I was standing in the crowded hall of the Lock Academy, in Lock City, holding a picture. In it was a family of four: a father, a mother, a daughter, and a son.
The father looked to be around his late forties, with jet-black hair and deep blue eyes. The mother was forty years of age, with wheat blonde hair and black eyes. The daughter was eleven years old, had her mother's pale blonde hair and her father's deep blue eyes.
Lastly, the son, the oldest of the two siblings...me.
I had my mother's wheat blonde hair, and that bastard's golden eyes.
That bastard was my biological father. The same father who abandoned me and my mother for power.
But at least my mother's new husband, whom I considered my dad, raised me like his own, and made me feel like I was just as much of a son to him as my half sister.
At the time that the picture was taken, I was just fifteen years old. Two years have passed since then.
Today was the ninth of June, my seventeenth birthday, and the day of the mass teleportation.
To be honest, I wanted to spend more time with my family, but I decided against it.
It's not like I wouldn't see them again, it's just that I would be gone for who knows how long. A week? A month? A year? Two? I didn't know. All I knew was that I would return. No, not just that.
"I had to."
"Marked!" a voice echoed through the hall.
I put the picture in my pocket, and my attention focused on the podium at which stood a woman who looked not a day older than twenty.
"Today is the ninth of June. A day in which all of the lives of those marked by the Akashic Records would change, for better or for worse. Some might not even have a life after today. Today, all of you will be teleported to a place in this hellish world of ours. Some might get teleported to the heart of one of the cities and use the gateway to get back to The Lock City. Some unlucky ones might get teleported to the heart of a death zone. Some more unlucky ones might get teleported to an undiscovered zone. If this happens, your only hope is to find a gateway and slay the gatekeeper." She paused for a moment and then added, "But in all cases, remember one thing. On one can survive in this world alone."
With that, the woman dissolved into the shadow of the podium.\
***
After that lameass speech, the woman whom I later recognized as Hunter Morgan gave. We were led to an empty white room. It was relatively large, fitting about a hundred chosen comfortably.
I chose one of the corners and sat in it, thought of the word 'runes', and the Akashic runes that formed on my back flowed and appeared before me. Of course, I was the only one who could see them; to the rest, if they could see my back, they would still see the runes, which was the case for everyone marked by the Akashic Records.
I started counting down with the runes.
[5]
[4]
[3]
[2]
[1]
Then my vision was swallowed by darkness.
***
Darkness.
Complete, utter darkness.
I was swimming in a field of pure, reflectionless black.
Time passed. I didn't know if it was a second, a minute, a day, a week, a month, a year, or even a decade.
But soon enough, the sea of darkness was drowned by a sea of amethyst filled with a myriad of stars. In the center of it was a single golden sphere. On it was a set of amethyst runes, the same set of runes on my back.
'An ether core.' I thought.
[Marked! Welcome to the Akashic Records.]
[The seal of art has been broken.]
[You have ascended a rank.]
A voice echoed through the amethyst space.
I expected this. What I did not expect was the next few lines.
[A lineage has been found.]
[Your Art has been overridden.]
[You have been bestowed an Authority.]