Beginning of the Ceremony

A sprawling lush green canopy extended for kilometers in every direction greeted gathering men, women, and children of the tribe. The green wilderness mixed with the brown of maze-like tree trunks, twisting branches, and ancient bark. Sounds of chirping birds, howling beasts, the chittering of insects, and creaking of tall trees in the windy breeze sounded out from deep within the looming jungle.

Today was the day of the ceremony where those children who completed the trial would finally become adults in the tribe, and failures would forever be branded as useless despite anything else they may accomplish.

Like every previous ceremony, apart from the participants themselves, a crowd of tribesman was gathering to see off the challenging children and to speculate on who would come within the top 3 and claim the prizes.

These sights greeted an excited Xing and a nonchalant Lei as they approached the jungle and silent and stealthily mixed with the other participants.

As Xing was looking at the crowd of both children and spectators he felt the pressure of being surrounded and couldn't help but notice how calm Lei was, "How can you be so casual Lei? This goes against your usual happy-go-lucky attitude."

"Oh please, look at how many people are here Xing. I have to keep up my respectable face so people will see me as reliable and adult-like. We can't all be like you and be childlike forever." Lei stuck out here tough playfully.

Xing was so dumbfounded he didn't even respond, keeping silent while going back to observing the crowd looking for powerful adversaries.

He quickly realized that he doesn't know anyone around, so how could he possibly look for strong enemies?

"Ahem, hey Lei how about you tell me about some of our top competitors," Xing coughed embarrassingly.

"Well, honestly there aren't many who could compare to us amongst the crowd currently as they are mostly children from the common families that hold no tribal power. There is one that you should keep an eye on, however." Lei gave the crowd a once over looking for someone, "There, that guy! The one who looks like a mountain."

The guy Lei pointed at was massive. He had bulging muscles that covered his 6-foot-tall body from head to toe. He stood tall and stable, indeed like a mountain towering over the surrounding kids.

"His names Jin and he's a Rank 1 Shaman with the Earth Element which he uses in a similar way to your father, so many eyes have been on him. He is the same age as me at 16 and surprisingly comes from a family full of mana-less, giving him another reason to be well known as it is very rare for a Shaman to be born from mana-less parents," Lei explained.

She went onto say, "The fact that he is so well known is not a good thing though. I'm sure a lot of the participants will be aiming at him specifically, mainly jealous children from well-off families that didn't become Shaman themselves when a child of a mana-less couple became one."

Lei looked at Xing seriously, "You will also be the target of many Xing so we should stick together."

Just as Xing was about to affirm the surrounding crowd started getting loud, shouting out comments.

"Hey look, isn't that the child of the Tribe-Chief!?" "What where?" "There he's with the girl apprentice of the Great-Warrior!" "Your right that's him, I've seen him with her before." "Isn't he only 11 why is he participating?" "Maybe he's arrogant?" "He looks older than 11."

Such commentary entered the ears of the participants who all began looking around for this anomaly.

Xing was now within a mass of people all staring at him spitting out a variety of different comments. Mainly about him being too arrogant to enter the ceremony at only age 11.

By all means, as a previous average person, Xing should be nervous and embarrassed as anything- being made a crowd attraction, yet all he felt was a slight amount of those emotions. It was obvious to Xing just what was going on to him.

'Those dreams are still affecting my personality even though I'm doing everything I can to combat the effect. It seems there will soon be nothing left of my previous personality and I will once again become someone similar to what I've seen in my dreams.'

Xing didn't know if this was a bad thing or not considering the personality replacing his previous one has been following his soul for who knows how many thousands of years, even tens-of-thousands of years. It certainly was a big help in this situation where he really didn't want to do anything embarrassing in front of everyone just because he was nervous about being looked at by a few thousand people.

"Don't worry about them Xing, just focus on the monster hunt and we'll just destroy any who purposefully get in our way. That includes that big idiot Liang and whatever lackeys he has with him." Lei put her hand on his shoulder in a reassuring manner.

"Speak of the devil, here he comes." The previous rowdy crowd had switched its focus from Xing to the newest arrival.

"Here comes Liang!" "He's the son of the Great-Shaman and he himself is a Fire Shaman!" "Is he the one who was speculated to win 1st place?" "Yeah, he's winning first for sure." "The guy next to him is called Chao and he's a Rank 2 Warrior with access to Fire, with him by his side there is no way he won't get 1st."

As if he had been watching earlier Liang walked straight over to where Xing and Lei were situated, followed by his lackey.

"Lei my darling! How good of you to come, I bet you can't wait for our outing into the deep jungle, just me and you." Liang walked proudly and arrogantly up to Lei and stated in his high-pitched voice.

"Peh! You come anywhere near me during the ceremony and I'll end you."Lei spat on the ground and then looked around the crowd, eyeing the participants, "And the same goes for anyone else; you get in our way and we'll destroy you."

