part, that makes him wonder if she was capable of detecting the changes that he underwent earlier.

Indeed, it wasn't even a possibility in her head that the cause of his pathways to not have grown in size is because it already did and were condensed by him a few minutes after forming his circuit, an condensation mind you that can take over an decade of accumulation of energy to perform when you lack talent. 

To be fair, if it wasn't for her sour mood and discontent for her current assignment she would have probed him more deeply and examined the pathways more carefully, especially after the previous two tests. But that wasn't the case, and because of it she missed easily his greatest advantage over everyone else.

Having spent long enough with the test and growing more and more impatient for the ritual to end she just excuses herself and awaits for him to show what kind of power he will be able to unleash.

Alabaster who has decided to keep his multiple condensations right off the bat a secret from now on proceeds to find out what is his specific power.

Under everyone's gazes he takes off an pouch from his clothes and prepares to open it and reveal it's content.