The book in my hands was very—no, terribly—damaged.
My best theory was that some goblin, in all his wisdom, had used it to pick out some weird piece of meat stuck between his teeth, and that after finishing—perhaps not completely satisfied—he had also used it to scratch that annoying itch he'd had on his rough back for days.
After the process was complete, this was what remained.
The title was unreadable, except for five random letters that weren't even connected to each other: j, r, f, d, a. And half the pages weren't even there!
Well, if it hadn't been at least in this condition, it would've been hard for an orphan like me to get one… and even harder to keep it.
Books were rare goods.
The one I had was only pretending to be a book—and it wasn't even good at acting.
How did I get it?
I stol—… borrowed it for an indefinite amount of time from the small merchant caravan that passes through the village every three months.
If I stole it, what do the book's conditions have to do with anything?
Well, if it had been more valuable, they definitely would've hidden it better. I mean, who leaves a book on a rock while going to the bathroom for a moment?
Maybe he was in a hurry, but he was still negligent… and I was there to teach him an important life lesson.
We all won in the end.
The book itself didn't even talk about particularly important things. It was more like a diary kept by the writer.
He had to be a traveler, because on every readable page he described small villages, towns, cities, and places around the world.
He focused especially on food and specific structures that fascinated him, but also on the different customs of the people he met and the differences between various cultures.
What? Those are extremely important things for a merchant who deals with people?
Well… let's not dwell on such minor details.
Besides, that man, as a merchant, could freely visit all those places, while I, so far, had spent my entire life within the wooden palisades of this village.
I really wanted to awaken my element and leave this place… but it wasn't that easy.
I didn't know much, because most adults either didn't talk about it or simply answered:
"You don't need to know these things yet."
"You're still too young for this."
"Instead of asking questions, go help in the fields, brat."
Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh…
Was it really that hard to answer a question directly?
Still, I managed to figure out some things on my own.
The process of awakening an element in a person is called the "Union."
The Union is rare. In my village we're about six hundred—maybe seven hundred—and there are only four people who can use an element. Though that number might be off, since some people left the village to seek their fortune in the cities.
The Union happens in children between the ages of ten and fourteen.
There are natural elements like fire, water, and earth… In fact, out of those four people, three have elements of that type:
Greg, a burly farmer, has the earth element.
Sofia possesses, obviously, the water element.
And Jeffrey, a man around forty-four who handles the village patrols, can use the wind element.
There aren't only base elements, but also what I call "derived" elements. Nice name, right?
In fact, the last of the four awakened in our village is an old man who uses the smoke element. I don't know how rare it is, though, or whether it's actually rarer than the base elements.
There are various levels of strength even among the awakened, but asking about that is apparently taboo—or at least that's what the old man told me.
One day, in fact, I found Jeffrey drunk near the village gate, shouting as if silence had personally offended him:
"WHY WAS I BORN WITHOUT TALENT?!
FORTY YEARS OLD AND I'M STILL A ONE-STAR AWAKENED!
FORTY DAMN YEARS OF LIFE!"
He kept yelling and using words I had never heard in my entire life for about thirty minutes before passing out.
And, by the way, it had been his turn to patrol the area.
Great job, Jeffrey. Always diligent.
Apparently, power levels are divided into stars, but I have no idea how strong a one-star awakened is compared to a two-star. I don't even know what the maximum number of stars a human can reach is.
And… yeah. That was everything I knew.
It wasn't much, but there was nothing I could do about it.
Like the adults said, this was already more than enough for someone like me who hadn't awakened yet. I'd learn the rest if my day of Union ever came…
Otherwise, I'd rot in this village for the rest of my life.
Honestly, after reading jrfda—don't look at me like that, even a book needs a name—a dream was born inside me: to travel and explore the world and visit all the places described in the book.
But as much as I wanted that, I wasn't stupid.
I knew at least a little about how dangerous the outside world was, full of beasts whose power went beyond my wildest imagination.
Even a goblin could kill me without trouble.
Well, I was only ten years old, so I'm justified… but goblins were the lowest link in the monster food chain. So yeah—if I ran into anything outside the village, I'd be instantly dead.
All I could do was wait and hope for my awakening.
And especially… for a cool element.
I could already imagine people saying:
"Oh my god, is that the boy who killed a hundred monsters without moving his hands?"
Eheheheheheheeheh.
**BANG**
"OW!"
Did I just get hit by a spoon?
I turned toward the direction the unidentified flying object had come from and found Rayan.
As if answering my doubt, he said,
"That's for abandoning me. Also, you were making a creepy face."
I glared at him but didn't reply.
FINE. IT'S DECIDED.
THE MOMENT I AWAKEN, YOU'RE GOING TO BE MY TEST SUBJECT FOR LEARNING HOW TO USE MY POWERS, RAYAN.
FEEL HONORED.