Ultimate NeroMancer

CHAPTER 2: Pressure and Flame

CHAPTER 2: Pressure and Flame

Kaelen gritted his teeth and drew a long breath, attempting to ignore the sobs that were muffled with grief which trickled out of the rows behind him.

This wasn't like failing an exam back on Earth, where retakes and side quests were an option. No. This was the thing. And had you not awakened here, you were not only left behind, but rubbed out of the board. In this world, there were no "second chances." Nothing but other graves.

It was like seeing a man gamble away everything: no money, two sick parents, a little sister who dreams about shoes without holes, and only three tickets to a lottery that will change his life--and he loses them all in one afternoon.

You were not weak when you did not cry. You wept because all you were rested on this hour.

And Kaelen? He could feel every crack in that atmosphere grating upon his own composure.

And the majority of the students here in Woodstone Public High No. 3 were born below the poverty line and were being covered up by it each year. This ceremony was their sole golden thread-their one opportunity to get out of a life of scraping hope off the walls of broken dreams.

To these students, to wake up was to become somebody. It was a symbol of wealth, power, dignity. And as each effort failed, that golden hope was blown away like mist in the closed hand.

Kaelen breathed in through his nose. Calm, calm. He wasn't immune to despair. He had just been rubbed up against worse things longer. His panic tank was already emptied by terminal illness.

Nevertheless, there was the sting. The original Kaelen was an orphan, stuffed into the tattered cloth of an aunt whose household was barely hanging on in this life. She gave birth to a child. She was in debt. She had no time to spare on miracles. And Kaelen? He was only another hungry mouth and silent dinner.

Awakening could change everything. But with less than a 1% chance, even hope felt like arrogance in disguise.

The teacher continued calling names. One after another, kids walked up to the orb and left shattered. The silence after each failure was heavy, like the room itself had stopped breathing.

The teacher, a man whose face looked like someone had tried to iron a frown into it permanently, raised another sheet.

Then the orb flared.

A gasp. A surge. A shift in the pressure.

A boy stood on the podium, lit from below by a red aura that blazed through the marble floor like a warning from the gods. Fire crackled to life around him, forming a staff that blazed into existence in his hands before dissolving into warm air.

"Brian Lian has awakened: Fire Mage!" the teacher announced, this time with teeth in his smile and lightning in his voice.

The auditorium exploded.

“No way!”

“Brian awakened?! That smug bastard is gonna be insufferable now!”

“Of all the people to double-dip talent and awakening, of course it’s him.”

“He already had a fire-aligned knight breathing technique and now this? Fuck my life!”

Kaelen knew the name. Everyone in Woodstone did. Brian Lian: poster child for hometown talent. He wasn’t rich, but he had presence. Like he was carved from the same star-stuff as protagonists.

He wasn’t good at math, but he could break rocks with his fists and breathe like a volcano. People respected that.

Brian had already cultivated his “life seed,” a rare feat for public school kids. He’d mastered the foundational knight breathing technique, aligning it with the fire attribute. Now, as a Fire Mage, the synergy would make him terrifying.

Not just rare. Legendary.

Kaelen’s fingers twitched. A flicker of jealousy, sure. But deeper beneath that—admiration. He didn’t hate Brian. He hated that he wasn’t Brian.

And he hated that this world needed people like Brian to survive.

Because when the apocalypse came, Earth wasn’t destroyed. It evolved. The planet changed its job title and became the Aurora Realm.

The spatial cracks—portals to places not listed on any galactic census—never fully closed. Some led to dungeons filled with beasts and nightmares. Others led to entirely new realms.

Awakeners couldn’t handle them all. They were too few. So Cultivators stepped in: those who, while unable to access the Land of Origins, still harnessed its leaked power to grow stronger.

They were the security detail of reality, the patch kits for existence. Not as powerful. Not as divine. But absolutely necessary.

Awakeners advanced the world.

Cultivators kept it from collapsing.

Both were essential. But one lived on posters, and the other lived in debt.

Kaelen had memorized this hierarchy like scripture. He’d been taught this from the moment he woke in this world, eyes full of second chances and lungs full of strange air.

He knew cultivation was possible even without awakening. But it was slow. Expensive. Painful.

For the poor, it was a marathon run on broken glass.

The teacher—who had barely smiled when Lilian awakened—was now practically glowing with pride as he beckoned Brian to stand beside her.

Two Awakeners. From one class. In a public school. That was enough to make the Board of Education weep tears of relevance.

But the streak didn’t continue.

The next student failed.

And the next.

And the next.

The awakening orb dimmed with each attempt, as if it too was disappointed in these kids.

Until finally, the teacher called out:

“Kaelen Norman!”

Kaelen stepped forward. No one cheered. No one whispered. He wasn’t popular, wasn’t known. In fact, most of them didn’t even remember he existed until his name rolled off the tongue like a typo.

His heart beat once. Hard.

He walked.

And when he reached the podium, sweat tracing down his spine, he placed his palms—dry on the outside, drenched within—against the awakening orb.

No expectations.

No safety net.

No backup plan.

Just hope and hunger wrapped in skin.

And a soul that didn’t belong.