"I promise you."

I subconsciously responded, which woke me up from sleep. As I looked through my half-closed eyes, I found my hand pointing to the ceiling. Retracting my hand, I rubbed my still sleepy eyes and looked at my surroundings.

Feeling something unusual, I touched my cheeks. They were wet with tears. Which made me confused.

'What was that voice? Who was she? Why did I promise her? Why am I crying?'

Finding no answers to my unexplainable dream and unanswerable questions, I got up and stretched my numb body a little. As I removed the curtains and opened the window, the light of the morning sun brightened my room. The chirping of birds reminded me of a new day's start. I breathed in the fresh humid air and felt alive like never before.

''It rained heavily last night, huh? Those thunderclaps almost made me deaf.

Umm, that's weird. I had a deep sleep last night. How did I hear thunderclaps?''

While I was pondering, a knocking sound came from the door. I could hear my mother's voice, "Aryan, hey Aryan, wake up. You have been sleeping like a dead log for almost 10 hours. What happened to you?"

That shocked me, '10 hours! That long?'

I hurriedly opened the door and saw my middle-aged mother. "I am awake, mom.''

"OH, but you were never this late before. The breakfast I prepared is already cold by now." She spoke in an inquiring tone.

I had no answer. Should I just say that some unknown woman came into my dream and caressed me like his son- making me fall into deep sleep? Of course not, so I searched for a plausible excuse.

"Oh. Well, yesterday was an exhausting day for me as I tempered my body almost all day long. So, I needed more rest, that's all."

Mother worriedly asked, "Are you injured somewhere?"

"Nah, just tired. Why are you so worried? Today is my special day, you know. I have been waiting for this day for eight years. I was so excited that I overworked myself."

Believing in my excuse, she sighed in relief. "OK, go and get yourself ready. I will reheat the meal."

"I will be done in seconds."

I hurriedly ran towards the shower room. What I have been waiting for for so long is nothing but the popular Awakening Ceremony. It's the day when youngsters like me go to the Elemental Association branch headquarters to awaken their elemental affinity. Even though the Awakening Ceremony is held every year, it never loses its popularity. Relevant or Irrelevant, everyone wants to participate in this event. The story of awakening elemental affinity dates way back to the stone age.

Probably, 2 million years ago, a genius mind named Aadavan became interested in a weak Elemental beast that his father hunted. That beast could shoot "Sun" from its mouth. He also wanted to shoot "Sun" like that beast. So curious, Aadavan began his journey to the truth. After dissecting the beast properly, he tried to compare its anatomy with the identical feline creatures that couldn't shoot the 'Sun' and found an organ that didn't exist in an ordinary beast.

Following this lead, Aadavan started experimenting on its body. Then moves into its cubs. And finally, after countless sleepless nights, he discovered and successfully sensed the mysterious energy that the foreign organ is filled with. But, to his dismay, he couldn't do anything with it. Finding no way out of this blocked road, madness possessed Aadhavan as he injected the energy into his own body. And this crazy action resulted in awakening new ‌energy inside him, and three weeks of intense fever as a bonus.

After the successful awakening, Aadaven felt a new energy inside him. Making him more energetic, strong, and hot than his previous self. But, he couldn't control it, nor could he develop that feeling. So, Aadavan went back to nerdy days again.

Only after thousands of failed experiments on other elemental beasts, did Aadavan

successfully figure out the process of channeling that energy now known as

Origin energy- inside a human body. That's how he created the first-ever "Primal

Origin Art" and became the first Elementalist.

Also, his ambition to breathe fire changed the fate of humanity in the process and gave us the opportunity to fight back in this cruel Origin world.

After him, many ambitious geniuses like Aadavan worked throughout their whole life and built the long path of elemental cultivation.

The human body consists of five elements - Fire, Water, Wood, Earth, and Metal. But humans don't interact with all of them in the same way. Some of them influence humans more than others. That's why close interaction with a specific Element creates "Affinity" towards that single element in the human body. And Elemental cultivation is based on this elemental composition and affinity of the human body.

After thousands of years of evolution, every human in this era has an affinity for a fixed element, and this list didn't stop at just five major ones. There are also deviant elements like Lightning, Darkness, Light, and Sound. But having an affinity and awakening it- are two different concepts. And in this Awakening Ceremony, we awaken our affinity, which will pave the way toward wielding that element.

But wielding elements isn't facile as the density of a single Element can disrupt the balance of the human body. So, it is required to have a mature body to be unaffected by this balance disruption. Humans' bodies step into the phase of maturity at the age of 16. Thus, before that, from the age of 6, we -who dream of becoming Elementalist practice Body Enhancement Methods to have a compatible body that can wield elemental energy.

The same goes for me. With the dream of becoming an Elementalist since my diaper years, I had been practicing a body-enhancement method called "Vajrasana Body". I didn't know where my father got that, but I cultivated it anyway. This method works on solidifying your five elemental compositions so that an increase in any particular element can't disrupt the balance.

Though it had been cumbersome and painful to practice in the beginning, I persisted. But, my whole sky crumbled when my hardship paid me the result with a bulky, unsightly body as I reached the middle stage. Even I was disgusted by my small head but massive body ratio. My alien-looking figure almost made me quit the path of an Elementalist.

I could still remember the day I cried in front of my mother.

''I want my enemies to fear my strength…Sob…Sob…. Not my looks, mom. Father gave me some weird body tempering method and, look- what has it done to me?''

Hearing my heart-wrenching cry, mom couldn't control herself anymore. She picked up her planetary destruction level weapon, albeit, her broom and went to my father for an explanation.

"Aryan, don't be sad. You know, dad loves you. I will never pick something that will harm you. Everything will return to normal as you reach the final stages of Vajrasana Body.", my defeated father spoke to me with a smile, but his eyes full of pity betrayed his words. It was clear. Even he knew nothing about this body-tempering method. Even though he sounded suspicious, my naive-innocent self decided to practice it.

Fortunately, his words were proven true. After so many years of bitter persistence and suffering from body enhancement, I have finally reached the final stage of the Vajrasana Body. My body couldn't be any more perfect than my current one. As those bulky muscles compressed, my body became a perfect figure with higher muscle density. Anyone will take me as an ordinary teen until I awaken them with my fists while shouting.

"Muscle Power!"

And eventually, the long-awaited day has come!! Today is the day when I will awaken my elemental affinity with peers of my age. My excitement knew no bounds, enough to forget that weird dream that made me shed tears in my sleep