Awakening

 In the middle of a building that looks like a church, people who seem to be around the same age gather. There is a stage that they are all standing in front of.

 As they chat, a man in a white robe steps out from behind the stage. There is a book floating above one of his hands.

 "Silence!" The man says in a normal tone. Yet his voice seemed to be carried by the wind itself, making everyone in the area hear him.

 "As of today, everyone in this room is of age to try to awaken their magic tome. However, the chance that you will awaken a great talent is very little. The importance of..."

 The man trails on as the people in the area below start getting bored. Michael, a young man with pitch-black hair and a good-looking body listens attentively.

 "...and so, without further ado, let's begin. I will call you up one at a time. First up, Grant Styles!"

 A young man walks onto the stage with lots of confidence. He seems to enjoy the attention from the crowd watching him.

 "Please step into the array in the center of the stage." The book in the man's hand opens seemingly by itself as he says this.

 Grant steps into the array on the floor. Almost immediately, a bright light flashes from the array and a bronze book appears before him.

 "Bronze grade tome, Middle level talent." The man holding the ceremony does not seem surprised. A bronze level tome is the lowest grade of tome you can awaken. The levels are, from lowest to highest, Bronze, Iron, Silver, Gold, White Gold, and Divine.

 Most people in the world awaken a Bronze grade tome with only low level talent. When someone successfully awakens a tome Iron grade or higher, they can be seen as a talent.

 There are grades in-between these talents known as personal talents. These talents show what level of magic that person can learn within their grade of tome. Someone with a Bronze grade tome and can't master any magic other than basic magic such as household spells.

 An Iron grade tome holder gets an affinity with one attribute of magic. With each grade of tome, the amount of affinities they get grows. Silver grade tome holders have two affinities, Gold grade tome holders have three affinities, and White Gold grade tome holders have four affinities.

 It is rumored that Divine grade tome holders have access to every single affinity. However, there has not been a recorded Divine grade tome holder since the beginning of recorded history. It is considered a mere myth by most.

 The level of personal talent a person has shows how great an affinity that person has with their magical affinities. Low level talents can only cast basic spells of their affinities, while High level talents can master any magic of that affinity. A High level talent is almost as rare as a Gold grade tome.

 Grant, upon hearing his awakening grade and talent, is quite smug. He is the village Chief's son. However, within the village, he is not exactly the best looking person. He turns around to look in a certain direction.

 Michael, who is standing in the crowd, notices Grant sneering in his direction. He knows why too. Grant has been jealous of Michael for a long time because of his fair looks. The probability of someone from a small village like this one awakening a higher grade or level than Grant was minuscule.

 Michael, being smarter than the average person decides to ignore Grant completely.

Grant, noticing this does not get mad. He knows that this is Michael's last resistance before he awakens a talent worse than his and has no choice but to admit that Grant is better than him.

 "You will admit defeat eventually Michael!" Grant murmurs while walking off stage.

After Grant walks off the stage, the man calls the next person in the line up to the stage.

 "Toby Clothsberg." A chubby young man walks on stage nervously. He steps into the array just as Grant had done. After a bright flash of light, a tome appears before him.

 "Bronze grade tome, Low level talent." The young man has disappointment written on his face. Nobody wants to get the lowest grade and talent possible after all. After he steps off the stage, the awakening ceremony continues.

 Michael watches as most of the people in the room get called and receive the same grade and talent as Toby. That changes, however, when Alicia Purress gets called to the stage.

 Alicia is well known by all the people in the room. She is known as the flower of Styles Village. She is exceedingly beautiful, with golden hair, and a great body that most men can't help but glance at.

 Alicia walks up to the stage with the grace of a feline. She is very confident from what Michael can see.

 As she steps into the array, a bright golden light, brighter than all the others awakenings before, covers her body as a beautiful golden book appears before her.

Everybody watching is stunned. That bright golden light is something everybody has heard of, but nobody has seen before. That's the light that signifies a Gold grade tome!

 The man in charge of the ceremony rushes over to her excitedly. After checking her tome and the array he is stunned.

 "Gold grade tome, Middle level talent!" Immediately everyone in the room is excited and talking loudly.

 "A Gold grade tome! In Styles Village! I'm not dreaming am I?"

 "I knew the Village flower would awaken the best talent of us all!"

 "If she took notice of me, I could be set for life as her husband!"

 Some of the people in the room wanted to get closer to her, but as they tried to get closer, the man on the stage intervenes before they could crowd her.

 "Wind Barrier!" The man shouts holding his tome. He is an Iron grade tome holder with Middle level talent sent from a bigger city nearby. He has a wind affinity. He creates a barrier out of the wind to stop the students before they could get closer to Alicia.

 "Right now we are still in the middle of the ceremony." Every person who had gotten too excited before had now calmed down.

 "Miss Alicia, please wait at the side of the stage till after the ceremony. We will test your affinities then." Turning to Alicia, he tells her to wait for him. She nods to him and proceeds to walk to the side and wait. The man then calls the next person.

