Elijah passed out for a few more hours after the relief of awkeneing hit him.
Eventually Elijah's eyes fluttered open to a dim green glow. For a moment, everything felt distant, almost dreamlike. His vision slowly focused, and the familiar ceiling of the abandoned mana mining facility came into view, thick vines curling around the metal framework above him.
I'm alive.
The realization hit him like a crashing wave, followed by an almost giddy sense of disbelief. He was supposed to be dead—everything about what he had attempted should have killed him. The pain, the sparks, the blackout—it should have been the end.
But it wasn't.
He groaned and slowly sat up, feeling soreness radiate through his chest and limbs, like his muscles had been overworked for days. His head pounded, but even that pain felt oddly distant compared to the quiet euphoria rising in his chest.
Elijah flexed his fingers experimentally. They tingled faintly, as though still buzzing from residual energy. The ground around him was scorched in thin jagged patterns, like spiderwebs of faintly burned rock—silent evidence of the lightning-like arcs that had erupted from his hands before he lost consciousness.
Wait. Lightning?
The thought registered briefly, but he shook it off. Right now, something else was more important.
He pressed his palms together and slowly tried to pull them apart.
They stuck.
Only faintly, but unmistakably.
He tried it again, with more focus. His palms separated with some resistance, a faint adhesive force between his skin almost like weak magnets resisting separation. He reached for a loose stone nearby, gripping it lightly with his fingertips—and felt it adhere to his skin without slipping.
It's real.
He had awakened. His power had finally manifested.
It wasn't grand, and it certainly wasn't one of the rare elemental abilities or combat-oriented gifts that others boasted about. But it was something. He could stick things together—objects, surfaces, maybe even climb walls. Compared to being powerless, even this strange ability was a miracle.
Elijah let out a shaky laugh, half-relieved, half-disbelieving. "Sticky hands… I'll take it."
Deep inside him, though unknown to Elijah, something far more significant had occurred. In addition to the mana core that had finally crystallized near his heart—like every other Hyuman—there was now a second, barely formed core nestled deep within his brain. Tiny, unstable, but filled with potential. Its presence went completely undetected by his senses—and for now, by the world itself.
A rare dual-core.
But that revelation would come later. For now, Elijah had more pressing concerns.
His eyes darted toward the scanner his father had given him, still sitting nearby on the mossy ground. The device hummed weakly, its power crystal nearly depleted from stabilizing the mana during the critical moment. Without it, he was certain he wouldn't have survived. His father's foresight had likely saved his life.
"I need to get out of here," Elijah muttered, forcing his sore legs to carry him back toward the exit. "I have to report this before anyone finds me here and asks too many questions."
Hours Later — New Haven Academy
Elijah stood nervously in the school's administrative chamber—a polished, high-ceilinged room with glowing crystal lights and several mana-sensitive diagnostic arrays embedded into the marble floors and walls. The place was normally reserved for official student awakenings and ability classifications.
The moment he had walked into the academy gates earlier that day, word spread like wildfire.
Elijah Eneri awakened.
The powerless finally Awakened.
Whispers had followed him through every hallway.
He tried his best to block them out. His father had insisted on reporting the awakening to the school immediately, which meant going through the formal process of classification under the Council's strict guidelines. Abilities weren't recognized—or protected—without official registration.
"Relax, son." His father's voice pulled him back to the moment. Marcus stood behind him, a comforting hand on his shoulder. "They'll test you, categorize you, and then you'll finally be allowed to start real training."
Elijah offered a nervous smile. "Yeah… yeah. Finally."
A faint buzzing filled the room as the main examiner entered—Administrator Sovell, an older man with thin grey hair and sharp eyes that seemed to dissect everything at a glance.
"Well, well, Mr. Eneri. A rather late bloomer, aren't you?" Sovell said with a polite but faintly condescending smile. "I must admit, we weren't expecting you to ever stand before me for an awakening examination."
Elijah stiffened. "Neither was I, sir."
Marcus narrowed his eyes but said nothing.
Sovell tapped a crystalline tablet and motioned toward the hallway leading to the tedting area. "Very well. Please step forward so we may assess your ability."
Elijah gave a polite nod and stepped back out. A glowing blue line traced itself across the floor, guiding him toward his future.
Elijah followed the glowing blue line down the polished corridor, his heart pounding harder with every step. The events of the past few days were still sharp in his mind — the awakening, the unbearable surge of energy, and now… this.
The automated door hissed open, revealing Testing Chamber Three. Inside, an entire team of evaluators and technicians waited beside an array of scanning equipment that looked far more advanced—and intimidating—than Elijah had imagined.
"Candidate Elijah Eneri," a voice called out. A woman with sharp eyes and silver-rimmed glasses stepped forward. "I am Evaluator Sera. This will be your official Awakening Classification and System Implantation."
Elijah swallowed hard. "Understood, ma'am."
Sera gestured to the large cylindrical glass chamber at the center of the room. "Please step into the Neural Resonance Scanner."
He obeyed, entering the chamber as the transparent doors slid closed behind him with a soft mechanical clunk. The interior hummed to life, and dozens of thin, glowing resonance beams crisscrossed his body, mapping every inch of him with astonishing precision.
"Beginning scan," one of the technicians announced from behind the console. "Neural Cultivation Network mapping initiated."
The Neural Resonance Sensor Array worked by detecting subtle shifts in electromagnetic signatures generated by the flow of mana through his nervous system. Mana-charged biological tissues emit faint electromagnetic fields when actively circulating energy — especially through newly formed cultivation pathways. These pathways create unique conductivity patterns that the machine maps into a three-dimensional neural profile.
Bright threads of blue light materialized on the holographic displays as his MCN began to appear: dense channels clustered around his heart, with numerous branch-like pathways feeding into his arms, shoulders, and upper torso.
