Fortunately for you guys, this chapter is kind of longer than the others. Unfortunately for you, it ends in a cliffhanger. Sorry.

Ps: I would really appreciate it if you guys rated and reviewed my fiction. Thanks.

The feeling that Dusk got from the crown-like markings on his head was that of familiarity. He did not know why but he felt that even though those markings had just emerged now, they felt as though they had always been with him, within his body, waiting for the day that they would emerge.

Once Dusk focused on those linings, he felt as if he were feeling a part of his body that he had been with all through his life. While he did not know what purpose these linings served, he was certain that he would soon find out.

Within his body, Dusk could also feel two things that had just been introduced recently; the affinities for space and time. These two things were what made him the happiest as, of these two elements, one was the most rare element in existence within this world and the other was one that had never once been seen since the conception of this world.

While Dusk had already anticipated that he would be met by a pleasant surprise during his awakening, he never once expected a surprise of this magnitude. He had, after all, obtained two of the most primordial elements that constituted the universe.

Feeling the existence of these two elements within him, Dusk could not help but smile. In as much as these two elements were not really individually suited for attack, they were, without a doubt, tremendously tyrannical.

Just as Dusk was basking within this bliss, he noticed, to his displeasure, that he was once again losing a hold of his consciousness. The only factor that made him feel relief this time was that he did not feel any pain. It was just the same feeling as one had when he/she fell into a deep slumber, a feeling of relaxation.

The moment Dusk’s consciousness disappeared from within the material plane; he found that he had descended into a new plane. This place that he was currently in looked really baffling.

Looking around, Dusk noticed that he was standing on the ground with his five year old body in its bare naked state. Around him in all directions, to his surprise, was the culmination of all the places that he had visited during the awakening of his space affinity.

All around him there were tall mountains, an endless forest, a dark cave, a giant volcano, an endless ocean. The features were just too many and random for them to exist in a single place. It was almost as though this plane had been created with the sole purpose of defying the laws of nature.

In front of such magnificent features, Dusk was like a single speck of sand in a massive desert, as trifling as a single blade of grass in a massive prairie. As he stood there, Dusk felt a feeling of helplessness similar to one he had never felt before. Iin this place, it was as if Dusk had no right to even exist.

If this place really existed in the real world then Dusk was certain that it would be a number of years before he would be qualified to even look at such a heaven-defying place.

All of this, however, was not even the most astounding thing about this situation. The thing that struck Dusk as the most peculiar was that throughout this whole ordeal, there had been a huge cloud above him shooting down lightning at regular increasing intervals.

Were it only this then Dusk would have felt no sense of alarm. What made it weird, however, was that the lightning always seemed to fall on the same spot, Dusk’s body. It was almost as though Dusk had committed a crime against the heavens and they were hell-bent on punishing him for his atrocities.

Dusk had at first tried to dodge the lightning but once he noticed that he could not move an inch, he just let fate run its course and thus a lightning bolt fell from the sky at tremendous speed and landed on top of his head.

As Dusk waited for the bolt with bated breath and closed eyes, he was surprised to find out that nothing was touching him. Feeling that something was off, Dusk could not help but open his eyes and look upwards.

What met his sight was countless descending lightning bolts. To his surprise, however, once these lightning bolts came into contact with his skin they simply passed through and caused no damage to his body whatsoever. In as much as Dusk felt perplexed at the sight of this ordeal, the one thing that he felt more profoundly was relief. Relief that he was still alive, relief that his body had not been shredded to bits.

As time continued to progress so did the number of lightning bolts that struck Dusk continue to increase. After four hours, the number of bolts that struck him at a single moment had increased so much that they were now close to twenty.

The funny thing, though, was that of all these bolts, not a single one of them inflicted any amount of damage on Dusk. Once Dusk noticed this fact, he rid himself of all his worries and just stood there listlessly.

As the number of lightning bolts continued to increase, Dusk continued to stand there without a single worry in the world. It was only after standing for two days within the zone of highest activity that Dusk finally felt a sense of impending danger.

Directing his attention upwards, Dusk was only able to detect a single almost colorless bolt of lightning with the diameter of three meters before he lost control of all his mental functions. The moment the single bolt of surreal lightning landed on Dusk, the only thought within his mind was that of pain, immense pain.

The pain was so immense; in fact, that Dusk felt as though someone was individually severing each and every single nerve fiber within his body. This type of pain was within a whole other level of existence. The moment this pain struck, the only thing that Dusk was able to get his brain to think of was pain.

