Under The Heavens

On top of a wall made out of stone, stood a middle-aged man clad in a robe that seemed to be a size too small. This man was silently watching a youth practicing his swordsmanship inside of a small yard, this youth was Edward, and the man was Pierre. Pierre had never felt this proud in his entire life before, maybe this near-death experience his nephew had was a blessing in disguise. Right now the wind was fierce and the rain was pouring, but weirdly enough, this didn't seem to stop the youth in the slightest as he stood and refined his swordsmanship.

Ever since Edward had experienced a near-death experience, his talent in martial arts seemed to have become a lot better. Pierre had heard about normal people suddenly turning into geniuses before, and this seemed to be one of those cases, maybe the feeling of almost dying had brought him enlightenment, or maybe the Gods had pitied him, but ever since that day, he wasn't the same. His once normal martial arts had transformed into something only the geniuses would achieve before awakening their martial spirits, but he was still far behind because of his age. But when you considered the fact that this transformation only took a little less than 3 weeks, it was almost a tiny bit monstrous, but not overly so.

His martial arts had all advanced from the low-rank to the high-rank of achievement, this was actually considered quite decent. But through training for a period of almost 3 weeks, Edward noticed something crucial, his talent with the sword seemed to be superb, as he had somehow managed to attain the max-grade achievement in the foundation of the sword! This was very good, as max-grade was something only extraordinary geniuses achieved in their martial arts before advancing to the more advanced ones. Edward also knew this would be crucial when he started practicing more advanced techniques after he had awakened his martial spirit, as his foundation would be as solid as it could be when it concerned the sword, which would make him improve by leaps and bounds.

When he had finished his normal routine, he paused to take a breather, and at this moment, his uncle Pierre suddenly appeared in front of him. Edward was astonished by his uncle's speed, he wasn't even able to see where his uncle had come from. But then again, it would be weird if he could, Edward's uncle was an elder after all, and that meant that he was in the qi gathering realm. While Edward hadn't even started cultivating yet.

Since Edward had been training non-stop for almost 3 weeks, with the only breaks being for food and rest, his uncle advised him to rest for the martial spirit awakening. Edward agreed to this since he wanted to be in his best condition tomorrow, he didn't want to risk anything when it came to awakening his martial spirit since it would be very crucial to his life in this new world. Edward hadn't noticed it yet, but with the merging of both Edwards' souls, his personality had slowly changed, he had become a lot more ambitious and hardworking. But this wasn't anything negative, it was quite the opposite since it didn't matter if you were talented if you didn't even want to become an expert.

After seeing his nephew agree with him, Pierre's face was beaming, as he left his nephew to his own devices. He didn't spend a lot of time with this nephew of his, even if he cared for him a lot, this was because the old Edward liked being alone, and he didn't interact with anyone. Pierre also had his own daughter that he looked after. But his own daughter had always been more talented than his nephew, she was actually considered a genius within the family, albeit a normal one, since she awakened her 6th tier human-ranked martial spirit at the age of 12. Therefore she had already stepped into the 5th rank of body-tempering at the age of 14. But her comprehension was only a step better than average.

Sending his uncle away with his eyes, Edward decided to go to sleep, it was already pretty late, and he looked forward to tomorrow a lot since it would change his destiny if he awakened a martial spirit, which he was sure he would do! When he entered his small wooden hut, he quickly threw off his clothes and went to sleep, even though the bed wasn't exactly comfortable, Edward had already gotten used to it, so it only took him about half an hour to slowly drift off into the abyss.

...

Waking up the next day, Edward was beaming! He quickly got dressed in the standard martial robes of the family, even though the clothes were a bit plain, they still looked elegant when they were worn by a martial artist, there was some kind of hidden charm to it. The martial robes of the Stone family were brown, this had something to do with their family name. Their family name was Stone for a reason, and that was because of the ancestor who founded the family, Walter Stone! This ancestor of theirs had managed to shock the country and establish his name with the help of his profound-ranked stone martial spirit, hence the name Stone, and since his martial spirit had been a stone, the descendants of the family usually awakened martial spirits of the earth element.

