Chapter 54: Awakening ceremony 4


    Kyro wasmended by all of the people on the stage while Rick can see his aunt and uncle waving towards him. They too were very excited for their child''s future and a score of 3&3 was a solid step in that direction. ''Commoner peice of shit!'' Rick heard the second noble with the score of 2&3 stars curse towards Kyro. ''What the fuck did you say shithead?'' Rick had decided to ignore the guy as it was clearly the case to a child being salty for not been able to achieve the same level as of the person with a much lower background. But Jake was not the one to take any insults lying down neither towards him nor towards his best friends.


    Rick held Jake''s hand and stopped him. ''Don''t create trouble here Jake. You already know he is just a sore loser and nothing else. So calm down.'' Jake realised this was not the time to take up a fight he humphed and settled back. Gaurds on the stage were ready to handle any untoward situation but they calmed down after watching Rick handle it calmly. ''Rick is right Jake let''s leave the prick aside. It''s your turn anyway.'' Kyro too heard the insulting from the guy but he was quite the level headed guy and both him and Ryu were pretty used toments like this. As long as no physical harm is done they are cool with it.


    Jake reached the crystal with a scowl on his face. Someone just have to ruin his day with some shittyments. Once he gets his magical powers for himself, next time he is going to smash their heads in the ground. cing his hands he didn''t even wait for the ender''s go ahed and simply concentrated his mind. In a few minutes a red mana surrounded himpletely. The reddish colour turned darker and next moment it transformed in fire. Rick had to say that looked pretty cool. Given the chance he might actually want to switch to the element of fire than an ability to control some stupid nts. But s he from what he had apprehended although people can awaken an entirely knew ability inter part of life but the cases were few and far between.


    Rick can feel the heat. ''Damn thats actual fire!'' Rick was still having hard time to ept this reality. It was one thing for Kira and Kyro to manipte wind or water and it was other thing to control a vtile element like fire. Maybe it was his life experiences from his previous work that was affecting him. Already people were shocked with a new fire maniptor among them but the stats revealed in the crystal was even more appalling. Jake recieved the highest score till now with a 4 & 5 stars for mana reserves and cultivation level respectively after maintaining his concentration for 15 minutes. This guy was at the highest level of mortal mage with 5 stars. If he kept going on like this he would simply cross over to a junior mage within a month or so.


    Jake didn''t wait for any greetings toe his way and directly left towards his friends. ''haha This guy is too cool. First he was a fire mana cultivator and on top of that he had such high level of cultivation as a base.'' Rick was very impressed with Jake. ''You should have let me feel happy for some time atleast.'' Kyroined to Jake with a dejected face. What can he do, even though his abilities were also good but all they were was ''good'' in front of this little monster. ''Haha How can I protect my brothers if I am not even this strong.'' Jake brushed everything of like it was no big deal for him.


    Rick was seriously impressed with Ryu''s eyes for friendships. Both rtions he made were solid such that even after achieving such sess Jake still returned back to them and Rick can feel no impression of any haughtiness from his eyes. He was still his normal self. ''Even a branch family of Roose nobility can still outperform all our local talent.'' Eric sighed. He has himself risen frommon background so he would have preferred if amoner topped the results but that was not going to be the case clearly today.


    ''Good luck brother'' With that it was Rick''s turn as both his friends wish him luck. He moved towards the crystal with slow steps and out his hands on the ball. It was still warm maybe due to the fire release from Jake before him. He waited and when the elders gave him go ahead, cing their hands on his back, he focussed in his mind closing his eyes. What Rick saw was arge tree that looked like it was entirely made up of mana. He was the literal ant in front of the tree. Rick recalled the dragons words that he needed to focus on it as long as he can, so thats what he was going to do. But within the first few minutes Rick found his consciousness ascending the tree.


    Starting few minutes of his upward motion was very slow and steady. But after the 7 minutes mark his began ascending fast. He maintained his focus else, he has realised that he will be thrown out. He was still holding on at what he assumed was 10 minutes. On the stage it''s been half an hour since Ryu has entered his meditation state and there was still no trace of mana on his body. ''Should we try to wake him up.'' One of the elder asked for the opinions of others. ''No, we should wait for some more time. If there is still no response we will pull him out from there, even if we do that forcefully. The third elder nodded with his approval. This guy has given them quite the shock.


    That was not only the case for elders, everyone on and off the stage were very much in the same state. Only the granny and Jake were not worried at all instead they were smiling instead. ''Hey Jake is he okay in there?'' Kyro asked concerned. ''Of course he will be let us believe in him. I think he can do that.'' Amelia was definitely the most worried out of everyone present there. She would have rushed to stage if Jeff was not holding her hand. ''Jeff it''s been half an hour already. Will he be alright?'' Although Jeff was himself feeling a little concerned but he had to remain positive in front of his wife. ''Yes he will be. Why else do you think those elders are there? If they have decided not to act yet that means Ryu must be out of danger.''


    Amelia calmed down a little. ''Brother is right sister-inw. Let us trust the elders. They are from the capital after all.'' Suna too was perturbed but she can not show that to Amelia lest she would make the situation worse. In actuality, the elders they were testing so much have themselves not seen a case like this in their entire life. The most they have seen was 20 minutes. Roughly the amount of time someone was able to concentrate at the ball gave a fair amount of mana affinity of that person. But if that was the case how can someone be this monstrous. ''There must have been a glitch that developed in the crystal ball itself after thest one we tested.'' This was how the elders rationalised the odd case.


    All three elders had no other job but to protect the kids going through the process of awakening their magic. They had to keep track of each child involved and save them in case something goes wrong in the awakening process or if the child try too hard going beyond his physical capacity. But in this particr case they can neither feel any unexpected behaviour of the crystal neither can they see any kind of struggle on Rick''s face. Hence they were in the bind. If they try to forcibly tear away his consciousness from the crystal, he might end up crippled. So they didn''t want to be hasty in making their decision.


    Just when the elders were in their thoughts they were assaulted by arge amount of mana explosion of some sort. ''Boom!'' the mana shockwave moved outward as a hemisphere. But this kind of burst was nothing for the high tier earth stage elders. Swiftly thinking one of them moved towards the other participants while the other two still focused on holding onto Rick to maintain their connection with him. Once everything calmed down they noticed everyone was safe. But the whole town hall was covered with different kinds of creepers.