Fortunately, after a couple of seconds, but what seemed to be eternity for Dusk, the pain subsided leaving him with no bodily scars but a severe trauma in its place. That lightning bolt was without a doubt the most frightening thing that Dusk had ever experienced to this date. In as much the damage inflicted was not physical, the memory that remained was one that would last for a lifetime.

Once the pain subsided, Dusk noticed that he was once more seated oh his mother’s lap and there were numerous beads of sweat rolling down his face. He also did not fail to notice that within him was a new power, the power of lightning, a never before seen affinity.

In as much as Dusk wanted to be jovial and celebrate the acquisition of such a powerful attribute, he just couldn’t. The pain that he had just gone through was one that could shake one for a lifetime. Just remembering it made him shiver to his bones. Had it not been for the strong nature of his soul, Dusk speculated that it would have already shattered and dispersed by now.

The only one thing that lead Dusk to feel a bit happy was that the lightning that he had experienced had tremendously strengthened his soul. It seems like it was indeed true that whatever doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.

While this experience had been a really scarring one for Dusk, it had also lead him to think. Initially, Dusk had been wondering why not all elements of nature had been represented in this world.

Take lightning for example, in as much as it was one of the true elements of nature, often seen within the world, it had never once been discovered as anyone’s affinity. If Dusk were to categorize lightning, it would fall under the rare category, in the same bracket as space, because of its tyrannical attacking power.

In as much as it was rare, however, there was no reason for it to have not been discovered as an affinity by at least a single person. Was what Dusk used to think. After today’s encounter, however, Dusk had come to learn the reason why such things happen.

It was simply because not all awakenings were friendly in nature. While they may all look the same from the outside, the things that the different children’s’ souls would be experiencing would be totally different.

For this reason Dusk presumed that for such affinities as lightning, while there may have been people who had been lucky enough to acquire the affinity before, they were unfortunately unable to make it through the awakening as in most cases their souls were not strong enough and ended up getting shattered, leading to death of the person.

In as much as death during awakening was rare, it was not something that had never happened after all. It was only that no one ever knew the reason for such occurrences and thus they were only taken to be coincidences. There were speculations but no concrete evidence.

Now that the awakenings were over, Dusk could now let out a sigh of relief. While the second and third awakenings had caught him by surprise, Dusk was pretty sure that there were no more to come. It was just a gut feeling but Dusk felt confidence in it. Moreover, he did not want to go through any other awakening. The last two had left a serious toll on him.

At this moment all that he wanted to do was sleep, and sleep he did. Without caring for the occurrences in the outside world, Dusk fell into a deep slumber within his mother’s arms. This sleep, for Dusk, was the most enjoyable thing he had ever experienced. In both this life and the last. This feeling of just letting your worries go and throwing caution to the wind was something that Dusk would never forget.

By the time Dusk woke up, the mental pressure that had previously been wearing down on him had subsided by a relative amount. Even the trauma that he had come to develop due to the lightning had reduced to the point that it would not hamper his daily life. Dusk speculated that due to the large magnitude of things within his brain, other things would soon overshadow the trauma and he would completely forget it. He was making an active effort to think of other things in place of the traumatic experience after all.

When his consciousness emerged from slumber land, Dusk could feel his mom’s arms around him, the same way they were when he fell asleep. Only that this time they were not seated but were in bed and Dusk was laying next to her.

As his mother was still asleep, Dusk did not dare to wake her. He instead took this time to use his clear mind to run through what had happened yesterday.

“Okay, so as expected, my awakening did happen yesterday. Which is good. Fortunately, I was able to obtain some really precious affinities. In as much as that whole process almost caused me to turn clinically insane or even die, the gains were much better than the losses. For which I am thankful.”

“These affinities of mine are a bit problematic though. While space is okay because there are other people that have it (little as they are, they are still there), the remaining two are going to be a problem.”

“Fortunately time cannot be detected by anyone unless I tell them (which I wont). So I guess that the only thing to worry about is lighting which unfortunately will be rather visible once in use. Sigh, no need to worry about such troubles. Ill cross the bridge when I get there.” Dusk thought to himself.

By the time Dusk finished his introspection, he had come to two conclusions. One, apart from the trusted members of his family, he would not inform anyone else that he had the affinity for time magic. There were no benefits after all. In fact, the implications far outweighed the benefits, as it wasn’t like there was any teacher who was going to teach him how to control time once his affinity was discovered. He was just going to keep his time affinity a secret and train it in secret.

