In this world, affinity with one element is a gift, two makes you a genius, three is a headache, and four leaves you with no way forward.
When he was twelve, Ai Mo made the Awakening Crystal Pillar light up with four marks at once: water, fire, earth, and wood. There was no cheering, only silence. The four elemental paths clashed and blocked one another, and the Academy’s records had never shown anyone with affinity for all four elements successfully mastering the path.
The Academy refused to offer him a place in its program, and everyone told him to accept his fate. Ai Mo took only a public beginner’s manual on fire magic. For four whole years, he practiced beside the lingering warmth of the furnace and the dying embers. In the end, all he could do was ignite a flame the size of his thumb.
At sixteen, hoping to trade for resources to cultivate, he left the walls of Oren City alone, carrying an old dagger. In the wilderness, insectoids that devoured elements and continually evolved were encroaching on human territory. Without teammates, Ai Mo could only survive with traps, waste oil, resin, and that tiny flame.
It was only when a list of missing hunters surfaced that he joined a real hunting party for the first time and came into contact with the insectoid menace lurking within Oren City.
The four marks made everyone give up on him, but they might also lead to a path no one had ever taken.
From outcast to god ascendant, Ai Mo’s first step was simply to keep the flame in his palm from going out.
My first like, hahaha