The ceremony continued, though nothing that followed could quite match the intensity of Aryan's awakening. More candidates came and went—Fire users leaving scorch marks, Water users drenched and shivering, Earth users helped off stage after their feet had rooted to the floor.
Few more awakened Light element, which was unusual in itself. Each one glowed with varying intensity—some barely brighter than a candle, others brilliant enough to make people squint. Any other year, having so many Light users would have been the talk of the city.
Medical staff also carried away the candidates who'd suffered elemental overload. The Stabilizer serums saved them, but they remained unconscious, their bodies too exhausted to continue.
Finally, serial number 413 was called. The last candidate of the day.
"Natalia Arrington."
A petite girl climbed the stage, her movements small and uncertain. She'd received her serum injection minutes earlier and stood trembling at the edge of the semi-circle. Her eyes were wide with fear as she looked at the crystals.
She approached the brown Earth crystal first, reaching out with a shaking hand.
Nothing happened.
She tried blue Water. Green Wood. White Air. Silver Metal. Red Fire. Golden Light. Each time, nothing. The crystals remained completely inert.
This time, Aryan also found himself leaning forward. Another Lightning user from the same venue would be incredible.
Natalia stood before the purple Lightning crystal, her hand hovering over its crackling surface. She touched it gently, as if afraid it might explode like it had for Aryan.
The crystal remained dark and silent.
Aryan's hope deflated. The girl's shoulders slumped, her face crumpling as tears gathered in her eyes. To go through the entire ceremony and awaken nothing at all—that was perhaps the cruelest fate.
But then she noticed something else on the stage—a small table off to the side that had been there the whole time, draped in cloth. She walked toward it, drawn by curiosity or desperation.
Richard stood, a slight knowing smile on his face. "Go ahead, child. Try it."
Natalia pulled back the cloth, revealing a short red flute that looked like it had been carved from coral or bone. Strange patterns covered its surface, and it seemed to shimmer in the light. She picked it up carefully, the instrument warming in her hands.
She raised it to her lips and blew.
The note that emerged was impossibly loud—far louder than any flute should produce. The sound slammed into the audience like a physical force, making people flinch and cover their ears.
But it didn't stop there.
The sound became visible. Ripples spread through the air like waves on water, distorting everything they passed through. The air itself seemed to vibrate, shimmer, become something more than empty space.
Natalia's eyes went wide with shock. She tried to stop blowing, to pull the flute away from her lips, but her body had started resonating. She couldn't stop it.
Her whole form began to vibrate at impossible speeds—not just trembling, but vibrating so intensely that her outline blurred. The sound waves emanating from her grew stronger, spreading in perfect concentric circles that pushed outward with increasing force.
Windows throughout the auditorium cracked. First one, then another, then a dozen—spider-web fractures spreading across the glass as the resonance frequency hit them. The luminous crystals overhead began to hum, vibrating in sympathy.
People in the audience covered their ears, grimacing in pain. Every sound in the auditorium was amplified and distorted. Someone's gasp became an echo that sounded like a shout. Footsteps thundered. The scrape of a chair against the floor became a screech that made teeth ache.
Blood began trickling from Natalia's nose. Then from her ears. Her eyes were squeezed shut, face contorted in pain as her body adjusted to frequencies no human should be able to hear or produce.
The flute's note grew impossibly louder, climbing in pitch and volume until it felt like the entire building might shake apart. Several people in the front rows stumbled backward, pushed by the physical pressure of the sound waves.
Then Natalia collapsed.
The flute fell from her hands, clattering against the stage floor, and the moment the connection broke, the sound cut off. The silence that followed was so abrupt it felt like a physical shock—ears ringing, the absence of that terrible note almost as painful as its presence.
Medical staff rushed forward. Natalia lay on the stage, blood on her face, her body still trembling with aftershocks of resonance. They checked her carefully—pulse, breathing, pupils. After a tense moment, one of them nodded. She was alive. Stable.
