Aren's heart leaped out of his chest.
"Dad! Are you okay?!" He all but shouted as he ran to the tap, drawing some cold water to alleviate the burn.
His father silently stared at the pot's remains near his feet, finally realizing his son was no longer an ordinary human. After a few seconds, he finally looked back at Aren, his usual bright smile lighting up his face.
"I'm alright, son, no worries. The tea was already lukewarm when I poured some for myself."
Breathing a sigh of relief, the younger man discarded the water he had drawn into the sink, put back the bowl in its drawer, and went back to Victor.
"I'm so sorry, I should've realized it would be dangerous."
"It's okay, young man. Just remember that with great power comes great responsibility." The father responded in a goofy, high-and-mighty voice. Both laughed together.
'If he can still act cool with his wisdom quotes, he really is okay.' Aren thought.
Just then, a tired voice came from the stairs as two figures came down from them.
"The deal was that we girls wouldn't make noise at night while you almighty, oh-so-disciplined men, wouldn't in the morning. How are you planning to make up for it?" Alexandra's voice was dripping with sarcasm, upset at having her beauty sleep disturbed. She needed it to keep looking thirty even ten years past that.
"You night owls don't realize it's the early bird that catches the worm," Victor answered wisely, with the disposition of an old expert.
Though he felt his father's words were right, Aren cringed at the way they were said and, looking at his sister standing behind their mother, spotted a slight frown forming on her face. Anna had turned sixteen a few weeks earlier. What used to be his cute, affectionate little sister was turning into a cold, unapproachable version of their mother. At least she thought so. Aren could easily see through her act. She wanted to appear more mature but had always stayed the same spoiled brat on the inside.
Both women had hair of a rich shade of black, framing their faces in a glossy mane. With high cheekbones, full, soft lips, and delicate noses, their facial features were well-proportioned and elegant, though Anna's still held some childish cuteness. However, while Alex's smile looked warm and inviting, Anna looked cold, if not for a bit of a pout from getting woken up so early on a Sunday.
"Mom, sorry about that, that was my bad." Aren apologized then, exchanging a glance with his father, announced. "But! Guess what! I've awakened!"
His father would tell his mother the whole truth later. For now, they would indulge in this happy moment.
"My, that's so good! I'm so happy for you baby!" Alex ran up to Aren and hugged him. She knew he had always looked up to the heroes that protected the remnants of peace on Earth.
"Mom! I told you to stop doing that, I'm an adult now!" Aren exclaimed indignantly, not realizing he sounded like a child throwing a tantrum.
"Hush, you'll always be my baby. Anyway, quick, show us what you can do! What's your Anima?"
Seeing his mother as excited as he was brought a smile to his face. Anna, meanwhile, had yet to say a word. Not paying any attention to her, Aren started explaining his powers.
"My Anima is called Gravitation. For now, it lets me control how a gravity field affects an object. I can only modify the direction of the force it creates right now, but, in time, I'll be able to affect more properties."
He then quickly went out to fetch a ball and showed them his skill with it. This time, he didn't just make gravity pull it upwards but instead constantly changed the direction up and down so that the ball started floating.
Feeling bolder after maintaining it in the air for a while, he started slightly altering the direction of gravity so that instead of pulling straight up or down, it would pull diagonally towards a side. The ball started accelerating toward a window before slowing down and accelerating in the opposite direction. After this happened for a while, Aren finally managed to make it go in a circle.
Too focused on his control of the ball, he didn't realize the circular trajectory was slowly expanding before the ball hit his sister in the face.
"Ouch!"
"Oh crap, sorry!" Aren, surprised, let go of his focus, causing the ball to move back in the same direction it was going, straight towards Anna's face, hitting her once again. And again. And again.
After the third time, Anna finally broke out of her stupor and caught the ball before it hit her once more.
"You did that on purpose!" She accused.
"No way!" He denied it with a smile breaking out of the corners of his mouth. 'At least the first time.'
