The Temple of Elements smelled of incense and fear.
Wei Chen stood in line with fifty-three other children, all of them five years old, all of them waiting for the same verdict. The stone floor was cold beneath his bare feet. The ceremonial robes they'd been given—plain white linen that marked them as supplicants—itched against his skin.
He didn't scratch. Mother had told him not to fidget. Father had told him to stand straight.
Both had told him that today would determine his entire future. No pressure.
Around him, some children shifted nervously. A girl two places ahead was crying softly, and her mother kept whispering reassurances from the crowd of parents pressed against the temple's back wall.
A boy near the front kept bouncing on his toes until his father shot him a glare that could melt iron. Wei Chen kept still.
Not because he was calm—his heart hammered against his ribs like it was trying to escape—but because fidgeting wouldn't change anything. The ceremony would reveal what it revealed.
Worrying was pointless. Easier said than believed.
At the front of the temple, Elder Shen stood before the Awakening Stone. The old man's blue robes marked him as a Water mage, and the way those robes seemed to ripple despite the still air suggested he was far more powerful than his frail appearance indicated.
His face was a weathered map of wrinkles, his beard white as snow. But his eyes were sharp as broken glass.
"Step forward," Elder Shen called, his voice somehow reaching every corner of the temple without rising above a normal speaking tone. "Candidate number one."
A boy shuffled forward. Wei Chen didn't know his name—the town had five thousand people, and yet not everyone knew everyone, despite what adults claimed.
The boy looked terrified. Elder Shen gestured to the Awakening Stone—a sphere of crystal the size of a man's head, sitting on a pedestal carved with symbols Wei Chen couldn't read.
"Place your hand upon the stone. Do not remove it until I tell you."
The boy obeyed, his small hand trembling as it touched the crystal. For three heartbeats, nothing happened.
Then the stone flickered with a dull gray light and went dark.
"No affinity," Elder Shen announced, his tone neither cruel nor kind. Simply factual. "Next."
The boy stumbled away, and Wei Chen saw his mother clutch him tight, whispering something that might have been comfort. The boy's father's face was stone, but his jaw was clenched hard enough to crack teeth.
Ninety percent of children had no magic. Everyone knew this.
But knowing and experiencing were different things.
The line moved forward. No affinity. No affinity. No affinity.
Four children. Five. Six. All the same result. The gray flicker, and then nothing.
The seventh child—a girl with braided hair—made the stone pulse with a soft brown glow.
"Earth affinity," Elder Shen said. "Beginner level. You will be registered and may attend basic instruction."
The girl beamed. Her parents looked ready to weep with joy.
Earth magic wasn't common in the Western Lands—this was Water territory—but magic was magic. Their daughter had a future beyond farming or crafts.
The line continued. No affinity. No affinity. Water affinity—beginner. No affinity. No affinity.
Wei Chen counted. Fifty-four children total. So far, three had shown magic.
Two Water mages, one Earth. All beginner level, which meant weak but trainable.
Not great odds, but not terrible either. The town would gain three new mages this year. Maybe more, if luck held.
"Candidate eighteen," Elder Shen called.
A boy stepped forward. Wei Chen recognized him this time—Yun Hao, son of Yun Feng, one of the lord's advisors.
His family owned three shops in the town center and a manor on the hill. Wei Chen had seen him once or twice, always dressed in fine silk, always with a servant trailing behind.
Yun Hao walked with his head high, no fear in his steps. When he placed his hand on the Awakening Stone, he didn't tremble.
The stone flared blue.
Not a soft glow. Not a gentle pulse.
A radiant burst of sapphire light that filled the entire temple, casting water-like reflections across the walls and ceiling. The crowd gasped.
Even Elder Shen's eyebrows rose. The light didn't fade. It grew brighter.
"Water affinity," Elder Shen said slowly, and for the first time, Wei Chen heard emotion in his voice. Wonder. "Intermediate level. Exceptional potential."
The crowd erupted. Parents whispered frantically.
Yun Hao's father looked like he might faint from pride. Even Yun Hao himself looked stunned, staring at his hand like it had betrayed him by being special.
Intermediate level.
That wasn't just rare—it was generational. A talent that appeared once every few decades in a small town like this.
Yun Hao would be sent to the capital. To the Water Academy.
He'd become someone important. A military officer, or a court mage, or maybe even a sect elder someday.
His entire life had just been decided. Wei Chen wondered what that felt like.
The ceremony continued, but the energy had shifted.
Everyone was still buzzing about Yun Hao. The next dozen children all showed no affinity, and nobody seemed to care.
They'd already witnessed a miracle.
"Candidate thirty-eight."
Wei Chen's turn.
He stepped forward. His legs felt distant, like they belonged to someone else.
The crowd's murmurs faded into white noise. All he could see was the Awakening Stone, glowing faintly with residual energy from the last child who'd touched it.
Elder Shen studied him with those sharp eyes. "Your name?"
"Wei Chen, Elder." His voice came out steady. Good. He'd worried it might crack.
"Place your hand on the stone."
Wei Chen reached out. The crystal was warm beneath his palm, smooth as river glass.
He pressed his hand flat and waited. One heartbeat. Two. Three.
Nothing.
The crowd began to shift. Another no-affinity case, then. Tragic, but expected.
Most children—
The stone turned black.
Not gray. Not the dull absence-of-light that marked no affinity.
