Born In Ashes: The Enigma

As soon as Azrael left his room, the door to the room beside his opened as well, and Ashara stepped out.

Azrael turned to look at her and gave her a strange look.

"What?" She asked with a frown when she saw the expression he was giving her.

"It's nothing," Azrael shook his head and asked, "Shall we go?"

Ashara nodded at his words, and the two of them descended from the second floor, where their rooms were located.

As they came down, they saw Maelir already seated at the dining table, with breakfast prepared and ready.

Seeing Maelir at the table, Azrael became certain that Ashara had been waiting for him to leave his room first so that she wouldn't have to come down alone and eat with Maelir.

'Is this what people call a sibling quarrel?' Azrael wondered, having never had a proper fight with Kael due to their circumstances on Earth.

When Maelir saw Azrael and Ashara, he gestured for both of them to join him. As they sat down, a maid quietly served breakfast and left the room at Maelir's signal.

"Everything is ready. You can begin absorbing the source power of the item you have prepared after breakfast to activate your Powers," Maelir said once the maid had gone.

"Thank you for your help, Uncle," Azrael replied sincerely and glanced at Ashara, who was silently eating without saying a word.

Maelir gave a helpless look when he saw Ashara's silent reaction and sighed inwardly.

'That old man really screwed things up back then,' He thought to himself as he continued eating his breakfast in silence.

Once breakfast was over, they immediately left the dining room. Maelir led them to the backyard of the mansion, stopping in front of a small dome-shaped structure.

The structure wasn't particularly large—about five hundred square meters in size—but when they entered through its opening, Azrael realized that the interior space was far more expansive, almost as big as their mansion's training ground.

'The space-folding technology in this world is really incredible,' Azrael thought as he gazed at the wide area in front of him.

Maelir brought Ashara and Azrael to one of the closed rooms built within the large open space. He pressed a button on the side of the door, and the door slowly lifted upward, revealing the room within.

As the door fully opened, Azrael saw a small, empty chamber with nothing inside. He looked down and noticed a formation etched into the floor, covering its entire surface. The formation looked somewhat similar to the one he had seen during his awakening ceremony—though not entirely the same.

"Just sit in the center of the formation and take out the source item you've prepared," Maelir instructed.

Azrael nodded and, after briefly glancing at Ashara, entered the room. Sitting cross-legged in the middle of the formation, he retrieved the Heart of Wind from his storage ring.

Maelir's eyes widened in shock when he saw the Heart of Wind in Azrael's hand.

Like Ashara, he was well aware of the power and rarity of the Heart of Wind. Seeing Azrael use it to activate his powers left him visibly stunned.

He looked toward Ashara, and upon seeing her calm demeanor, he exhaled slowly.

"It seems Azrael performed really well in his trial to acquire an item of that caliber," He said, trying to remain composed, but the lingering surprise on his face betrayed his struggle.

"Don't tell anyone about it," Ashara said without looking at him.

Maelir rolled his eyes at her words and shook his head. "You already know that even if you didn't mention it, I wouldn't tell a soul."

Ashara didn't respond and simply stepped into the room, stopping behind Azrael.

"Start absorbing the source energy from the Heart of Wind. Let me know immediately if you feel anything strange."

Azrael nodded and activated his source core, just as he would during normal cultivation to absorb the surrounding cosmic energy.

As he did so, his source core began to rotate and drew in the ambient cosmic energy. At the same time, he infused some of his energy into the Heart of Wind, causing wisps of green light to emerge from it.

Alongside the cosmic energy, those green wisps were also absorbed by his source core.

The formation beneath him lit up brightly as it activated, and Azrael instantly felt it become easier to absorb both the cosmic energy and the source power from the Heart of Wind.

Woosh!

Suddenly, gusts of wind began to swirl around the room, growing stronger with each passing second.

Azrael felt his source core heating up the moment it absorbed some of the Heart of Wind's source power, and he could feel his affinity with the wind element rapidly increasing.

As he continued absorbing the source power, the Heart of Wind gradually lost its luster and began to disintegrate.

Time passed, and after about an hour and a half, only one-fifth of the Heart of Wind remained. The rest had already been absorbed by Azrael.

By this point, the entire room was filled with green gusts of wind swirling in all directions.

Swish!

Suddenly, all the gusts of wind vanished.

Ashara narrowed her eyes at the sudden change and immediately understood what was happening.

'His natural attribute is awakening...' She thought, and in the next second—

Countless gusts of wind burst into the room once again. But unlike before, these were not green. They were purple, glowing with an aurora-like radiance that filled the space with surreal beauty.

When Maelir and Ashara felt the power emanating from the purple gusts, both of their eyes widened in shock.

"This attribute..." Ashara whispered in disbelief, her gaze locked on Azrael, whose eyes remained closed.

'To think he would awaken such a rare attribute...'

As Azrael's attribute awakened, the remaining source power of the Heart of Wind was instantly consumed, and the item disintegrated completely.

At that very moment, a notification appeared before Azrael's eyes.

(You have awakened your attribute)

[Attribute — Astral]