"Hmph" Upset, she went back up the stairs, intending on retreating to her room before her stomach growled and she made her way back down, a slight blush on her face.
As she made herself some sunny-side-up eggs, Aren called out, a smile still on his face.
"Hey, I just realized I haven't eaten yet. Make me some too."
"Hmph," She harrumphed. "Don't think I'll forgive you easily."
"Come on, my beautiful, smart, cute, kind, graceful, mature little sister I love most in the world." He flattered.
Her eyebrows twitched before she sighed and took two more eggs out of the fridge.
"Hey, make it three."
"Don't push your luck, bastard." She cursed under her breath, then glanced at her mother to make sure she hadn't heard her.
After having breakfast while teasing his sister some more, Aren went out into the garden to try and get more used to his powers. He may have acted carefree in front of his family but the words his aunt had told him earlier were weighing on his mind.
Shaking the thoughts off, he started training. First, getting used to controlling the same ball from earlier, then trying out bigger and heavier objects. At the end of his experiments, he came to conclude he could only influence objects of a dozen kilograms at most. The size of the target didn't seem to matter much but he could not be sure as he did not have access to any big but light objects.
He then tried controlling gravity's pull on several objects at once. He first took a pebble and held it near a wall before making gravity pull it towards the latter. He repeated the operation with another one and became excited when he saw that the first didn't revert to its original state. Doing so over and over again got him to excitedly imagine raining down huge rocks onto his opponents.
After the whole wall was covered, he decided he would try with bigger rocks. As he took control of the eighth, he heard a dull thud and realized he had lost control of the first. Disappointed, he quickly determined that the sum of the masses of the objects he was controlling could not exceed ten kilograms either.
'Well, won't be able to fly for now. What a bummer.'
Usually, the limitations on one's skills are proportional to how much Mana is under their control. Fortunately, this quantity is tied to one's soul level, increased by slaying one's foes and absorbing their soul energy. The latter was inherent to all beings of Mana, a kind of mental energy used to control Mana to some extent.
Having a rough idea of his limits, Aren went to have lunch before he started training his control once again. After a while, he found himself unable to concentrate. A kind of mental fatigue he had never experienced before.
'So that is what it feels like to deplete your soul energy…'
He went back inside to rest and, after half an hour, he was no longer feeling weak. Still, he knew the feeling would come back the second he tried using his powers again. As such, he decided he would go train physically for now.
He would usually go train in the mornings but, with all that had happened, he did not today. Feeling like now was the time to make up for it, he sent a text to his aunt letting her know where to find him, and started jogging to the high-end dojo he was signed up for. In there, he acted like usual, not wanting to make his powers known until he was officially an awakened, just in case.
He had taken up the sword when he was twelve, having seen fights of The Black Sword on the internet. Since then, he had always waited for the day he would have the opportunity to become a hero too.
After having finished his routine of an hour of sword training and an hour of resistance training, he took a quick shower and jogged back home. Against his expectations, his aunt hadn't called him all day. Things probably weren't going so well on her side.
After getting some dinner and researching a bit online about gravitation, he went to bed thinking about the next day when his adventure would finally, hopefully, start.
Just as he was falling asleep, he heard a faint knock at his door.
"Hey, Aren, you awake?" Anna's voice traveled through the shut door in a whisper.
"Yeah, come in." Though he was upset at having been woken up, he acted like nothing. She had never come to him like this before so there must have been a good reason.
"I was wondering," As she came through the door, Anna started. "since you awakened, you're probably going to an academy, right?"
"Well… Yeah, probably."
"I see, for how long?" Her voice was uncharacteristically lonely.
"Don't know, at least a year, maybe. Happy I won't be here to tease you anymore?" He tried to alleviate the mood, without any results.
"Yeah, kinda. Anyways, sorry for disturbing you." She left no room for conversation as she left right away, shutting the door behind her.
"This girl..! She's so insincere!"