"Good, good, if the two of you are sticking together then I'll be able to perform both the tasks my father gave to me quickly and efficiently! Then I can go on to win this ceremony since the rest of the trash isn't even competition to me." Liang held his head high as he glanced around at his competitors.

Xing interrupted his taunting moment, "Careful, even you, a 2nd Circle Fire Shaman might get burned if you're too arrogant. After all, you're a mana-crystal guzzler which gives you glaring weaknesses."

"How did you know that!?" Liang looked shocked, he and his father had gone to great lengths to hide the fact that he wasn't 1st Circle but already 2nd Circle. It had cost plenty of resources in mana-crystals and long hours of his fathers' teachings into how fire worked. How did someone find out? And also now reveal it to everybody around.

Xing himself similarly had his power hidden by his father and mother, this is the main reason why everybody thought he was being arrogant by participating, nobody knew his true capability. Not even Liang and his father Great-Shaman Peng had a clue. They assumed that Xing would be like his father- an Earth Shaman, or maybe he took after his mother and was an Air Shaman. Nobody, not even they, would suspect that Xing had not one- but two rare elements, making him just as powerful if not more powerful than Liang himself.

Murmuring resounded around the crowd and Liang knew he had screwed up by acting surprised. If he had acted casually nobody would know if it were real or not, but by him reacting that way he had just blown his cover. The target painted on his back just got bigger, now he had three reasons to be targeted. Firstly because he was the son of the Great-Shaman; secondly because he had acted arrogantly and looked down on the other children; and thirdly he had been revealed to be 2nd Circle and also had his weaknesses revealed in the fact that he was not a natural 2nd Circle.

Liang looked angrily at Xing, "Boy you've now pissed me off, I was going to make it painless later but now I'll take my time."

Giving a vicious glare Liang walked off with his lackey.

"It sounds like he was going to go after you even before you exposed him, now we can be absolutely sure that he will be coming after the both of us now," said Lei.

"Who cares, the both of us should be able to take him and his lackey. You fight that Rank 2 Warrior lackey, and I'll fight Liang." Xing was gazing in the direction that Liang sauntered off in when out the corner of his eye he spotted a familiar-looking female figure, yet he couldn't tell just where he had seen her before.

"Lei, who is that girl? She looks really young."

Lei looked over to where Xing was and perused the girl that had caught his attention, "She would be the youngest here if you were not participating, she is 2 years younger than me at 14-years-old. I remember her from a few years back, she has no family and was tribe-less and caught a lot of attention due to the fact that she had opened her Mindscape naturally while out in the wilds. Her element is Water if I remember rightly." Lei turned to Xing and pouted, "She is also pretty."

Xing turned his attention back to the girl next to him and noticed her pouting face and twitchy body. "No need to get all jealous Lei. I only noticed her due to her young age."

"I'm not jealous!" yelled Lei and was about to punch Xing when the previous rowdy crowd was going silent.

"Here comes the Tribe-Chief!" "Quiet down everyone, it's time to start." "The chief really looks like a bear doesn't he?"

Quiet comments made their way around the crowd before silence reigned as Tribe-Chief Zheng made his way on top of the wooden platform that had been set up in front of the jungle and announced, "Welcome participants to the annual Coming-of-Age Ceremony! The rules have not changed from last year so I'm sure most of you should already know them, however, I will repeat them just to be sure…"

Xing zoned out during this part of his fathers' speech thinking, 'Why is that Water girl so familiar to me? Where have I seen her before? Lei said she was tribe-less and only came into the tribe a few years ago, I would've been too busy training to notice her so I can't have seen her in this life. Could she be from the tribe in my first life in this world? That tribe was certainly destroyed so maybe she was a survivor?'

Further speculating was interrupted by his father announcing the prizes for the highest ranked.

"Like previous years we will be ranking you based on the number and quality of monster-cores you bring back! The top 3 will receive leather armor made from the leather of beasts of different levels, 1st receives armor made from the hide of an E-Rank monster, 2nd armor made from an F-Rank monster, and 3rd will receive armor made from a G-Rank monster! On top of 15, 10, and 5 mana-crystals respectively."

"Next I want to wish all of the participants good luck, and to be careful! There are many deaths during the ceremony each year so always take the utmost amount of care and caution! Now go! And may the best man or woman win!"

As the crowd of participants filed into the jungle individually or in groups of 2 or 3, the spectators began speculating on just who would be in the top.

"Who do you think will win?" "The Great-Shamans son- Liang- will win hands down, and his bodyguard Chao will come in 2nd." "Yeah, there is no beating those two." "Jin the Earth Shaman that takes after our Tribe-Chief will come 3rd." "What about the Chief's son?" "Ehhh, who knows? He might not even stay in for a week, I mean, he's only 11."

"Yeah, he has no chance." - Was the consensus on Xing's chances.

Little did they know they were completely wrong.