Black. Pure, liquid darkness that swallowed the temple's light like a hungry void.
Shadows poured from the stone, curling up Wei Chen's arm like living smoke, cold and weightless and wrong in a way that made his skin prickle.
The crowd went silent.
Then someone screamed.
"Darkness!" a woman shrieked. "The boy has Darkness magic!"
The temple erupted into chaos. Parents grabbed their children and pulled them back.
Someone shouted a prayer to the spirits. A man near the front made a warding gesture, like Wei Chen had become a demon before their eyes.
Elder Shen's hand shot out, and the shadows recoiled, pulled back into the stone like water down a drain.
The darkness faded, leaving only a faint black shimmer in the crystal's depths.
The old mage stared at Wei Chen with an expression that might have been surprise, or concern, or something else entirely.
"Darkness affinity," Elder Shen said quietly. His voice cut through the noise like a blade. "Intermediate level."
The crowd fell silent again. Not the awed silence that had followed Yun Hao's reveal.
This was different. Heavier. Laced with fear and suspicion.
Darkness.
In the Western Lands, where Water magic ran through bloodlines like rivers through stone, Darkness was an anomaly.
A foreign element. The magic of assassins and curse-makers and things that lurked in shadows.
It wasn't evil, exactly. Even Wei Chen knew that much.
But it wasn't trusted, either.
He pulled his hand back from the stone.
The crystal looked normal now, as if the shadows had been a hallucination. But his arm still tingled where the darkness had touched him.
And he could feel something new coiled inside his chest—a cold, patient presence that whispered of hidden things and unseen paths.
Magic. He had magic.
Intermediate level, even. The same tier as Yun Hao, the prodigy everyone was celebrating minutes ago.
So why did the crowd look at him like he'd grown horns?
Elder Shen cleared his throat. "Wei Chen. You will be registered and scheduled for basic instruction. Your parents will receive the details within three days."
His tone was formal. Distant. Nothing like the warmth he'd shown Yun Hao.
"Yes, Elder." Wei Chen bowed and stepped back into the line.
But there was no line anymore. The children who'd been behind him had all moved away, clustering together like sheep avoiding a wolf.
Their parents glared at him, or looked away entirely, or whispered behind their hands.
Wei Chen found his own parents in the crowd.
His father, Chen Bo, stood with his arms crossed, face unreadable. His mother, Lin Mei, had one hand pressed to her mouth, eyes wide.
Neither of them looked happy. Neither of them looked proud.
They looked afraid.
The ceremony continued, but Wei Chen barely heard it. He stood alone at the edge of the room while Elder Shen processed the remaining children.
A few more showed affinity—two Water mages, one Fire—but none caused the stir that Yun Hao or Wei Chen had.
One was celebrated as a hero. The other was avoided like a plague rat.
Funny how that works.
When the ceremony finally ended, parents swarmed the temple floor, collecting their children and speaking in hushed, urgent tones.
Families with mage children left with heads held high. Families without magic left quietly, disappointment written in slumped shoulders and tight lips.
Wei Chen's parents approached slowly, like they weren't sure how to handle him.
"Wei Chen," his mother said softly. She knelt down to his level, searching his face for something. "Are you... are you all right?"
He nodded. "I feel fine, Mother."
"The magic didn't hurt you?"
"No."
His father finally spoke, his voice low. "We should go home. People are watching."
They were. Wei Chen could feel dozens of eyes on him, tracking his movements, weighing him with suspicion and curiosity in equal measure.
He followed his parents out of the temple, into the afternoon sun.
The walk home was silent. Nobody spoke. Nobody looked at each other.
When they reached their small house on the edge of town—a modest structure of wood and clay, with Father's pottery workshop attached to one side—Mother finally let out a shaky breath.
"Darkness magic," she whispered. "How? We have no mages in our family. Not for generations. And even if we did, why Darkness? This is Water territory."
Father set a hand on her shoulder. "It doesn't matter why. It's done."
"Wei Chen has magic. Intermediate level magic. That's... that's more than most children will ever have."
"But people will fear him."
"Let them." Father's voice was firm now. "Fear or not, magic is magic. Our son has a chance at something better than clay and needles. We won't waste it."
Mother looked at Wei Chen again, and this time, her expression softened. She pulled him into a hug, tight enough that he could barely breathe.
"You're going to be fine," she murmured. "We'll figure this out. Together."
Wei Chen hugged her back, though part of him wondered if she was trying to convince him, or herself.
That night, Wei Chen lay awake in his bed, staring at the ceiling. The house was quiet.
Father had gone to bed early, exhausted from the day's emotional toll. Mother had stayed up late, stitching by candlelight, her hands moving mechanically while her mind was clearly elsewhere.
Wei Chen flexed his fingers, trying to feel the magic that had awakened today.
It was there. Deep inside, cold and patient, like a shadow waiting to be called.
He didn't know how to use it yet. Didn't know what it could do, or how to control it.
But he could feel its potential. The sense that, if he learned to wield it properly, he could do things other people couldn't.
Things other people feared.
Darkness magic. Intermediate level.
In a town where everyone expected Water mages, he'd manifested the element of shadows and secrets.
People would fear him. Distrust him. Avoid him.
But fear wasn't the same as weakness.
Fear meant power.
And power... Wei Chen smiled in the darkness.
Power meant opportunity.