Four years after that night, inside the Shadow Blade Clan.
More than 200 ten-year-old children stood in neat rows inside a huge hall, black columns spread out on all it sides, and carvings of coiled dragons adorn it completely.
What's striking is that the different rows have completely different people, with children in each row wearing different but similarly quality outfits, making the difference in social status apparent at a glance.
Children dressed in rich gold-embroidered clothes or the finest silk lined up together, while other children dressed in shabby or rough clothes, and some even had clothes with holes in them, also lined up together.
The difference in appearance between these children is simply vast, and it seems that these rows divide children according to their social status.
But what united all these children was their eyes, which seemed fixed on the stone platform in the front, where an elder wearing a dark purple robe stood beside it, creating an atmosphere of tension within the hall.
'Finally, it's time to awaken the seals. For four whole years, I've been training and preparing for the day I obtain my innate seal.'
Mo Bai's eyes gleamed with intense determination like many others in the hall right now, but towards a different goal, a goal that was incomparable to anything in their minds and against any shred of logic.
At this time, the elder standing beside the platform spoke loudly, expectation radiating from his gaze, but his wrinkled face showing no expression.
"Go Shen."
A small child, with brown hair, thin body, ragged clothes, and apparently malnourished, came forward.
He was trembling with fear, and stood for a few moments in front of the platform, sweat dripping from his forehead, before he bit his lips and climbed the stairs to the stone platform.
'Please show something, please give me a seal.'
Go Shen thought to himself repeatedly, feeling extremely nervous.
Despite his young age, he knows, like everyone else in the world, that this moment will determine the fate of an individual's life and his future. This is ingrained in everyone's mind from an early age. It's a simple logic and a rule that can only be broken very rarely.
The elder raised his arms and muttered in a low voice, "Activate."
Before a very complex symbol began to glow on the surface of the platform, directly beneath Go Shen's trembling feet.
Seconds passed: one second...
Two seconds...
Five seconds...
Nothing happened. No phenomenon occurred. No wind, no fire, nothing else appeared. Silence fell over the hall for a few seconds. Everyone's eyes remained on Go Shen, before he finally comprehended what had just happened.
"No... no... no, no, why?" Gu Shen whispered, his eyes wide and tears forming in the corners. His face was filled with despair as he stumbled backward, trembling.
Some sighed in pity, but looks of mockery and contempt filled the majority's faces as they watched what had happened. Meanwhile, the faces of the two elders and the clan leader, who were watching this test, turned slightly disappointed.
"There is no innate seal."
The purple-robed elder's voice echoed, his tone containing faint, undisguised contempt, as his eyes glazed over the small child as if he had become something less than human, a mere ant, not even worthy of a glance.
At that moment, two guards wordlessly moved in and grabbed the boy, who began to scream and cry.
"Please! Test me again! I'm...!"
But no one paid attention to his constant screaming and crying, the two guards continued dragging him toward a black iron table next to the platform after lowering him from it.
One of them forcefully placed his right hand on the table, before a short, muscular man mercilessly lowered the iron directly onto the back of his right hand.
The boy's voice was suddenly cut short by the sound of burning and cauterizing.
"Aaaah!"
A heartbreaking scream echoed through the hall as a brand was inscribed on the back of the child's right hand, a blazing red sun, the mark of a slave.
'Trash without a seal, that's what he deserves.' one of the children thought with deep disdain.
Whispers of disgust, contempt and mockery spread, the majority didn't care about the cruelty behind what had happened now, it was just something completely normal to them, an incompetent person becoming a slave, this was how the world had been for years, nothing strange.
Only a few looked at each other with silent sadness as they lowered their heads, a small number that could be counted on the fingers of one hand, and all of them had one thing in common: ragged clothes and thinness. They were the children of slaves, the ones who held out hope of changing the fate of their families from the current misery they were living.
Many also remained silent, their eyes shining with indifference, not caring about the suffering and cruelty of this act, not having any profit from mocking this fate, and Mo Bai was among them, as he was only thinking about this act.
'Hmm, that's cruel, making people slaves simply because they don't have a talent, but still... I like it.'
And amidst all this, a mixture of silence, whispers, and hidden sadness, in addition to the screams of the branded boy, there was a child among the crowd whispering to his friend standing in front of him in line: "Those who don't have an innate seal are supposed to be branded with the seal of slavery, but as you know, my cousin didn't have an innate seal and wasn't branded anyway. Why? I don't understand."
His friend replied with a puzzled look as if to say, (Are you stupid?) "Your cousin is from the Bai Faction just like us, you idiot, the Clan Leader Faction, how dare they brand him with the Slave Mark? and his father bought him a first-level Seal after that, so he's now a Seal Master too, don't mention such a thing again."
Meanwhile, the test continued as usual, with one child after another, each achieving a different result, but none of them achieve a very good result yet.
'This year's children have been average so far, with no outstanding talents emerging yet. But this year, all future heirs of the three factions will take the test, so we only have to wait a little longer before the good results come out. Today, the competition between the descendants of the three factions will be at its peak.'
The elder thought quietly, with anticipation in his eyes, before pointing to the next.
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