The Ultimate Awakener

Awakener Stone

Over the years, this was the very first time she had seen the awakening stone turn black.

And just then, Elion was finally able to pull his hand out of the stone; thereafter, he stumbled and fell to the ground, and the moment he did, the stone regained its glowing texture and gradually began to shine again.

Elion was on the ground. Even he didn’t understand what had happened. The only thing he could remember was his hands being drawn to the stone like magnets.

Aurora flew towards Elion, staring at him in wonder. “What happened when you touched the stone?”

Elion wished he could answer that question, but he had nothing to say. Additionally, Elion seemed not to awaken anything when he touched the stone.

Aurora gazed down at Elion’s chest and noticed that his core was still dormant.

“It’s as though he’s sucking in the energy of the awakening stone…” she thought deeply as she stared at him.

The awakening stone was meant for one thing: interconnection. The energy of the awakener would be drawn into the stone, and once the fusion was complete, the awakener would awaken. But in Elion’s case, he was the one absorbing the very essence of the stone, which was unnatural.

Soon, Elion and Aurora emerged from the awakening stone chamber beneath the ground. Her face was pale, and Jessica noticed this, which prompted her to ask:

“What happened…?”

Aurora was about to answer when the light illuminating the sky suddenly began to fade. Soon after, the sky turned dark with shining stars. This shadow marked that the gap—the time duration of five days—had elapsed. It was now time for all the awakeners to return to their bodies with their newfound attributes, and for those who hadn’t gained attributes, they were healed from the spell illness and its endangerment.

Additionally, time in this order realm varies from the real world. Two days here could feel like five days, just as it had been. Which means in the real world, four days had passed, and exactly five days had elapsed here.

The days and how time works are entirely different from the real world.

Later, after the sky suddenly changed to night, the awakeners who had gathered began to fade one after another, returning to their bodies so they could wake up in the incubation dream piecer chamber.

Meanwhile, Aurora remained silent, staring at Elion without a word, watching to see what would happen next.

She ignored Jessica’s question, as though lost in thought.

“What are you?”

The thought cut through her mind again as she stared at Elion, who also stood confused.

If he hadn’t awakened his core, it meant he couldn’t return to the real world, and his body would be stuck here.

Elion was unable to hold the silence any longer, and this impelled him to speak out:

“How can I get back now? It doesn’t look like my core is awakened.”

Jessica had also observed this, but she refused to speak. She wanted to ask Aurora first what had happened. Finally, after a short while, Aurora shifted her gaze and replied, a pale expression spreading across her face:

“He doesn’t have a core… It’s as though something dark has replaced it, something capable of absorbing high energy…”

Jessica found it difficult to understand what Aurora was saying.

“What are you trying to say…? You’re speaking in riddles.”

It was currently the last awakened teenager also faded, leaving only Elion alongside Jessica and Aurora, alone in the vast castle chamber.

Aurora’s gaze remained fixed on Elion as she descended with her wings to a wooden board, a little taller than both Elion and Jessica’s height.

Then she shifted her gaze to Jessica and spoke in a calmer, more measured tone. “What I’m trying to say is that the boy you just brought here was able to absorb the entire energy of the awakening stone.”

“No, that’s impossible… the energy on it is too powerful for any being to absorb,” Jessica shook her head dismissively, but then her eyes widened with disbelief as she continued:

“Wait… doesn’t that mean the stone was destroyed…”

“Yes, somehow, but it revived, glowing again…” Aurora replied. Thereafter they shifted their gaze at Elion.

If even the boy before them could absorb a stone capable of shorting down a shadow gate, then he was something compelling. But they couldn’t figure out exactly what or where his strength had come from.

He wasn’t an Awakener, so how did he gain any abilities? Worst of all, how did he gain an ability capable of absorbing high energy from something meant to grant attributes?

The realm where Elion was also belonged to the five-realm category, but it was classified under the lowest. It was a gate, but this realm could only be accessed via the mind—and it came with benefits. Anything one extracted from this realm could be brought into the real world. It was like going into a dream and waking up with gold.

Which meant the men who had attempted to kill Elion were still alive, somewhere in the real world. They had somehow created a replica of the dream piecer to gain access to the dream realm, which was the least of all classes of gates. It’s called the Null Gate.

Additionally, this entire explanation meant that all the encounters with monsters and the pain he had felt were not real. The only things real in this realm were humans who transmigrated. The castle, elves, dwarves, and fairies had a consciousness of their own.

Another point here is that the laws governing this realm apply differently to awakeners. Which means when an awakener is killed inside this realm, he or she dies in the real world as well.

Both glances—from Jessica and Aurora—remained fixed on Elion as they asked in unison:

“What exactly are you?”

In the next seconds, Elion felt his body as if being sucked by a vacuum. When he opened his eyes, he saw the incubation dream piecer open for him to step out.