The Bent World (Formerly: Multiverse Revenge Story): Chapter 9 Profiling Ceremonies, A Preview

Chapter 9

Profiling Ceremonies, A Preview

(Seven Months Later)

Fortunately for me, there was some kind of truce brokered between my family and the Oteranskis.

While this truce didn’t stop our class from occasionally seeing Landrina in passing, it did mean that her stopping by and interacting with our classroom would stop.

This was great, as it allowed me to blend in, or at least try to blend in more effectively.

Today however, today the school seemed to be in an excited state as everyone was focused on the third graders and their profiling ceremony.

“What exactly are affinities?” Firka asked, of the other male students he was the least annoying one. Mainly due to the way he stayed out of my way and didn’t try to constantly play house with me.

“Oh, you are asking as you sister is about to go through her profiling ceremony?” The Teacher, Ms. Kay asked.

Firka just nodded.

This made sense as Firka’s older sister was in Landrina’s class, the third graders who were all prepared to go through their winter

“Okay, well we are about that age when you all should be curious about such events. And while this will be gone over multiple times between now and two years from now when you go through this at around the time of your third-grade graduation.” Ms. Kay began.

“This is a big deal, as many of you will see family heads and elders flying in from all over the country to witness this event.” I could have been mistaken, but it seemed like Ms. Kay took a bit longer to glance at me for that last part.

“What will happen is all the students will gather around a high seer, that is someone with a high affinity for Air and Holy magic. The high seer will stand in the middle of a circle, and then one by one students from outer rings will slowly be filtered in to touch the stone. The stone will glow different colors at different intensities based on the related powers and affinities with those powers that each person has.” The teacher noted.

“So why do males need to go to this as well? Since we all know they can’t use any powers?” Brittica, a fiery red head from a flame clan asked. I had smelled hot cinnamon coming from her a lot, but I think that is mostly the residue of her family, not her own individual scent.

In fact, most of the kids in my classes smelled in some way. Which made sense, as by now all of those without any power or potential for power had been culled long ago.

“That is a good question,” Ms. Kay began, “but the answer is quite simple. While males themselves cannot wield powers. It is proven that males are the only ones who can awaken the powers within others. This is why family compatibility ratings are so important. If a male is unable or otherwise incapable of unlocking the full or all of the potentials of a particular partner, it is seen as a bad matching.”

As the teacher spoke, she began drawing diagrams on the board.

Female                                  Male

Holy: 1                                  Holy:2

“Now in this case here, where the female has a lower rating in Holy than the male, the male will be able to fully awaken the power within the female, and this is seen as a good pairing. Now if we flip this,” Ms. Kay continued.

Female                                  Male

Fire: 5                                   Fire: 3

“In this case, the pairing is off, meaning that while the male can awaken part of the overall fire potential, they cannot awaken the full fire potential. This means that if this pairing was to continue, while the female here would be able to unlock their full Holy potential, their Fire potential would be reduced by half. This is why males need to be assessed just like the females.” The teacher concluded.

“Will we get to watch the ceremony?” Frika asked.

There was a slight pause, before the teacher nodded her head and answered.

“Yes, that is part of why I am going over this event now, as it will be important to understand what you are seeing. I also want to point out that there might be a small chance of danger.”

“Danger?” Many of the students asked in unison.

Ms. Kay for her part just nodded her head.

“Don’t worry though, have you ever wondered why only women teachers are hired?” Ms. Kay asked.

There was a pause as everyone stopped to think about the question.

“Because females are stronger?” Brittica blurted out while raising her hand.

“Yes, and it is especially for awakening ceremonies like these,” the teacher replied. “You see, while the rift that the core came from has long ago diminished, the core’s connection to that other world is very much still intact. Now, you will be able to go over the scientific reasons for this connection later on. But what has been noted is that there is a high release of energy from each profiling ceremony. A burst that while often mildly painful for females, and is often enough to induce maturation cycles early. It did end up killing a few of the males who had never witnessed the ceremonies in previous years. That is why we now force other classes to watch in larger and larger circles. This way the waves of energy will wash over each class, and allow the younger students to build up an immunity to the harmful waves.” Ms. Kay concluded.

Thinking about this, it made sense. As this was effectively what I had to go through a few months ago, when I was exposed to a high level of what could only be described as radioactive energy. Here it seemed that the way to avoid having children run for hours until exhaustion and beyond, the easier way would just be to stand at a distance and be exposed to gradually more and more waves of energy until it was your turn to be directly next to the source.

Not exactly the best practice, but it was worth noting.

“What about breaches?” Frika asked, his face going pale as he blurted out his question.