The second conclusion that Dusk came to was that he would not expose his lightning affinity unless need be. As there was no one that would be able to teach him how to control it, exposing it needlessly would only serve to bring him complications. If he was ever forced to reveal his affinity for lightning, however, Dusk swore to himself that he would first make the best out of the situation and do his best to save his little self from any concurrent trouble. Though he doubted that it would ever get that far.

By the time Dusk finished his internal monologue, his mother had already woken up ad was looking at him worriedly. As Dusk was still laying on the bed with his eyes closed, she must have thought that he was still asleep, or even unconscious.

Feeling sad for worrying his mother, Dusk sat up, focused his attention towards her, and hugged her. The moment Jade saw this; tears began falling down her eyes as she hugged Jade even tighter.

“You’re okay baby… Hic! …. You’re okay. You really worried mommy… Hic! … I thought something bad had happened to you, I almost couldn’t sleep. I’m so glad that you’re awake now. I was so worried that my heart almost stopped beating” Jade said with tears in her eyes.

Looking at her, all that Dusk could do was to console her while still holding her in his arms. She was this sad because of him after all. “It’s okay mom, It’s okay. I’m fine

Now.”

Dusk continued to console her until she finally calmed down after a couple of minutes, upon which she began to ask questions.

“So why didn’t you call me for your awakening Dusk, you should have known that it was coming right?” Jade asked.

“Sorry mom, I wanted to surprise you once I got my affinity.” Dusk said.

“It’s okay. I guess you were thinking of me in your own right. So what affinities did you get?” Jade asked.

“Well I got three: Space, time and lightning.” Dusk replied.

“I see, three, yes yes, that’s not ba…. Wait! What? Did you just say three? Wait a minute? I think I’m getting old. To think that I’d hear space, time and lightning. Haha, these old ears of mine are really playing some good tricks on me these days.” Jade said while laughing in a manner as though she had heard the funniest but also most dry joke on the planet.

Looking at her, Dusk could only smile wryly as he responded. This news was that shocking huh? “Actually mum, you’re right. I did get those three affinities.” Dusk said.

“Are you serious? You know what? Never mind. You have surprised me so much ever since you were born that at this point it would be strange if you didn’t. And I thought that I, with my two normal affinities, was awesome. I’m really happy for you baby. Just don’t tell others about these new affinities of yours if you don’t need to.” Jade said.

“Yes mum, I will follow your advice.” Dusk replied.

Looking at Dusk, her son, Jade could only sigh. This son of hers was just too monstrous. In as much as he may look meek and extremely harmless, what came out of him was one surprise after the other.

“Now that you have awakened your affinities, you can now try the things that I taught you and learn how to meditate. If there is something that you don’t understand just come and ask me, I’ll be in the office.” Jade said as she walked off the bed and proceeded to exit the room.

“I will.” Dusk replied. By the time the answer left his mouth, his mom had already left the room and closed the door behind her.

As Dusk was due to encounter his awakening, Jade had already naturally prepared him by informing him on the basics of how to meditate. While Dusk had never really tried it, he was pretty certain that he would succeed; After all, he had had both the theoretical and visual knowledge within him ever since he was one year old.

While thinking about this, Dusk sat down in a comfortable position and with his eyes closed, began to try sensing the mana around him. Contrary to his expectations, this task was really difficult as even after a whole thirty minutes he had not had a single speck of success.

Since Dusk knew that no things in life came easy, however, he continued to sit down and try his best by utilizing his mom’s memories. Fortunately, after the duration of about one hour, Dusk was finally able to feel something.

This feeling was distinctly different from what Dusk felt when viewing his surroundings through his sense. What Dusk was feeling right now was that around him were very small particles. While these particles radiated warmth, the warmth was very different from the warmth radiated by heat.

“Is this mana? Is this really how people detect mana?” Dusk asked himself. At this point, he was really disappointed. High humans being creatures that relished in mana, Dusk had expected that they would be able to detect mana in at least a decent mana. However, the information in front of him was obscenely crude. It was like trying to look at an object through a translucent glass.

While Dusk had questioned himself quite a number of times as to whether he was doing this the right way, he had, after countless experiments, come to the conclusion that he was doing everything right. He was, after all, doing everything step by step as both his mother said and did.

Before Dusk could continue with his complaints however, he suddenly felt a stinging sensation from his eyes. This was the first time he had ever felt anything from his eyes ever since he was born and so it really came as a surprise to him.

The stinging sensation lasted for a few seconds before it finally disappeared. This stinging sensation was, fortunately, not all that painful. By the time the stinging sensation finally ended, Dusk felt this really unrestrained urge to open his eyes and so for the first time in a very long time, he finally did and what he saw was….

"Wow! This is new."