Chapter 2: Shay Delmore, Nobody
The next morning, Shay awoke before the sun.
He moved silently through the cramped apartment he shared with Kara, careful not to wake her. She lay on her cot, bow propped against the wall beside her, one hand resting loosely near the hilt of a small blade tucked under her blanket. Even in sleep, she was ready to fight. Shay envied that.
He pulled on his patched boots and stepped outside. The air was damp and cold, laced with fog that hadn’t yet burned away. Hollowrest was quiet, its slanted rooftops outlined in gray against a sky that looked too tired to turn blue. The streets were slick with dew and ash.
Instead of heading toward the Church of Light for the Awakening Ceremony, Shay walked the other direction—toward the edge of the old city.
The ruins were forbidden, of course. Dangerous. Half-swallowed by vines and collapsed stone. But Shay liked it there. The old bones of the city felt honest in a way living people didn’t.
At the center of the ruins stood a broken statue. Its features were long since worn smooth, but Shay liked to pretend it had once been a god. Maybe even Raneara, the Ascended of Light. He didn’t pray to it, but he always came here before big moments.
He crouched at its base, knelt in the dirt, and closed his eyes.
He waited.
No warmth. No voice. No divine presence.
Just silence.
Just cold stone.
He gritted his teeth and slammed his fist into the ground. “I’m not nothing,” he whispered. “I’m not.”
But the world didn’t answer.
Footsteps behind him. Crunching leaves.
He turned sharply.
Thorne.
The butcher’s son. Taller. Stronger. Meaner. With him were two other boys—Garven and Hark, both broad-shouldered and slack-jawed.
“Well, look who’s crying to statues,” Thorne sneered.
Shay stood slowly. “Just sitting.”
“You’re just a rat,” Garven said.
“Orphan freak,” Hark muttered.
Thorne grinned and took a step closer. “Big day today. Going to awaken your Aspect of Failure?”
Shay didn’t answer.
Thorne didn’t like that.
He lunged.
Shay dodged the first swing. He’d been on the receiving end too many times not to know when to move. But Garven grabbed his arm, yanked him back, and slammed him into the stone base of the statue.
Ding! – Skill: Body Tempering has increased one level!
A system message flared behind Shay’s eyes, flickering just long enough to register before vanishing. Even in pain, his body had grown stronger. The soul system responded to effort, to endurance. It rewarded pain. It always had.
Pain exploded across Shay’s shoulder.
“You think you’re special?” Thorne growled. “You think you matter?”
“No,” Shay gasped. “I think you’re scared I might.”
That earned him a punch to the gut. Shay collapsed to his knees, breath knocked out of him.
“Let’s go,” Thorne said, spitting in the dirt. “He’s already broken.”
The boys left laughing.
Shay stayed on the ground longer than he meant to, waiting for the pain to settle into something he could carry. The sharp throb in his shoulder dulled slowly, fading to an ache that would linger for days. He didn’t want to move. He didn’t want to go home looking like this again. But he also couldn’t stay—not with their laughter still echoing through the trees, not with the statue’s empty gaze resting on him like judgment.
This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
He wiped his nose on his sleeve and pushed himself up, one hand bracing against the stone. His knees trembled. Dirt clung to his palms. His lip throbbed from where Thorne had clipped him.
He didn’t cry.
Not here. Not ever in front of them. That was a rule. One of many he’d carved into himself over the years. Crying didn’t stop fists. It didn’t earn sympathy. It didn’t fix a broken world.
And crying in front of statues didn’t make them gods again.
So he stood.
Each step back to Hollowrest was heavy, like the bruises dragged at his bones. The town looked different when you limped through it. The streets seemed colder. The shadows darker. People watched him, briefly, before turning away. No one asked what happened. No one ever did.
He paused at a broken fountain near the edge of the slums. He used to think it was magical, once. As a child, he''d thrown a coin in and wished for his parents to come back. For Kara to stop crying. For the world to be a little less cruel.
None of those wishes had come true. But the fountain had never mocked him either.
He passed a boarded-up apothecary, the symbol of a minor healing spirit scorched into the wood. Further down, a group of guards laughed as they kicked a drunk into the gutter. Shay kept his head down.
By the time he reached the apartment, Kara was awake, strapping on her boots.
“Again?” she asked, not needing to see his face to know.
He nodded.
She tossed him a cloth. “Clean up. Ceremony’s in less than an hour.”
As he dabbed at the blood on his lip, he hesitated. “Do you think I’ll get anything?”
