Dawn Architect

Chapter 27: White Flames

While ascending Eirlys, I noticed something strange. When an awakened one creates their container, a phenomenon is created around them that shows the element they awakened. But I, with my eyes of truth, I was attentive to Eirlys' internal changes and noticed in advance the strangeness of her container.

Before the phenomenon occurred, I activated the spell of concealment on her and me, and suddenly white flames materialized on Eirlys' body. Seeing those flames, I couldn't help but wrinkle my face. Those white flames look familiar, and it's not a good memory.

[Oh, white flames, this is really interesting,]

even Lili, who could see through the concealment, couldn't help but exclaim. Memories of the users I once knew who possessed those white flames come to mind and make me wonder a few things.

Usually, those who awaken an element in the first star do so because an ancestor or someone in their family handled the element with the characteristic to a point where it became part of their being. To get to that point requires being very powerful, and all sufficiently powerful people eventually become noble.

The elements of the parents have a high chance of being inherited to their children, and the nobles are the ones who try to keep these characteristics in their blood. But there is also the possibility that a member of a great family may become a commoner or perhaps have illegitimate children.

So when you awaken characteristics innately you are likely to have to do with nobles, but those white flame characteristics are a big problem. I need to figure this out. With that in mind, I waited for Eirlys' awakening to finish. When it seemed to be over, I called out to Eirlys.

"Eirlys... humm we need to talk," I didn't know how to put it into words, so I did my best to explain to her from the beginning what the characteristics were and what the implications might be of having awakened that characteristic in her first star. When I made sure she understood the risk of using white flames, she seemed a bit down and said.

"So I can't use elemental mana?" she asked me sadly. It seemed like she had expectations for using elemental mana. Hearing her question, I couldn't help but smile at the droopy face she had, but I couldn't bear to see her droopy, so I clarified.

"Of course you can use elemental mana... come on, try it like I taught you," I encouraged her to activate the elemental mana and, as I expected, only a flame with the characteristic red color came out. This is normal. Usually, characteristics tend to change the color of the element. For example, the dark elemental concealment that Lili gave me tends to turn from black to a transparent shade. On the other hand, my lightning bolt with the acceleration feature turns from blue to a lighter blue.

 The color itself is not important, what is important are the characteristics printed on it. But that doesn't mean that you can't use the element in its natural state. Each and every person can use the natural element and the element with razgo, especially cases like Eirlys who awakens it without having accumulated knowledge or life experience, so it is difficult for her to access her element with characteristics.

"Oh!", when she saw her hand surrounded in flames, she panicked for a moment, but then, she couldn't help but be surprised. I on the other hand was thinking what to do with Eirlys, who can't control the characteristic at will and can use it unintentionally, I have to find a solution, so after warning her some things to keep in mind, I removed the veil of concealment around us. The children had panicked at our sudden disappearance, but I pretended nothing important was happening and continued to watch for the awakening of the other children.

As I was watching the last one, I noticed that a feature was also waking up. So I repeated the same with Eirlys and covered for us, and explained to him, although his characteristic didn't seem as problematic as Eirlys'. It's just a wind element characteristic with the edge characteristic. I noticed it right away because it is a basic characteristic that is usually aroused by many people who have concentrated on using edged weapons.

But the fact that it can be inherited means that an ancestor was very strong and took that characteristic to the extreme of joining it. Leaving that aside, the fact that out of eight awakened two have innate characteristics is a rare occurrence, to say the least.

But the possibility of one being the illegitimate child of a nobleman or a powerful warrior who died in war is not small. In the slums such people gather, and although it is rare for them to appear, the possibility is not zero.

I mean, although I did not awaken in my previous life an innate characteristic, it is rare to find a light element possessor among commoners, let alone a resident of poor areas like me, but in this era to come, I can say that it may be easier to accept such occurrences.

Ignoring the fact that I hope Eirlys' feature is not what I think it is, as the color can become almost identical to that of other features, and my eyes of truth are not enough to be able to discern that. It's not that it's a bad feature, in fact, it's a top-tier feature and very useful, but the guys I've seen using it are a troublesome bunch that could drag Eirlys into a lot of trouble.

I have to create countermeasures. I can't lose Eirlys again, not knowing her fate in my previous life was one of my first and biggest regrets. With that said, I set to work on the countermeasure.

As dawn broke and the children, with renewed vigor at the prospect of ascending and using elements, began the hunt early after breakfast. I, for my part, because I stayed late, had a tired expression on my face and wanted to sleep. 

So before they left, I called Eirlys and gave her a ring, explained its function and then went back to my tent to sleep. I woke up at noon and even though it was late to start hunting, I couldn't sit idle, so I headed out to hunt.