Slowly, Natalia's eyes opened. She looked dazed, disoriented. One of the staff members helped her sit up, speaking to her gently. Natalia opened her mouth to respond.
What came out wasn't quite right.
"I'm... okay..." The words emerged with strange harmonics layered beneath them, as if multiple voices were speaking at once—some higher, some lower, all slightly out of sync. It was unsettling, uncanny, like hearing someone speak through water or from inside a cave.
She clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes going wide with horror. She tried again, more carefully. "What... happened... to me?"
Still the same effect. Her voice was layered, harmonic, no longer quite human. People in the audience shifted uncomfortably.
Richard approached the stage, his expression calm and understanding. "That flute is crafted from the vocal cords of a Sea Mermaids—extraordinary creatures with natural mastery over sound. The flute is highly sensitive to Sound element energy. Only those with Sound affinity can make it respond." He nodded to Natalia encouragingly, though she looked terrified. "You don't need to absorb elemental energy like the others. The path to becoming a Sound Elementalist is different. Your body has attuned itself to sound frequencies most humans cannot perceive. With training, you'll learn to control your voice again."
He gestured to the announcer, who cleared his throat nervously before speaking.
"Natalia Arrington. Sound element."
The crowd erupted in fresh whispers—excited, frightened, awed all at once.
"Another rare case! Two in one ceremony!"
"Wait—Arrington? Like Richard Arrington? Is she related to him?"
"Her voice... did you hear it? It sounded wrong..."
"They placed her last because they knew this would happen. Look at the windows!"
"Are both of them from a family of Sound users? Is that even possible?"
The speculation built on itself, voices rising as people tried to make sense of what they'd witnessed. Today's ceremony was extraordinary. An unusual number of Light and Dark users—far more than typical. And now both Lightning and Sound, two of the absolute rarest affinities, had appeared on the same day. Both awakenings had been violent, dangerous, spectacular.
Natalia sat on the stage, still trembling, touching her throat gently as if it belonged to someone else. When medical staff tried to ask her questions, she could only nod or shake her head—afraid to speak again, afraid of that strange harmonic voice.
This would be talked about for months. Perhaps years.
Richard raised his hand, and the crowd gradually quieted—though whispers continued at the edges. "I would like to announce the conclusion of the Redien City Awakening Ceremony for Continental Calendar year 3527."
His voice carried authority that demanded attention. "You young ones who have awakened your elements should begin practicing the Origin Arts you've been taught. Your goal is to form a stable Origin Core by October. For most of you, this process takes around six months. You have a nine-month window to meet this requirement."
He swept his gaze across the assembled teenagers, many still showing signs of their awakenings—burn marks, wet clothes, trembling hands. "Only after forming your core will your element acquire its special properties—the unique characteristics that align with your personal essence. This is what the academies look for in their students."
His expression softened slightly. "What you've experienced today is merely the beginning. The pain, the fear, the chaos—these are part of awakening. But they are not the end. They are the birth pangs of power. Respect that power. Train diligently. And perhaps we'll meet again in the future, should any of you choose to join the Elemental Association."
He paused, looking at Aryan, then at Natalia, then at Marie still sitting isolated at the edge of the auditorium. "Good luck to you all. You'll need it."
The ceremony concluded. Families began gathering their things, collecting their newly awakened children—some celebrating, others looking worried about burns and injuries that would need tending.
Aryan sat quietly, still feeling electricity jumping beneath his skin, wondering what his path would look like now. His mother held his hand tightly, saying nothing, just being present.
Across the auditorium, Marie Rose left with her parents through a side door, avoiding the main crowd. No one tried to stop them. No one called out congratulations.
And on the stage, Natalia Arrington was helped to her feet by her father—Richard himself. She tried to thank the medical staff, but when she spoke, that eerie harmonic voice emerged again. She fell silent, tears streaming down her face.
Three rare elements. Three dramatic awakenings. Three young people whose lives had just changed in ways they couldn't yet understand.
The real journey has just begun.