Opening Ceremony (3)
Opening Ceremony (3)
The Birth Festival opening ceremony followed standard procedure.
All cadets assembled for a kind of review, and the Vice Headmaster representing Siyoram delivered an address.
After that, class representatives came forward to recite an oath, and a few more elaborate formalities simply signaled the opening.
The procedure itself was simple, but practically no one in the audience looked bored. If anything, their eyes were sparkling as they scanned the center.
- Hey, look up front. Is that Hong Yeon-hwa? She's from the Calamity Flame Family, right?
- On the news she looked completely vicious, but in person it's different... Oh, that scarf is pretty. What brand is it?
- The cadet next to her is Baek A-rin. Damn, with the two of them standing together it's like a painting.
- I saw them playing tag earlier and they were stupidly fast. If you got hit, you'd probably fly like you got slammed by a dump truck.
- They fight monsters that tear dump trucks apart. You think getting sent flying is the end of it?
When an ordinary person experiences the Awakening Phenomenon, they become a superhuman who can wield mana. But only a fraction of the total population ever awakens. The vast majority remain ordinary, unable to handle mana.
To ordinary people, superhumans often feel like figures from another world.
More precisely, a kind of idol.
Beings who can crush metal barehanded, leap over buildings in a single bound, and wield incomprehensible unique abilities.
Thanks to the Association's steadfast image-making over the years, superhumans—heroes and hunters—have come to occupy the place of idols and objects of admiration.
- Goodness, I never thought I'd live to see Siyoram cadets with my own eyes...
- Everyone's hair is all different colors.
- It's all natural. And I heard becoming a superhuman improves your skin and bone structure too? So jealous...
And these weren't just ordinary superhumans—these were cadets of Siyoram itself.
Those recruited from across the globe through a rigorous process, destined to become the pillars of the next generation.
Usually, Siyoram's security made news difficult to come by, so not only ordinary citizens but even industry insiders had fire in their eyes as they scrutinized the central stage.
- The cadet at the very front, is that...
- Haha, he stands out, doesn't he? Even if you don't want to look, you can't help it.
- The Special Admission Cadet.
All those restless gazes eventually converged on a single spot.
The cadets stood separated by year, arranged as if encircling the round stage. Among them, the first-year formation was heavily adorned with green decorations symbolizing spring.
At its head stood Lee Ha-yul.
- Wow...
And as though pulled by gravity, everyone who turned their eyes toward Lee Ha-yul found their mouths hanging open.
Whether they looked from the audience seats, through the massive holograms floating in the air, or via the broadcast feed—
Anyone who saw Lee Ha-yul's changed appearance, by whatever means, couldn't keep their mouth shut.
The last time Lee Ha-yul had officially appeared in public was at the tournament. Even then his appearance had drawn countless gazes, but his current look was on an entirely different level.
His hair was snow-white, as if holding a faint inner light. Both eyes were gently closed, adding an air of mystery, and even with them shut his features remained perfectly composed.
Across his back was draped a sky-blue winged garment fit for an immortal; the glimpse of his left arm between his sleeves, clearly not of human make, stirred a pang of sympathy in onlookers.
- Wow, so he's a real person, not something out of fiction.
- Does he always walk around with his eyes closed? That's amazing. Is that possible with a detection ability?
- Look how small he is. He's just the right size to hold in your arms while sleeping.
- His hair is incredibly white... I've never seen white like that before.
- ...He is a guy, right?
A moment passed, and then people came to their senses as if waking from a dream, immediately busying themselves whispering about Lee Ha-yul with lingering expressions.
The image burned into their retinas was that mysterious, that beautiful. Even just standing there with his eyes and mouth closed, the sight was nothing less than a painting.
If anything, the quiet, restrained aura Lee Ha-yul wore only magnified the perception of mystique around him.
'Yeah, I guess he does look like that.'
Hong Yeon-hwa was thinking along similar lines. When she turned her gaze slightly at the chatter reaching her ears, she spotted Lee Ha-yul standing perfectly still like a doll.
His otherworldly appearance. No matter how many times she looked at his face, like when he had uncharacteristically woken early and fallen asleep soundly in her arms, she still couldn't get used to it.
"Ha-yul, is something wrong?"
