Shortly after the birth of the pair’s child, the Elder opens the door to the room and walks inside. He can sense that the source essence of both Exordans has been exhausted quite a bit. It’s been used up more than the average birth. He then sees the body of the child Primo Exorda and his eye shines with relief.
“Well, how fortunate that everything was a success. Congratulations once again, young ones.”
When the Elder walks further into the room, he notices that both of the Exordans aren’t moving. They’re simply sitting there on the floor, unmoving and not saying a word. He gets closer and inspects them. Turns out that they’ve exhausted so much of their source essence that their bodies have temporarily shut down. Something like this has never happened before. It’s a good thing that there are always preparations ready for such a case. The Elder grabs a small pouch on his side and opens it. He puts his hand inside of the pouch and pulls out two bottles that contain purified source essence. The Elder takes off the cap of both bottles. Standing next to each of their bodies, the Elder pours the purified source essence over the two Exordans. The child on the floor sits up and looks at its first surroundings of the world. It senses the purified source essence and turns around. He watches curiously as the Elder pours the purified source essence on his parents. The child stands up from the floor and walks over to them. The Elder looks away from his work and smiles at the newborn child. The child looks at the two figures in front of him: his parents. He lifts up one of his small arms and places his hand on the body of his mother. He can feel the stone cold energy radiating from within. He watches as his parents begin to absorb the purified source essence and rapidly recover the source essence that they lost. The light in their eyes returned once more. The Elder steps back once he sees signs of their recovery. The pair of Primo Exorda take a moment to gather themselves. It has been a long time since they have used that much source essence in such a short amount of time. When they come to, they turn around and see their child standing before them.
The eyes of the pair begin to lighten up with joy. They were initially worried that something would have happened given that they consumed a lot more source essence than they originally planned to. However, it seems that everything worked out in the end. The Elder applauses, flapping his wings together and clapping his hands.
“Wonderful. The birth of your child was a brilliant success. I’m sure we all had our doubts at first, but all that matters is that your child is here, strong and standing.”
The pair of Primo Exorda perform a gesture of respect once again. The male of the pair says:
“It is all thanks to your guidance, Elder. The Benevolent Judge has given us the opportunity to continue our lives and contribute to our people.”
The Elder lets out a low laugh.
“Yes, it would appear so. It’s such a joyous occasion for the two of you. Now then, would you like to proceed with the aptitude test? If you do not wish to do it right away, I understand. Perhaps a proper rest might be better. After all, I do not think I have had the chance to witness such an extraordinary birth. You used a significant amount of your source essence.”
The female of the pair shakes her head and then says:
“We can do the aptitude test right now. Thanks to your purified source essence, we have recovered greatly. We’ll be fine performing it right away.”
“Then, I will do as you wish.”
The Elder then switches his attention over to the small Exordan child. The newborn Primo Exorda looms back at him with a curious glint in his glowing eye. He seems to understand that the Elder requires his assistance with something. After all, when a new Primo Exorda is born, they inherit the memories of their bloodline’s past three generations. Although they usually do not have the power and soul power to register and decipher all of the memories, they are still able to understand it scantily. And so, the small Primo Exorda walks over to the Exordan Elder with a bounce in his steps. Since the child remembers the aptitude test through the memories of his past lineage, he knows what to expect. He stands in front of the Exordan Elder and watches a circle made from sorcery appear on the ground. The Exordan child takes this as his cue to sit down in the middle of the circle. The Elder is pleased to see the child already knows the procedures of the aptitude test. That is already a sign of a good child and the path to a great future. If they are able to decipher the memories of their lineage to that extent, then they must possess great source power. The Elder, after deducing his observations, sits down in front of the circle. He looks down at the small child and issues him some instructions.
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“Child, place your hand within the area of the circle. Focus on yourself and channel your source essence through it. You will mark the circle and have it ready for the rest of the test.”
The Exordan child listens closely to the Elder’s words. He looks down at the circle and places his hand in the spot in front of him. The child’s parents watch intently behind the circle. They are anxious to figure out what their child’s aptitude will turn out to be. With the aptitude test, there are several stages to it. First, the Primo Exorda being tested must mark the circle with their own source essence. Once that is done, the Elder inspects the source essence and deciphers intently, using several mystical techniques, the amount of potential that the Primo Exorda wields. No matter how old the Primo Exorda may be, unless they come across a very fortunate encounter, the amount of potential that they wield will nearly never change from the moment of their birth. No one in the species knows why this is the case. Theories swirl around that say the Malevolent Judge interferes with the creation process of some of the newborn children and inflicts an unbreakable seal on their power. Of course, this is just pure speculation. But this speculation is not missing the evidence. Several years ago, many Primo Exorda who passed away left behind a small speck of black abyssal energy. They were all Primo Exorda who were branded to have average or below average aptitude as well. The Primo Exorda assumed that this energy belonged to the Malevolent Judge and the creation of this theory was formed.
