It was a cold night of winter. The sky was clear and the air dry. A thousand stars could be seen from deep inside the crater, where a village had been built over five hundred years ago.
The village, Rimrock, filled the entire crater, from the healed floor to the steep walls. Houses, farms, and paths occupy every inch of space beneath the towering rim. The village was enclosed but safe, shielded from outside dangers by the crater's sheer cliffs.
In this vast world, humanity was at the bottom of the food chain along with pigs, dogs, and insects. The wild monsters hidden in the forests, the skies, and the water were not just mindless beasts. Unlike dogs and cats, they could communicate, create complex traps, and even team up regardless of species!
Luckily for this village, the crater was like a shield that kept any beast away from the place. Its distance from the two furthest points at the top was ten kilometers, meaning that they had plenty of space for farms and fields.
Their culture was very common across the planet, most people, especially women, would stay in the village and work while experienced fighters would be sent on expeditions to gather information and other resources. Trading with other villages was hard, but not impossible. Given a large enough force, monsters wouldn't even approach.
This world was merciless, and one's choice could easily lead to death, but people adapted to that and transformed into civilizations that valued strength over everything, even money.
In a small two-story house, a seventeen-year-old boy was looking at the starry night from his window. The moon was large and pale, illuminating his face and reflecting in pitch-black eyes that seemed to be a bottomless abyss.
"The time is approaching… This year's Slayer Trial is in a week." The boy whispered in his mind, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath before looking inside his room.
Over five different books were open on top of a small knee-height wooden table where his little sister and brother were studying together with him.
"Alright, enough studying for today, it's already too late for the two of you, return to your rooms now."
"Big brother Zel, it is still early, we have a test tomorrow and we want to score the top scores!"
"My decision is final, get out," Zel ordered his brother and sister, who were both merely eight years old.
The two gathered their books and pouted on their way out, annoyed by the fact that their brother was so unsupportive. Finally, Zel had some free time.
He sat on his bed and took a tome hidden in a drawer close to him. He opened it at about halfway and began quickly reading through the lines.
"The soul is what shapes us humans. It is a method to be ourselves no matter what happens. A person without a soul is a dead person, a person with the wrong soul is the wrong being." He was looking for something, but this was not it.
"The Core is at the base of our power and our society. Without it, we would be no more than worms." This wasn't it either.
"The color of the soul is the representation of what one is. Color is based on many things such as…" Neither was this, but it was on the right track. He skimmed a few lines before turning pages and seeing dozens of drawn lights, each with a different color. "There." He tightened his hand into a fist.
"Red, orange, white, brown, pink…" He read through all the known colors of the soul, but the one he was looking for wasn't there. "Yellow… And blue. Very well. Just as I expected, I remember all of them." He calmly recalled everything he knew. He was looking for something he did not know, but just as he thought, he knew all the contents. But that did not mean he knew enough. He still didn't know what a black Soul Color indicated, but he had never seen it in any book, including this one.
"With this knowledge, I'll be able to answer any trick question." He secretly laughed.
"Zel!" His mother called out. "You better go to sleep! You've got a test tomorrow, remember?" Mina, his mother, was only forty years old, and her husband was of the same age. It was a happy family, even if their finances were not the best, they were still above average.
"I know!" He said, scoffing.
He closed his eyes, focused, and looked inside his mind.
In the middle of a vast, grassy field, there was a small mound as big as a house with a little temple at the top of identical size. This abstract place was his Core, and every living being had one.
He looked upwards, spotting a humanoid figure identical to him but pitch black. It wasn't a physical being, but instead a human-shaped fog. Zel's black eyes looked at the figure's red eyes, and immediately, a surge of information flooded his mind. Three thoughts emerged from that flux of knowledge. They were his only powers.
"Strong Legs, an active ability that enhances my legs' speed and strength. Enhanced Reflexes, a passive ability that allows me to react faster. Bone Dagger, another active ability that allows me to summon a Bone Dagger out of thin air."
These three skills were bought for him by his parents after saving up for years. All the family's savings had been spent to produce a soon-to-be Slayer.
He nodded, seeing everything was fine, and looked at the void-like being inside his Core. It was his soul. He then severed the connection and returned to his senses, repeating the same phrase more than five times. "The soul rests in the Internal Temple. The Internal Temple resides in the Core. The Core is in our brains."
He looked outside, seeing the countless lights of the village, which was both below him, deep inside the crater, and above him, extending to the rim.
"A black soul… What does it mean?" He wanted to know. His thirst for knowledge was second only to that of power. "I don't have the means to find out. I should just sleep and rest for tomorrow's test."
The following day, he woke up in the middle of the afternoon, only two hours before the exam. His long, black hair was sprawled over the blankets, his eyes, open, stared at the roof while he was in deep thought, checking that he truly knew everything.
"This will be child's play." He snickered.
He put on the fighting uniform provided by the Elders to all the candidates and headed downstairs to eat something on the go.
His mother, seeing the black and red attire, shed a tear of joy. Her son was already at the age to become a Slayer just like his father. She was extremely proud.
"Are you anxious, Zel?"
"No. I have no reason to be." He calmly said. His composed state always surprised his friends and other grown-ups. Some even called him a prodigy or a possible future professional hunter, but no one was ready for the future.
"I will go now."
"Take care, brother!" His siblings waved their hands from the kitchen. He did not wave back but only gave a quick nod.