Ritual

A year has passed since his rebirth.

Time passed slowly, day after day, month after month.

Raimon was sick of making plans for the future every day. His body couldn't resist the temptation of a nap, and he was bored of living as an inarticulate baby.

'I want to grow up faster, this is so frustrating! I can't do anything the way I am now."

All he could do was drink milk from a bottle and fall asleep when it was time. And every time he relieved himself in diapers, Reineza, his nanny, came to replace them. It was an extremely embarrassing experience for Raimon, who had the mind of a grown man. It is not at all comfortable to have to accept not being able to control the basic instincts of the human body.

His daily schedule throughout the year had been to repeat the same thing.

Pass, pass.

A woman entered Raimon's room. It was the mistress of the house, Dalia Flower.

She had emerald hair and a sharp gaze that decorated her straight, pointed nose. Despite her seductive charm, she seemed quite loving and caring, which earned her the nickname "Forest Fairy" from the others.

"Have the preparations been completed, Reineza?"

"Of course, ma'am. Today is the day the young master 'wakes up' fully, so I've paid special attention to everything."

"Good. Then let's go immediately."

Raimon realized that today was his birthday from their conversation.

Children in the Flower family go through a certain ritual called 'awakening' on their first birthday.

It was a ritual in which the adults would place many ancient formations and make the baby crawl into them and go into a process of dormancy until the blood awakening.

There was a superstition that when the child "woke up", depending on how long it took the ritual represented its future and destiny. Curiously, the Flowers were obsessed with this superstition.

Dalia picked up Raimon and went to the central hall of the castle.

In the center of the room stood a man with his arms crossed.

It was Raimon's father, the strongest duke of the current era, Raion Flower.

"Father."

It was the first time Raimon had seen his father after his rebirth. After attaining the highest known kingdom in the current world, Raion was rarely present in the castle. He was always off fighting wars or training in some remote place to be strong enough not to fall and bring disgrace to the family.

"And knights."

Raimon had learned the language of this world in just 4 months since he arrived in this place so he was able to give greetings properly after entering the ritual room.

The twelve most powerful knights of the family were also present.

Although in his previous life he had dealt with many kinds of people Raimon was an ignorant and useless insect until his adults now they had not made any mistakes in the act of introduction. Everyone was waiting for Raimon with a broad smiles on their faces.

Remembering the suffering he had gone through, his chest began to feel somewhat congested.

"Dalia, put Raimon down."

Following her father's instructions, Dalia set Raimon down in the center of the room. When his limbs reached the cold marble floor, a slight shiver shook his body.

Two meters away from him were the objects for the awakening ritual.

He could see some formations, two cups with a single drop of blood, along with over twenty different types of swords impaling the floor of the hall adorning the ancient formation.

Raimon just had to enter between them all.

'This is crazy. I couldn't remember how much fear of this kind of thing I would have had in my past life because I was too young then and this kind of thing was only performed by occult people as I remembered, but now that you see it in person, it's crazy. Are they planning to make a baby crawl through countless formations with swords and fall asleep for an indefinite amount of time?'

In his past life, Raimon would have run straight away if someone took him to such a terrifying place. As the discussions I heard in this past year, the cups with the blood of our ancestors that helped the ritual were hidden among the countless swords, it was no wonder that all of Flower's children had grown up without fear of scary places considering the place they go just a year after they were born.

"Now, come on in, son."

The Flower family members watched Jin crawling in with great anticipation.

They were all curious to see how long it would take for the Duke's eldest son to wake up. Whether it would be the same time as the previous duke who had the longest record of the awakening ceremony enduring a full hour or a completely different time both longer or shorter.

When the tense gazes focused on Raimon, he began to crawl towards the center of the sword formation they had previously prepared.

People all over the world probably had no idea that the renowned Flower put their children through such a ridiculous ritual every time.

Raimon was frustrated that he couldn't move faster. Crawling was taking too much time and too much energy.

Walking slowly toward the center of the formation.

Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Raimon could feel his little heart pounding with power.

The weapons were arranged in a circle. The target Raimon wanted was in the center.

As he rolled and crawled, Raimon passed by the sword closest to him. The eyes of all the observers in the room widened. Even if the boy was from the renowned clan of sword and fighting masters, babies almost always fell asleep directly after entering training.

However, Raimon zigzagged through the forest of swords, and the others couldn't help but swallow saliva with his every move.

They were all thinking the same thing.

"Could he be... about to fully awaken his blood on the first try?"

Raimon continued to pierce the swords as the eyebrows on Raion and Dalia's frozen faces began to twitch in response to each sword he grazed.

"Gah gah!"

Raimon had finally begun to fall asleep right in the center of the formation. The blood began to move rapidly causing Raimon to fall asleep quickly.

Unlike the blood test, he had 30 days after birth this test caused an awakening instead of testing people's fitness

Everyone's gazes slowly shifted from the sleeping baby in question, and the gentlemen's jaws dropped instantly. Seconds and minutes of inactivity passed, and everyone couldn't help but get a little nervous. By the time the tick of the clock reached two hours everyone couldn't help but take a deep sigh.