The Elemental Awakening
The Awakening was taking place simultaneously across all twenty classes.
Mo Fan was number forty-eight — the last in his class to receive the gift of Awakening.
Their homeroom teacher and magic instructor, Xue Musheng, was already standing at the front of the class. The ceremony would unfold in full public view; all students had to do was step forward when their name was called, place both hands on the Awakening Stone before the instructor, and wait in silent attunement.
"Hey — you, the back-door charity case. What if your Awakening fails? I've heard that people with absolutely no ability can actually fail. Someone like you, waste that you are, do everyone a favor and stop draining the energy from an expensive Awakening Stone." Zhao Kunsan called out from a neighboring row — an old classmate of Mo Fan's and Mu Bai's reliable lackey.
Mu Bai himself considered it beneath his dignity to bother Mo Fan directly, so the dirty work almost always fell to Zhao Kunsan.
What Zhao Kunsan said about Awakening failure — that was a real possibility. Mo Fan was actually quite worried about it himself. Strictly speaking, he was... well, a transmigrator, more or less. If his constitution turned out to be fundamentally different from the people of this world, that would be a joke with no punchline.
"Brother Mo Fan, ignore that moron." Zhang Hou — the scrappy kid everyone called Mud Monkey, placed in the same class as Mo Fan — spoke up with a grin. "When you Awaken a fire element in a bit, shove it right in his face. Let him know what it means to judge someone by their shabby cover."
Mo Fan said nothing. Any other day, he would have savaged Zhao Kunsan with his legendary flair for insults — he could curse for an hour without repeating himself. But today he wasn't in the mood. Part of it was nerves, plain and simple. The other part was harder to explain: the black pendant hanging from his neck had been giving off a strange, relentless trembling all morning, and he couldn't make it stop.
The pendant was a keepsake from Old Man Ying, the gatekeeper at the back gate of his old middle school. Mo Fan had a strong suspicion that the old man was somehow tied to this whole world-transformation disaster — after all, he'd been wearing the pendant that day when he fell asleep on the school's back mountain.
All morning, the wretched thing had been shaking as though possessed — so relentlessly that his hand wouldn't stop trembling right along with it.
*Oh, knock it off. You're a pendant. A single, useless pendant. Just hang there like you're supposed to.*
"Mu Bai!" Homeroom teacher Xue Musheng called out the first name.
"Oh, that's Mu Bai? God, he's gorgeous — and he's top of the class, too."
"I know, I spotted him this morning. I can't stop staring. I wonder what element he'll Awaken — hopefully not something useless like Water or Light. Those are the trash elements of the early stages."
The moment Mu Bai stepped forward, a cluster of girls in his class erupted into excited whispers, and heads craned from neighboring classes to catch a glimpse.
Mu Bai wore a mask of complete indifference, though his eyes told a different story — he was savoring every syllable. He walked to the front where the instructor stood, a smile of practiced humility and quiet confidence settled on his face.
"Mu Bai — from the esteemed Mu Clan, the renowned ice lineage, yes?" Xue Musheng asked with a pleasant smile.
"That's correct."
"Very well. If you Awaken an ice element, you'll have a considerable head start over your peers. But don't let that breed complacency — talent alone doesn't determine everything."
Mu Bai gave a small nod. *True enough — talent doesn't determine everything. But without talent and family backing, you're doomed to spend your entire life at the very bottom.*
With the instructor's permission, Mu Bai slowly raised both hands and placed them on the floating Awakening Stone.
The stone was shaped like a thick disc etched with starfield patterns, a distinct handprint visible at its center. Beneath his composed exterior, Mu Bai's pulse was anything but steady as he set his hands in place.
Given his bloodline, an ice-element Awakening was by far the most likely outcome — but exceptional cases did happen. If he ended up Awakening something like the Frost Water element or the Holy Light element instead, the Mu family would almost certainly lose interest in him. They weren't going to waste their considerable resources cultivating attributes outside their core expertise.
His right hand made contact...
Light burst across the surface of the Awakening Stone — starlight, flowing and weaving into luminous streaks like living veins, creeping up along Mu Bai's right hand.
Not a single student had ever witnessed an Awakening before. Every classmate stretched up on their toes, eyes fixed on Mu Bai.
He stood perfectly still, struck through by something like sudden divine clarity, his chin tilting faintly upward...
**Crack. Crack. Crack.**
Without warning, a frigid, crystalline aura began coiling around the Awakening Stone.
The frost intensified — growing stronger, then stronger still — and impossibly, a layer of ice began spreading from the stone's edges, sealing its rim in a thin crystalline glaze.
"Ice element — it's actually the ice element!"
A shout burst from somewhere behind the crowd, followed almost immediately by a wave of shrieks from the girls.
Mu Bai heard every sound. He opened his eyes, barely containing his elation.
*Ice element — exactly as expected. With the Mu Clan's ancestral element Awakened, acceptance into the main family is as good as sealed. The road to greatness stretches wide ahead. Putting a worthless street rat like Mo Fan in his place would be no different from crushing an ant—*
He caught himself. *Wait. No. I've Awakened the ice element — I'm a true, legitimate heir of the Mu Clan now. Why would someone like me lower himself to bicker with a nobody? Think bigger. Eyes on the horizon. Who knows — there might even be a chance to train alongside Mu Ningxue.*
"Excellent." Warmth and admiration filled Xue Musheng's eyes. "A remarkably pure ice element. Your inner world should already have formed a field of ice-element stardust. Keep training, and let it grow."
The fact that Mu Bai had frozen the Awakening Stone during the ceremony itself was unambiguous evidence: this ice-type power exceeded the ordinary by a significant margin. A genuinely gifted ice-element apprentice — this one was going places.
"Next — Qiu Yueying!"
The instructor's words had barely faded when a girl with a sharp, spirited cast to her features stepped forward.
"Well done — Earth element. Your stardust foundation is strong; that speaks to the effort you've already put in."
"Next — Xu Qinglin!"
"Also ice element."
At this, Mo Fan stretched up on his toes for a better look. He could see that when Xu Qinglin placed his hands on the stone, only a thin, pale mist of frost appeared — nowhere near the solid glaze of ice Mu Bai had produced.
The difference was unmistakable: both were ice-element Awakenings, but in raw talent and power alike, Xu Qinglin fell far short of Mu Bai.
"Next — Lu Xiaobin."
"Mm — Water element."
"What?! No — NO! How am I Water?! I was supposed to be Fire — I was supposed to be Fire!" The student called Lu Xiaobin let out a wail that carried well over a hundred meters in every direction.
"Don't be discouraged. Any element can carry you far. Once you reach the Intermediate-Level Mage threshold, Water will offer advantages that other elements simply can't." Xue Musheng's tone was gentle, though a trace of sympathy flickered behind his eyes.
Lu Xiaobin had no choice but to drag himself back to his spot, utterly hollow.
And the truth was, a first Awakening did matter. Fire element granted real combat capability even at the Basic-Level Mage stage, with advantages that compounded through every step of cultivation. Water element's entry-level skill — Water Control — offered weaker defensive utility than Stone Element, with limited practical value unless trained intensively. At the Basic-Level Mage stage, at least, that was simply the reality.