After he had gotten dressed Edward made his way toward the location of the martial spirit awakening, the main hall of the family. On his way towards the main hall, Edward noticed that there was a lot of people who were heading in the same direction as him, and it was totally understandable, because even if someone had already awakened their martial spirit, they would come and watch the martial spirit awakening to see how the overall situation of this generation would look like, and if there were any unparalleled geniuses being born. Edward didn't care about any of this though, all he was thinking about was the kind of martial spirit he would awaken, and what element it would be aligned with, there also existed a slight fear within his heart. The fear that he wouldn't awaken a martial spirit, Edward was already 14 and the limit for awakening a martial spirit was 15, so this was his penultimate chance.

When he was at the entrance of the main hall, Edward was just about to step inside, when he was shoved aside by a youth his age. This youth only glanced at Edwards identification badge with disdain before continuing inside. Edward didn't get hot-blooded or mad at this though, his look was steady and solemn as he regained his balance, and then went inside.

The youth who had brazenly pushed him aside was one of the main descendants, and therefore his position was a lot higher than Edward's, and it would be stupid to start trouble over such an insignificant matter, but Edward still silently remembered the youth's face, the youth had almond-colored eyes, his nose was sharp, almost a bit too sharp, it looked you could cut your finger on it if you tried, which made the youth look a little comical.

And since he was thinking about looks, Edward noticed how he had completely forgotten about himself since arriving in this new world, he had no idea what he looked like! Therefore he decided to check himself out when he got the chance to later. Stepping inside of the main hall, Edward could see a huge crowd of youths, since almost everyone that was here was here to try and awaken their martial spirits, the older generation was in another hall, at least the majority of them, and spectated through a simple array.

Edward had always been one to arrive on time, and almost instantly when he arrived, the ceremony started. The main hall had a circular shape, and it was elevated in the middle, almost like a small arena, even though this was called the main hall, it was mainly used as a stage for sparring, the only reason it was called the main hall, was because of the yearly martial spirit awakening ceremony, since it was crucial to the future of the family. And right now, there were two elders on this stage, standing on opposite sides, these were the elders dispatched to activate the array in the middle of the hall. This array helped a lot when it came to awakening martial spirits, almost everyone had the help of one of these arrays when awakening their martial spirits, but there always existed some exceptions to this rule.

The only downside to one of these arrays was the cost of activating them, therefore they could only hold this ceremony once every year.

"Quiet!"

Everyone started to quiet down when one of the elders raised his voice to get the crowd to calm down. After that the elders started calling out names, these were all names of different family members who were participating in the ceremony. The elder called out five names at a time since it would both take too long and be too expensive to do the awakening individually.

To Edwards surprise, he was actually a part of the second group whose names were called. This instantly filled him with excitement as he made his way to the stage. Once on top of the stage, he noticed how he was the oldest of the bunch, but he didn't care in the slightest. The elders then activated the array when all of the family members stood in the center of the stage. And when the array was activated, Edward felt a blazing warmth coursing through his body, while he was starting to glow with a transparent light. Edward noticed that the feeling he felt this time was different to the one in his memory. This time he felt something wanting to escape out of his body, something that seemed to have been suppressed for a long time, that finally felt the opportunity to be able to stretch its legs.

Edward was only focused on the changes within his body, and he didn't notice the abnormality that was taking place on top of the stage. The original five glowing youths had turned into two normal ones, and two with something hovering behind their backs. One of the latter two had a snake hovering behind him, as well as three white rays, the other one had a green shortsword, this time with four white rays, representing the 4th tier human-rank. But one of the youths was still glowing, and this was Edward. But this abnormality didn't last particularly long, as the audience suddenly heard a soul-shaking howl!

When they heard this they all clamored as they saw a form slowly materialize behind Edward, the blood of all the youths here was burning as they looked at the form with excitement. Normally when there was a natural disturbance or phenomenon during awakening, the martial spirit would be strong!

When the form had completely materialized behind him, Edward finally opened his eyes. The martial spirit that was behind him was a grey wolf. The body of the wolf was completely covered in green tattoos. And behind it, glowed five white rays.