Kara paused. Then turned.
“I think the world is broken,” she said. “But sometimes, broken things survive anyway.”
She reached into her pouch and pulled out a pendant—an old, cracked medallion bearing a faded symbol of Raneara.
“I found this in a ruin when I was your age. Didn’t believe in it. Still don’t. But maybe... maybe someone will watch over you.”
He clutched it tightly.
Together, they walked toward the Church of Light—a fractured cathedral barely held together by faith and stained glass. Once, it had been the spiritual heart of Hollowrest, a place where divine radiance pooled like liquid gold and prayers were believed to echo straight into the ears of the Ascendants. Now, it stood like a fossilized relic—faded, hollow, its power sustained only because it still held the means to awaken mana and open system interfaces.
Without that, it would’ve crumbled like every other temple to the dead gods. The priests clung to what little influence remained, their role as Awakening officiants the only reason the nobility still paid them any mind. They acted like conduits of celestial will, but everyone knew: the rites they performed were no divine miracles. It was ritual. Leftover magic.
And still, it was all they had.
Every person in Vaelrún—awakened or unawakened—had access to the soul system. It was the one thing even the death of gods couldn’t erase. A soul’s signature manifested naturally, allowing people to track stats, learn skills, and grow stronger. For unawakened individuals like Shay, the stats were capped at 10. Most children started with stats at 5, but with discipline and labor, they could be pushed to the limit before awakening.
The Awakening Ceremony marked the transition to adulthood. Once awakened, a child would receive their first Aspect—a magical fragment of concept and power. Some Aspects were minor. Others were dangerous. But all of them shaped a soul. All Aspects caused some degree of evolution in a person’s existing skills—taking mundane abilities and forging them into something greater, shaped by the resonance between soul and stone. Even the weakest Aspects left fingerprints on the system. The greater the Aspect, the more profound the change.
The system interface changed after awakening. New possibilities unlocked. A ceiling lifted.
That’s what today was supposed to be.
The streets buzzed with quiet tension. Doors opened just wide enough for eyes to peer out. A few curious faces lingered, but no one followed.
The cathedral loomed above them, flanked by golden pillars tarnished by time. Blue flame burned above the altar at the front of the crowd.
The nobles stood near the front, wrapped in silks and satin. Their children wore embroidered tunics and polished boots. Shay stood at the back with the other red-mana kids—ragged, quiet, unremarkable.
One by one, the twelve-year-olds stepped forward, placing their hands into the flame.
A flicker. A pulse. System notifications lighting behind their eyes.
“Common Aspect of Balance.”
“Common Aspect of Stamina.”
“Uncommon Aspect of Blood Iron.”
A noble’s son manifested an Uncommon Aspect and was immediately offered a mentorship contract. Applause followed. A priest whispered a blessing. The father beamed.
And then it was Shay’s turn.
A name echoed softly through the square from a ceremonial scroll: "Shay Delmore."
He stepped forward.
Name: Shay Delmore
Race: Human
Age: 12
Mana Purity: Red
Level: 1
Resources:
Health: 200/200
Stamina: 200/200
Mana: 200/200
Stats:
Vitality: 10
Strength: 10
Dexterity: 10
Endurance: 10
Wisdom: 10
Intelligence: 10
Perception: 10
Aspects (0/5) (Unawakened)
Skills (6/12):
Swordsmanship (Common) 14
Mana Manipulation (Common) 15
Mana Sense (Common) 14
Cleaning (Common) 21
Body Tempering (Common) 11 > 12
Scavenging (Common) 13 > 14
The priest—Baldric, an old man with sharp cheekbones and a gaze like chipped glass—glanced down at him. Baldric had presided over the Awakening Ceremonies for over forty years, and the weight of a thousand crushed dreams hung behind his eyes. His voice always held a note of disdain when he spoke to the poor, but red-mana children like Shay received something colder. Not hatred. Just indifference, weaponized like a blade.
“Red mana,” Baldric muttered with a sigh. “Another empty vessel. Waste of incense.”
Shay placed his hand in the flame.
Pain shot through his fingers. His heart pounded.
He waited.
Nothing.
No glow. No system. No whisper from the heavens.
The priest scoffed. “Try again tomorrow, rat.”
Laughter rippled through the crowd. A noble girl sneered.
Shay turned and walked away. Head down. Hands clenched.
But inside him—beneath the shame, beyond the silence—something stirred.
Not called by light.
Not by gods.
But by something ancient.
Something watching.
Something waiting.
And something unknown.