But that mystique had gradually peeled away the closer she got to him. Or to be precise, it was more like she'd gotten to savor the real person underneath.
To Hong Yeon-hwa, Lee Ha-yul wasn't a mysterious immortal—he was an affectionate child who was especially full of endearing demands.
That was how she could tell his mood was off.
At the soft whisper, Lee Ha-yul turned his head slightly. His gently closed eyes slid half-open, revealing dreamy gray irises.
He didn't speak, and his necklace didn't chime. But Hong Yeon-hwa could read the question in Lee Ha-yul's eyes: why do you ask?
A brief stir rippled through the audience seats, but Hong Yeon-hwa tilted her head without the slightest concern.
"You seemed a little off, so I wondered if something was up. Are you uncomfortable somewhere?"
At the more specific question, the corners of Lee Ha-yul's eyes curved as if he was troubled.
'So he's not hurt.'
Hong Yeon-hwa nodded inwardly at the reaction.
If he were hiding an injury, he would have avoided her eyes first. This was the response of someone genuinely mulling over how to answer.
As a self-proclaimed top-tier Lee Ha-yul interpreter, Hong Yeon-hwa waited patiently for his reply.
- The head of the Taesan family...? She's here.
"Hm?"
A thin voice soon rang inside her head. It was a sound transmission requiring highly precise mana manipulation.
Hong Yeon-hwa, who inwardly had hoped he'd lean in and whisper directly into her ear, felt a twinge of disappointment—but it lasted only a moment before the content made her blink.
'I didn't hear anything about Ji-yeon coming.'
The heads of the Three Great Families were fundamentally busy people.
The head of the Azure Sea was currently running around trying to suppress a chain dungeon outbreak in his territory.
Hong Yeon-hwa's own parents, the heads of the Calamity Flame, had been holed up in the Demon Realm since last year and the moment they came out, they'd flown off somewhere else again.
The head of Taesan was no less occupied. Yet she had set aside time to visit the Birth Festival?
'That woman never struck me as the type to be exceptionally doting toward her daughter...'
In Hong Yeon-hwa's memory, Lee Ji-ah, the head of Taesan, was not a warm person. If anything, she was so emotionless and blunt that one might wonder if she was actually the Azure Sea's manifester instead.
'Well, it's not like I know her that well.'
Maybe deep down she was intensely devoted to her daughter. She shrugged the thought off, and then another transmission flew in.
- And, Your Grandfather... no, I mean... Yeon-hwa's grandfather, he's here too.
"Huh? My grandfather?"
Hong Yeon-hwa let out a dumbfounded noise.
* * *
The rest of the opening ceremony proceeded without incident.
The Vice Headmaster delivered the address, and the cadets who came up as representatives went through the formality of pledging to contribute to peace and the survival of humanity.
"—Therefore, upon the strength we have honed, we vow to carry out the duties entrusted to us and contribute to world peace and continued existence."
- Clap clap clap clap clap—!
The moment the representative oath ended, applause echoed through the great hall.
Not just the audience in the seats—the cadets maintaining their positions clapped as well.
I had fortunately manifested my prosthetic arm, so I avoided the disaster of having to go up on stage as a representative and stand there awkwardly.
Of course, the sound was slightly different, but it wasn't enough to be noticeable.
The applause continued for some time. The Vice Headmaster, who had been clearing her throat in the meantime, only spoke again once it had fully died down.
"With this, we've reached the end of this long, long opening ceremony. We will now proceed to the final portion."
A segment that the Vice Headmaster conducted personally rather than an announcer. So I let out a deep sigh from where I stood on stage.
'It ended quickly.'
They called it a long, long opening ceremony, but not much time had actually passed. That was thanks to cutting out unnecessary formalities and running only the essential parts at an appropriate pace.
"Cadets and faculty, please raise one hand toward the sky and manifest your mana."
The final part of the ceremony. At the Vice Headmaster's words, the cadets lifted their hands skyward.
The representatives on stage did the same. As Hong Yeon-hwa and Baek A-rin raised their hands on either side, I also raised my right hand—my natural one.
At the same time, I tapped the mana slumbering within my core to rouse it. The mana made a full circuit through my body. The Vice Headmaster, who had been surveying the area, produced a staff from thin air and grasped it.
