Levelling Up The Weakest System

The Ceremony

A wild wind swept through the empty streets of Alandria.

It howled past the adventurers guild and shook the trinket and magical wares stalls in their housings.

To the untrained eye, the city would seem abandoned. Wiped out by the encroaching scourge that had taken the lives of so many others.

But to those that knew the customs of the Drasini Kingdom, the truth was far more exciting.

The wind wound on, converging through the waterway streets on the island town square where the ceremony was well underway.

The Initiates sat in a wide semi-circle, their robed bodies swaying with the wind as the administrar at the centre finished his chant.

The people of the city watched from windows and balconies with bated breath as the first of the Initiates rose up from their kneeling position.

These Initiates would go on to become the Vanguard. The first line of defence in the coming battle. Like many Initiates from across the Kingdom, they would likely be dead by the end of the year.

The Initiate settled back down onto their knees in front of the Administrar and the chanting started up once again.

He spoke in a lilting melody in a language that no one present truly understood. The arcane language of the Gods.

A brilliant beam of light blasted its way down from the heavens, lancing through concentric rings of runes that had blazed into being above the pair, before piercing through the kneeling Initiate.

Light bloomed out from their kneeling body. Their back arched and their face contorted in a silent scream.

The light flickered and then petered out entirely.

As the light faded the sword in the Initiate's hand was clear for all to see.

The Administrar threw out his hands in triumph, and all the spectators cheered in an overjoyed frenzy.

The Initiate who had received their boon hobbled back to their place in the semi-circle, holding their new weapon with reverence… and so the ceremony continued.

Initiates would rise, kneel before the Administrar, holy light would beam down from the heavens and then the Initiate would hobble away again with new abilities, weapons and stats.

One by one they were granted these boons until finally there was only one Initiate remaining.

Like the others before him the last Initiate rose and knelt before the Administrar, who began his chant anew for the final time.

The light pierced down from the heavens, lancing through the concentric circles the Administrar had spoken into being… but this time, things went differently.

When the light hit the Initiate their back did not arch in pain like all the others. They did not silently scream.

The Initiate stood as if nothing had happened and rejoined the circle, and the Administrar continued his chanting to its conclusion.

The spectators roared their approval even harder for the final Initiate.

He hadn't come away with a physical weapon, but resisting the blinding light of the gods so well was a feat of itself. Surely this last Initiate would be incredibly powerful?

But to those who looked closely, they could tell there was something wrong by the steely glare of the Administrar and the look of fear on the Initiate's face.

The wind died down.

The ceremony was over.

xXx

The chambers of the head Administrar of the Alandria Initiate Academy were a terrifying place for an Initiate to be summoned to.

It meant one of two things.

Either you had done something incredibly well and there was cause for celebration, or you had done something incredibly poorly and there was cause for punishment.

The head Administrar was the sort of man who would never let his Initiates know which of the two it was until the very last moment.

But Alexei knew.

Alexei knew from the moment the warm glow of the god's arcane light seemed to avoid him while he knelt in front of the Administrar during the ceremony, with only small flecks of the power actually entering his body.

"What are we going to do with you, Alexei?" Asked the gravelly voice of the Administrar, his chin resting on his steepled fingers.

Alexei didn't respond.

He couldn't even bear to look at the man who had trained him for the better part of a year. He'd never felt like a failure as badly as he did right at that moment.

"Very well, let us see what we are actually working with here," The Administrar went on, raising one of his hands so the palm was facing the Initiate, "Analysis!"

A small pinprick of light shot out of the centre of his palm and scanned its way across Alexei's body and disappeared as suddenly as it arrived.

When the light's work was done, a display popped up in front of the Administrar.

"It is as I suspected, and as you already likely knew," The Administrar said, "You have two basic abilities, neither of which have any strength or worth. If I were to send you out onto the field with the ability to divide and reconstitute objects you would be devoured in an instant."

That made Alexei perk up, his eyes wide with fear.

"I do not wish to see you die, Alexei," The Administrar went on, "So instead I will be doing something that I have never had to do, not in all my years of this position."

"What… What's that, Administrar?" Alexei asked, his voice quiet and meek.

"I will be giving you a small stipend so that you can stand on your feet, and I will be sending you out into the world on your own. You shall never be a member of the Royal Defence Corps, but perhaps you will find some way to make your power work for you in the future," The Administrar explained.

The Administrar produced a jingling bag of coins and placed them on the desktop.

"You mean… I can just leave?" Alexei asked, "I don't need to go to the front lines, I don't need to fight the war?"

The Administrar simply nodded and gestured toward the door.

The meeting was over, and Alexei was a free man.