Back to the current time, the Elder watches as the child begins to channel his own source essence throughout the circle. The Elder’s eye glints as he outstretches his hand. The aptitude test now begins as the circle marked by the child is surrounded by characters from the Primo Exorda dialect. The child keeps his hand placed in the exact same spot. The Elder begins using a technique to continue the rest of the aptitude test’s ritual. The Exordan characters around the magic circle are suddenly increased in size and begin to glow with energy. The parents of the child watch carefully and are filled with hope. They’re silently rooting for their son every single second of the test. The circle rapidly changes color. It turns from a pale colorless state into a crystal clear white. After a few more seconds pass, the crystal clear white from the circle rapidly changes again into an invigorating green. The Elder continues to focus his technique and continues deciphering the child’s potential. After some more seconds pass, the green hue of the circle gradually switches to a light blue. Not even 10 seconds pass after this and the light blue darkens into a deep blue, just like the endless sea. The pair of Primo Exorda continue to spectate the test. So far, it has been going very well. The light blue color that was surrounding the circle was the stage of average potential. Now that their child has crossed over into potential that is higher than the average, their hopes continue to skyrocket.
The aptitude test continues to commence. The circle stays at the deep blue color for about a minute. The parents of the child keep standing behind the circle, watching their son. The deep blue color in the circle starts to fluctuate. The Exordan characters rapidly switch between the deep blue color and a mystic gold color. The circle’s color also begins to flash between colors as well. The Elder’s eye glints with some surprise. It would be a lie to say that he wasn’t entirely expecting this child in front of him to reach this stage. In just a few more seconds, the circle and Exordan characters fully switch into the mystical golden color. The eyes of the parents move around and they look at each other in joy. An aptitude of the golden stage meant that a Primo Exorda has potential that beats more than 90% of the entire species. Now that it has come to this, what else could the parents wish for? This was more than enough for them. However, the Elder looks back up at them.
“It’s not over just yet. There is still more left to do.”
The pair of Primo Exorda look at the Elder with a small hint of surprise. There is still more about their son’s potential that the Elder needs to decipher. Even if he has reached the golden stage, is it even possible for him to climb to the highest stage, the stage that only the patriarch of the Primo Exorda, the headmaster of Prime Academia, and all of the extremely significant Primo Exorda in history have achieved? Before they could begin to wonder even further, everyone watches as the color of the circle begins to swirl and shift. The source essence inside of the circle starts to crackle. The Exordan characters around the circle suddenly zip around sporadically. The Elder watches their movement with a careful eye. He sees that their color is shifting and changing. The color of mystical gold is turning darker. The parents continue to spectate. Their wings hold each other’s bodies, hoping that the ritual doesn’t end up backfiring on them. In a flash, every single Exordan character around the circle converges into one point, morphing into one large character. The circle then becomes incredibly bright, so bright that it’s enough to fill the entire room with its light. The light gradually dims out, but it starts turning into an ominous shade of scarlet. The front of the circle crumbles from its original color into a majestic yet ominous hue of crimson red. The rest of the circle’s color eventually crumbles away and turns into that same crimson hue. The Elder suddenly diverts some of his focus back to the child. This surprise in his eye is not because of the Exordan child reaching this stage, but because there is still more. There is still more potential to be deciphered.
“Hold on! This hasn’t concluded just yet! Your child… there is still more potential that I must decipher!”
The Elder has never held an aptitude test like this before. An aptitude that required his full concentration and use of skills has never appeared in front of him. Not once in his incredibly long life had he seen a child that pushed him like this. A thought comes to his mind that swirls around, but he quickly shuts it down for now and focuses on the aptitude test. The magic circle starts crackling with even more energy than before. The Elder pours even more source essence into his technique.
“What kind of… child is this?”
Suddenly, at the cost of much of the Elder’s source essence, the full potential of the Exordan child has been deciphered. The Elder completely slumps onto the floor and the Primo Exorda pair rush over to help him. They look back at the magic circle. When they lay eyes on the color of the circle, the eyes of the pair have changed form completely. The Elder gradually stands back up from the ground and also looks at the circle’s color. His eye turns into the same shape as the pair, full of astonishment and bewilderment. The child themself looks at the circle in wonder. He’s never seen this happen before, even in the memories of his bloodline. The Elder falls to his knees again, but not out of exhaustion.
“How… How is this possible? Could this child really be…?”
The pair of Primo Exorda and the Elder stare at the circle's color. It’s a hue that they have never seen before in an aptitude test: The myriad shade of lavender.