 "Michael Void. Please come to the stage." Hearing his name, Michael walks up to the stage. He looks at the people in the crowd, before looking at the array in front of him.

 "Please step onto the array." The man tells Michael.

 Michael nodded to the man before walking forward. As he walked towards the array he thought about what he would do if he awakened a low grade talent like the others. Would he live his life as an average person? Michael realized at this moment that he didn't want that to happen. He proceeds to pray to any God he can think of to give him a high level talent.

 Finally, he steps into the array. As everyone waits for the flash of light that signifies that he has successfully awakened, they are all stunned when nothing happens. A person in the crowd starts to question what is happening.

 "What's going on? Did he not awaken somehow? How's that possi-" Suddenly as the young man was speaking out, an extremely bright light filled the stage. It was even brighter than even Alicia's! A golden book appears floating in front of Michael.

Everyone was stunned. Two Gold grades in a row? Moreover, Michael's talent seemed to be even greater than Alicia's! How could this be!

 Seeing the golden light a second time, the man on the stage was extremely stunned. Who would have thought that there would be two Gold grade awakeners in this small village?! He walks up to check the array and is stunned once again!

 "Gold grade tome, High level talent!" The man announces after a second to make sure he was not dreaming.

 The way the awakening array works is that it will light up in the color of the awakened tome grade and the light will get brighter depending on the talent level. The array then displays the personal talent of the person.

 It does not, however, tell the grade of the awaked tome. Why would it? After all, you can tell from the color of light that is emitted from the array.

 What nobody seemed to notice, was that the color that flashed during Michael's awakening was not the same shade of gold as Alicia's. It was even more pure in color and shined just a bit brighter.

 "Please go stand to the side over there." The man pointed towards Alicia. Although the man was stunned, he remembered to perform his duties.

 Michael nodded, before walking over towards Alicia without saying a thing. He himself was stunned. He did not expect that his prayers would be answered! As he arrives beside Alicia, he does not even pay attention to her as he sits on the floor and thinks about what is going to happen next.

 He looks over at the tome floating beside him. It has a golden gleam with beautiful lines of what seems to be White Gold running through it. Lost in his thoughts, he didn't even notice that the ceremony had continued on.

 Eventually, every person that was here had awakened, with every person besides Alicia and Michael being a Bronze grade awakener. There were a few who had a middle level talent though, while the rest were just low level talents.

 "Now that everybody has awakened, let me explain some of the features that come with your tomes. Firstly, on the first page of the tome, you will find what is called your status. Your status gives your exact mana level a numerical value."

 "Not only that, but it will show you your tome grade and your personal talent level along with your affinity. However, those with a Bronze grade tome don't have any affinities." The man explained patiently to the young men and women just below the stage.

 True enough, as everyone opened their tomes to the first page, they got to see their status. Most were disappointed by what they saw.

 Michael decided to take a look at his status and see what was displayed.

[Michael Void]

[Divine grade tome]

[High level talent]

[Mana: 50]

[Affinities: ???]

 Michael was stunned by what he saw written in the book. Why does it say his tome is Divine grade? Didn't he awaken a Gold grade tome? He thought about it and realized how big this would be if it got out. He knew right then and there that he needed to keep this a secret.

 While Michael was thinking, the man on stage had dismissed everyone already and was heading towards Michael and Alicia.

 "Sorry to keep you two waiting. I'm sure you noticed that under the affinity area on your tomes, there were question marks, yes?"

 "Yes." Michael and Alicia end up speaking at the same time.

 "You have to awaken your first affinity to see what is there. Awakeners that awaken more than one affinity can only see what the first affinity is until you have cultivated your mana to higher levels. The average Gold grade tome awakener has about 10 mana. After you increase your mana to 100 points, you can awaken your next affinity." The man explained everything to them.

 Michael understood that he had more than five times the normal amount of mana than a Gold grade awakened. It would not be good if this got out. Michael was smarter than most people, although he didn't like to reveal it.

 "How do we awaken our affinities?" Michael ask the question that both he and Alicia have been waiting to hear the answer to.

 "Simple, you touch this crystal right here and it will reveal your affinity." The man explains.

 Alicia took a step forward and readied her hand. She placed it on the crystal and the crystal suddenly emitted a blue light.

 "Oh, a water affinity. Your affinity should be on your status page now." The man claimed.

 Alicia nodded to him before stepping aside to check her status page. She seems to like her water affinity, as she smiles as she does so.

 Next up is Michael. Michael walks towards the crystal with curiosity in his eyes. He wanted to know what his affinity was. Would he have a fire affinity? Or maybe even the rarer lightning affinity!

 When Michael's hand finally touched the crystal, a dark purple light was emitted. This stunned the man yet again.

 "There's no way right?" He says out loud. This makes Michael wonder what kind of affinity he has.

 "You have a-"