The Wizard Loved by the Stars
In an age when humanity had forsaken justice, I became the wizard loved by the stars.
The wind that swept across Mite Mountain was always cold, even in early summer. It carried the scent of pine resin and distant snow, whispering through the narrow paths like an impatient messenger who had forgotten what it was supposed to deliver.
I stood at the edge of the cliff where the old shrine leaned precariously, its wooden beams bleached gray by centuries of neglect. My name was Leon, though no one had called me that in years. Just "the boy from the peak" or, when the villagers were feeling particularly superstitious, "that cursed child."
Today, everything would change.
The stars have chosen you.
Divinity granted: Stellar Affinity
Class Acquired: Mage of the Constellations
The voice rang inside my skull like silver bells struck by lightning. I staggered, clutching the weathered stone altar as constellations I had never studied burned themselves into my vision. Orion's belt, Cassiopeia's throne, the faint shimmer of forgotten asterisms no mortal map had ever recorded.
Power flooded my veins, not the crude spark of village sorcery, but something vast and ancient. The kind of power that made gods sit up and take notice.
"Why me?" I whispered to the empty sky. My breath fogged in the mountain air.
A single star, brighter than all the rest, pulsed once in answer. It felt almost... fond.
I laughed then, a sound that startled a flock of mountain crows into flight. For the first time in seventeen years, the weight of being unwanted lifted from my shoulders. The villagers who had driven my mother away, the elders who had called my birth an ill omen, the children who threw stones at the "cursed boy" who lived alone on the peak.
They would never understand what had just happened here.
I raised my hand, and the night sky answered even though it was barely past noon. A spiral of starlight gathered in my palm, forming a small, perfect orb that hummed with gentle power. It felt like coming home.
The gods had abandoned this corrupted world long ago. But the stars... the stars were still watching.
And one of them had just chosen me.
Far below, smoke rose from the chimneys of the village that had never wanted me. Soon they would learn that the boy they had scorned now carried the favor of the heavens themselves.
I smiled at the horizon, the weight of destiny settling comfortably on my shoulders like an old cloak.
Let the journey begin.