"Core located: cardiac region. High-density Enhancer pathways forming localized reinforcement structures around musculature and neural synapses," the lead tech muttered, adjusting parameters.
A secondary display showed a simplified version of Elijah's cultivation diagram, with the heart-core glowing brightly in the center.
"Enhancer type confirmed," Sera stated clinically. "Subtype analysis proceeding."
But then — for only the briefest moment — a flicker pulsed across the upper neural map. A minuscule, almost insignificant blip flashed near the upper brainstem.
One of the technicians frowned. "Unstable fluctuation detected… region: cranial—"
"It's artifact noise," the lead tech interrupted quickly. "Likely interference from irregular mana condensation during his awakening. Readings are well within tolerance."
The blip was dismissed. The system automatically smoothed the data, marking it as non-threatening instability.
Elijah, oblivious inside the chamber, could only feel the strange tingling beneath his skin as the scan continued.
"Proceeding to Elemental Spectrum Analysis," Sera announced.
The scanning chamber shifted. A mechanical halo descended over Elijah's head, surrounding his skull in concentric rings of polished alloy. The Elemental Analyzer used controlled pulses of refined mana, accelerated through rotating magnetic fields, to test elemental resonance frequencies in his cultivation network.
Inside the machine, mana particles were spun through narrow resonance channels, much like a particle collider, stimulating any latent elemental pathways that might exist within his body.
The spectral ring activated, projecting color-coded elemental bands around him. Each spectrum phase lasted several seconds as the system sought to detect alignment between Elijah's nervous system and specific elemental channels.
Fire — stable.
Water — stable.
Wind — stable.
Earth — stable.
Light — stable.
Dark — stable.
When the system reached Electricity, a faint anomaly shimmered momentarily—a soft hiccup of neural agitation around the minor blip previously dismissed.
"Electromagnetic anomaly: threshold below quantifiable classification," a synthesized voice reported. "Classification: no elemental affinity detected."
The flicker was weak, too subtle to meet the system's detection protocols for elemental registration. To the evaluators, it was nothing more than static.
But inside Elijah's body, within the unseen brain-core, minute ions shifted quietly — like an infant heartbeat waiting to grow.
"Elemental spectrum analysis complete. Proceeding to stability testing," Sera instructed.
The chamber doors opened, and Elijah was escorted into the next chamber — smaller and mist-filled. Streams of softly glowing mana mist spiraled around him as the Mana Stability Chamber activated.
"This portion saturates your system with low-grade mana vapor," one tech explained. "We monitor your absorption rate and feedback stability."
The sensors measured how uniformly his cultivation network processed mana, looking for leaks, erratic pathways, or channel collapse.
As the mist filled the air, Elijah felt a prickling across his skin, especially around his fingers where the sticky sensation returned involuntarily.
Sera watched the live readouts. "Slight static adhesion resonance localized to the hands and forearms. Feedback loops remain coherent. Stability rating: B-Class."
"Quite stable for such a late bloomer," one technician whispered to another.
Finally, they arrived at the Manifestation Chamber — a reinforced testing room lined with observation windows and sensors. A large metal sphere hovered in the center.
"Demonstration phase," Sera said. "Show us the extent of your ability."
Elijah exhaled slowly. He focused on the odd stickiness that now lived within his flesh, willing it forward. His palm pressed against the metal sphere — it adhered instantly. When he tried to pull away, the metal dragged with his movement before releasing with a soft pop.
The evaluators studied the live data streams. Electromagnetic readings were minimal, but at a molecular level, localized fluctuations registered around his palms.
Sera glanced at the diagnostic readout. "Interesting. The adhesive force appears to stem from localized control of molecular attraction."
One of the technicians elaborated for the record: "It seems to generate a mild enhancement of van der Waals forces — essentially, increasing the weak intermolecular forces that normally exist between surfaces. By stimulating these interactions through directed mana flow at the molecular level, he can artificially amplify surface adhesion."
"Contact-dependent only," another added. "No projection. No mid-range control. No emission."
"Correct. It's technically impressive control for a first manifestation, but its combat versatility is quite limited," Sera summarized, tapping notes onto her tablet.
Elijah repeated the motion several more times. Each time, the sphere adhered to his hand, then detached with that same quiet resistance.
"Subtype classification: Physical Adhesion," Sera concluded clinically.
The demonstration concluded, and Elijah was guided toward the final station: System Implantation.
He laid down on the sterile table as an automated injector arm descended over his chest.
"This process will link your neural interface chip to your cultivation core," a med-tech explained. "Your chip will monitor growth progression and ensure system compliance. The interface will read directly from your heart-core."
The injector pierced his sternum with a hiss, embedding the microchip beneath his skin.
The calibration system immediately interfaced with the neural map it had already constructed—reading only the visible heart-core network.
Neural Link Established.
Cultivation Pathway Registered: Enhancer — Physical Adhesion Subtype.
Elemental Affinity: None.
System Monitoring: Active.
Unknown to everyone in the room, the brain-core — isolated from the implant's shallow scanning parameters — remained hidden, untouched.
A quiet loophole waiting for its moment.
Sera finally returned to deliver his results.
"Your official classification is complete."
Type: Enhancer
Subtype: Physical Adhesion
Elemental Affinity: None
Stability Rating: B-Class
Combat Rating: F-Tier
Overall Rating: Epsilon-Tier (lowest tier)
Sera informed Elijah that the overall tier ratings went from Epsilon to Alpha with Epsilon being the weakest.
Elijah stared at the glowing words on the tablet. F-Tier.
All that risk, all that pain — for this.
But somewhere, buried deep beneath his skin, faint sparks continued to dance, awaiting discovery.