"Now, we will begin."
A black wooden staff with an antique air. The Vice Headmaster nodded and tapped it against the floor.
- Wooooong...
A subtle vibration swept down from the crown of my head to my toes. A few cadets shuddered at the unfamiliar sensation.
But only briefly.
- Wooooooong...!
A massive vibration soon resounded and the mana inside my body was drawn out through my fingertips. I could easily have resisted this degree of interference, but I couldn't ruin the event, so I obediently offered up my mana.
- Fwoooosh!
At the same time, mana poured from my fingertip as if a faucet had been turned, surging upward into the sky.
"Oooh..."
Hong Yeon-hwa fidgeted with her hand, an unfamiliar look on her face. From her hand, vivid crimson mana was gushing forth in an incredibly thick and distinct pillar.
The same phenomenon was occurring not just for me, but for every cadet. Depending on the nature of their mana, the color of the surging pillar differed, and depending on its quality and capacity, the pillar's thickness and clarity varied.
'Mine is...'
White. And overwhelmingly thicker and clearer than any other cadet's. So much so that the area, overflowing with a riot of other colors, was largely dyed white.
I observed people, one after another—in the audience and across Siyoram—voicing their amazement at the multicolored pillars.
A kind of performance held at the end of the opening ceremony. It was one of the representative spectacles of the Birth Festival.
I heard a lot of people scramble to get in on the first day just to see this.
'So this is how they top off the mana every year.'
The hundreds of surging mana pillars eventually reached the sky and spread in all directions.
What they collided with was the barrier protecting Siyoram, which Neriel had painstakingly crafted.
It was a magnificent barrier that would function perfectly well even if left alone, but it seemed they supplemented it in this fashion every year nonetheless.
I'd learned about this function while steadily reading the commentaries in the mansion's library. They were still beyond my level, but persistent rereading was yielding results.
- Wooooong...
As time passed, the pillars that had surged so vigorously began to vanish one by one. Starting from the periphery, they dispersed in order, and finally the pillars of the class representatives on stage wavered and scattered as well.
'...?'
But mine wouldn't stop. Hong Yeon-hwa and Baek A-rin, standing beside me, blinked.
They weren't the only ones. Countless gazes turned toward me. The cadets who came out as representatives, the cadets standing below the stage, the stares pouring in from the audience seats...
[I-I wonder why too...?] I blinked in bewilderment as well. When I quickly checked the Vice Headmaster, she was calmly staring at the pure white pillar of mana.
'I was briefed beforehand, but isn't this taking a bit too much...?'
This wasn't an unforeseen event. The Vice Headmaster had gotten my prior agreement that during this procedure, a particularly large amount of mana might be drawn from me.
'But this is a lot...'
It was just that the amount far exceeded imagination. I was already someone with an exceptionally enormous mana capacity. Since I had never been lax in training my mana, its quantity had steadily increased over time.
And even that vast mana was now gradually scraping the bottom.
Alarmed, I hurriedly drew in mana scattered throughout my surroundings while tracking the path of the mana rising into the sky.
'Where is all of it going?'
The other cadets' mana had been absorbed into the barrier spread over Siyoram.
My mana wasn't being absorbed by the barrier. Puzzled, I traced its destination.
'That place is...'
I tilted my head. The location consuming my mana was unexpected.
Here, situated close to the great hall... the ivory tower rising from Siyoram's very center.
It was the Tower of Growth.
* * *
One of the spaces within the Tower of Growth.
An expanse of blue sky without a cloud to be found and, beneath it, a vast, sweeping grassland.
Thud! A pillar of pure-white mana slammed down at its very center.
It was thicker than most high-rise buildings. The space around the pillar warped. External pressure, laden with will, interfered with the pure-white mana.
Interference from outside. Under normal circumstances, it would have been scoffed at and easily shaken off.
But the mana that had been handed over with its owner's consent soon shifted to an attitude as docile as a tame puppy, reshaping itself under the external guidance.
Pure white, tinged with no other color, and therefore a purity ripe with the potential to be stained.
And also, a nature of possibility—the capacity to transform into anything.
- Thump...!
Something stirred inside the snow-white pillar.