Hearing the question Ms. Kay paused herself as she pursed her lips together.

“I see your sister has been trying to scare you with stories of monsters invading from the other realms,” Ms. Kay began. “While there are concerns about possible reconnection events. That is events where the core stone being used will be able to reconnect to their home world, such instances are rare. This is why all teachers will be present, as we have all been fully awakened and will be able to fight against and protect our individual classes.” Ms. Kay began, apparently having heard similar questions in previous years. Then seeing me, her gaze shifted as she seemed to change subjects at the start.

“The Oteranskis will have both the matriarch and a few of the staff on hand to support the third graders. With the Jyricsons supporting the ring of second graders.” Ms. Kay went on detailing prominent families that have support and staff on hand. The parents here clearly being on hand to protect their own children, and then offering that same level of protection to the other children of their classes.

“Will anyone be there from our class?” Calen, a mousier male student asked.

Hearing that question, Ms. Kay beamed to life as she perked up and spoke.

“Yes, glad you asked. While he might not look it, Mr. Andry here comes from a noble line and his minder, along with and the famed healer Ms. Andry have agreed to be in attendance should anything go wrong.” Ms. Kay replied. This was the unspoken truce that my teacher had given to me. In exchange for her not calling me by my given name Misalla, and my not constantly demanding to be called Sal, she compromised and went for the neutral Mister.

It wasn’t much, but after seven months, she finally gave in. While the name was not new to me, the fact that my family had either volunteered to send representatives, or was specifically asked to send representatives was not known to me.

Also of interest was the fact that my Auntie was going to be here? But why?

There were so many questions that I didn’t quite know what to expect.

With Auntie being on hand, was it overkill? Having a world class healer on hand or was there more to this than the teacher was letting on. I was thinking this, as I was distracted from my own thoughts by the reaction of the other students.

“Ohhh.” The other kids exclaimed excitedly.

Their seeming understanding of either who Sarina was, or my Auntie seemed to be concerning. If I had to guess I assumed it was Auntie, likely due to her being a healer of the area, but I could be wrong.

Still, it did seem that their presence alone was something worth noting.

“Wait, is he actually part of the Andry family?” Chymilla a dark-haired girl with green eyes that have cosmic purple specks in them asks.

“Yes, though I have to ask why you thought something different of someone named Missala Andry?” The teacher asked.

“Well, I just assumed he was a lost orphan boy raised by feral void wolves that the Andrys took pity on after an outbreak.” Chymilla responded.

Laughter.

Of course they would laugh at such a comment.

I didn’t care, other than the intense smell of lilacs with a hint of sugar cane I didn’t pay much attention to Chymilla.

As per Auntie’s request, I did give her the breakdown of the smells I got from the other girls. Most of these smells I associated with the various children were eventually decided to be transferred smells. That is the smell of a parent or guardian being near the child before going to school, most likely transferred while giving a goodbye hug, or riding in a well-used vehicle. That smell from the parent or guardian would then linger on the children and eventually fade away over the course of the day.

The fact that the smells seemed to fade so quickly meant that I often needed to make my attempts at smelling other students happen early on in the morning, when everyone would easily remember such an odd occurrence.

I was shocked to find out that the act of smelling was apparently often associated with females trying to see if the scent of another female was on their chosen pair-mate. Meaning the act of a female randomly sniffing the hair of a male was acceptable, but then I do the same act and gain possible insights into the powers of females, and I am the odd one.

Again, this world makes no sense.

But by now many of my fellow classmates have mostly accepted my eccentricities and attributed them to my being a Suegirl.

A reputation that I really didn’t care about, which in turn oddly propagated the idea of my being a Suegirl even more.

“Well, know that Mr. Andry and his family are going to be contributors in how we will be safe from any disasters that might occur.”

In my mind, I attributed this to a child from my home world of having a firefighter or first responder as a parent coming in and helping for a potentially dangerous scenario. Though it did seem that there was at least a perceived threat here.

For the life of me, I was trying to figure out what exactly the real danger was.

I mean if it was just as tame as it seemed, then why would you need all of the fully awakened teachers, and volunteers coming in to watch and help out.

“I hear that if we want to have a lucky profiling ceremony then there needs to be a void beast that gets slaughtered?”  Brittica exclaimed excitedly.

“Eww,” the other boys and a few of the female students let out in chorus at her enthusiasm for slaughter.

Sigh.

Hearing that comment, it was clear that this topic had gone to an area that the teacher was not comfortable with. Still, she did seem to have expected such a question and answered.

