The Day I Started My Ascension
Chapter 1 – The Boy Who Survived the Fire
The night the palace burned, the stars hid.
From the highest tower of Aeryndor, smoke rose like a black crown, and the city below screamed its horror to the heavens. Flames climbed the white stone walls, swallowing the banners of the royal family—the last symbol of unity in a fractured world.
He was seven.
Too young to understand why everyone was dying.
Old enough to remember the way his mother's voice broke when she whispered, "Run."
He ran until his lungs tore, but the fire chased him anyway.
It wasn't natural—it moved with intent, curving around walls, hunting through corridors like it had a mind of its own.
When the ceiling collapsed, the world turned white.
Heat, noise, light—and then nothing.
When he opened his eyes again, the fire was gone. The smoke had cleared, leaving only silence. His mother's hand lay cold in his, her eyes empty, her face streaked with ash. Around him, the ground was untouched—a circle of sootless stone where the flames had stopped, as if afraid to come closer.
The air moved strangely that night, twisting around him in quiet spirals. The rain fell backward before touching him. And the weight of the world—the pull of gravity itself—seemed to bend away.
He didn't know it then, but his first act of survival had already defied nature.
---
Seven Years Later
The world called it fate.
He called it punishment.
The boy—now twelve—was a student at Helmwick Academy, a fortress that floated above the Silver Vale like a chained citadel. To those below, it looked divine.
To those inside, it was a prison built for the gifted.
The Academy trained those born with Yee-ul, the invisible energy that flowed through every living thing. But unlike the peaceful myths told to children, Yee-ul wasn't gentle. It was volatile—drawn from emotion, bound by focus, and shaped by will.
Control it, and you could bend rivers, calm storms, or heal the wounded.
Lose control, and it would devour you—body, mind, and soul.
---
The System of Power
Every wielder of Yee-ul was measured through Rank and Affinity.
Ranks of Power:
Rank 1 – Flickers: The untrained. Sparks with no direction.
Rank 2 – Binders: Those who could merge emotion with a single element.
Rank 3 – Veilers: Users who extended Yee-ul outward, shaping their environment.
Rank 4 – Wielders: Commanders of form and essence—able to sculpt destruction or serenity.
Rank 5 – Ascendants: The rarest. They could twist the laws of the world itself.
Affinities:
Each wielder aligned with a single elemental thread—fire, air, water, earth, light, or shadow.
But there were whispers of anomalies…
Those whose Yee-ul didn't choose one element.
Those it chose all of them.
He was one of them.
Though no one at the academy dared to say it aloud.
---
Training Ground Three
Wind howled across the open arena, whipping through banners etched with runes.
Students trained in circles—some coaxing fire from their palms, others pulling ribbons of water from the air.
He stood apart from them, silent, pale-eyed, his hands trembling slightly.
Professor Lirian Velhart watched him closely. She was the one who had found him in the ashes of Aeryndor, and though she never said it, he knew she was afraid of him.
"Focus," Lirian commanded. "Yee-ul isn't about emotion alone—it's about discipline. You feel, then you direct. Chaos without intention is suicide."
He nodded and closed his eyes.
He tried to remember what calm felt like.
Instead, he remembered fire.
The air trembled.
Wind surged inward from all sides, coiling tight around him. Water from the nearby basin rose in spirals, dancing on invisible strings. Then gravity itself shuddered—the ground beneath him fracturing with a dull crack.
Students shouted as the air pressure dropped, their feet lifting from the floor for half a second before crashing back down. The mist turned into vapor, the wind into silence.
When he opened his eyes, the arena was scarred, runes dimmed, and every student stared in horror.
He stood in the center of it—his chest heaving, eyes glowing faintly blue, a thin trace of blood trailing from his nose.
Lirian's expression was unreadable.
A teacher's calm layered over something deeper—fear.
---
That Night
He couldn't sleep.
The dormitory was quiet, the air heavy with the faint hum of energy. He sat on his bed, looking at his hands—the same hands that had once been small and helpless against the fire. They pulsed faintly with Yee-ul now, veins glowing silver-blue beneath the skin.
He focused, just enough to feel the rhythm of the world pressing against his heartbeat. The air shifted around him, gravity tugging in strange directions, the water in his cup trembling in time with his breath.
He didn't know what this power meant.
He didn't know why it chose him.
But for the first time since the fire, he felt something new.
Not guilt. Not fear.
Purpose.
---
He lay back, staring at the faint glow of the academy ceiling. Somewhere beyond these floating walls, wars were brewing. Kingdoms were falling. And unseen eyes were watching him.
He didn't understand yet how much he'd changed the moment he lost control in Training Field Three.
But one day, the world would remember this night—the quiet before his rise.
Because this was the day the boy stopped being a survivor…
and began his ascension.