“Yes, while I had hoped to avoid bringing up such a topic, often the facilitator of the ceremony will attempt to open a minor crack in the void that allows a portion of the otherworldly energy to seep over into our world. Often, the easiest way to signify that enough energy has been released is through the fact that a singular void beast will exit the contacted void realm. At which point will it be slaughtered by the guards that are on hand. The larger the beast slain, the more exceptional the splash experience and initial awakening perks be.” Ms. Kay began.

Hearing her comments let me realize why each class would send out guards to help protect each class of students. This was mostly seen as an honor, a way to stress which family was the most important for each grade level. But it also ensured that the prized child of said influential family would be protected.

An interesting system, one that seems like it is all but asking for disaster to strike. I mean the idea of having children next to an open void rift that is open to be large enough for a singular beast to emerge is all but courting danger.

Then again, I know firsthand how Sarina could protect against a few beasts. It was also clear that Sarina, and likely Auntie both knew how to close a rift.

In this case, I would be interested to see the process of how someone would go about trying to open a rift. Then I would be even more interested in watching the next part, the part about how to close the same rift.

“What about a stampede?” Brittica asked, again, more malicious excitement filling her face as she looked at the boys’ faces to see their reaction. The more the other boys seemed to react, the more delighted she became with her question. That is until she saw my expressionless face, as I just stared back at her with nothing but contempt.

“What’s a stampede?” Firka asked, a slight note of fear in his voice.

“Calm down Brittica, or I will have you wait in the hallway while we discuss this very real topic,” Ms. Kay began.

At this, the excitement that had been filling Brittica’s face left and was replaced by the face of a visually chastised student.

Only once control over the class had been reestablished in such a way did Ms. Kay answer.

“We do not need to worry about stampedes, for those are myths that happened in the beginning. Before our portal mages were trained in proper handling and testing procedures. Before there was such training, the event of stampedes occurred quite often and would need to be put down quickly. That is part of the reason why the heads of the most prominent households for each class come and provide assistance. It shows that they take the ancient threat seriously but also value the chance at getting a loved one exposed to pre-awakened experience perks a worthy investment. That said, we will be far enough back, separated by many rows of other protectors and students that we will not need to worry about anything.”

“The only thing we need to do is look at what is happening in front of us and mentally prepare ourselves for when it will be your turn to take the ceremony and see what affinities you will have compatibility with.”

From there more students asked questions about the processes and clarifying what the role of the rift opener was. How much they were paid, and so on.

Most of the questions were so repetitive, or minor variations of what had already been stated, that I almost missed the last relevant question being asked.

“Is it true that being exposed to multiple different rift types before your first appraisal will help open more potential affinities?” Chymilla asked.

As she spoke, I couldn’t help but see the faint glitter of purple specks in her eyes.

“Yes and no,” the teacher began. “While it is generally accepted that being exposed to more and diversified types of energy is ultimately helpful, there have not been any scientific studies that prove what if any benefits can be formed from being exposed to multiple sources of energy. Still, since there hasn’t been anything to disprove this, we continue rotating the few different source stones from year to year, to increase the exposure rate of you children to give you the best options possible.”

The teacher paused at that comment and seemed to think about what she wanted to say next. Then finally, she ultimately decides to state her next part as a sort of secret.

“Actually, I hear that this year, it is the first time we are going to see a brand new profiling stone added to the circulation.”

“Ewww,” the students added appropriate levels of awe and wonderment to her comments.

Mentally I wondered about the safety of such a situation, but then figured with government training and oversight there should have been some level of testing conducted to ensure that this wouldn’t be a complete disaster, right?

Then just as I had that thought, I realized that on the day of this test we would likely have a five student to one protector ratio available.

While our class would only have the teacher, Sarina, and Auntie present. I knew for a fact that a few of the janitors, cafeteria workers, and other awakened female staff members would be on hand as well.

I had no doubt that the level of ability of the staff here was far below Sarina and of course my Auntie, but they couldn’t be too terrible, could they? I mean they were all awakened after all.

Just how much trouble could come from this?

As I had that thought, I could almost feel the hairs on the back of my neck rise up as I felt a slight chill in the air.

“When is this profiling ceremony?” Calen asked.

“On Friday, and yes, before you ask attendance is mandatory and all of your family members have signed the mandatory attendance forms needed for you to be here on Friday.” Ms. Kay replied staring at the mousey boy.

“Oh,” was all Calen got out, as he seemed to pull his legs up to his chest and stare intently at the teacher.

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you,” Paulinna stated reassuringly as she patted Calen gently on the back.

At this point other females made similar protective gestures towards the other male students.

That was why when Brittica and Chymilla both came over towards me, I shot them down before they could get within six feet of me.

“Don’t touch me,” I stated coldly.

And like that those two broke off and went to speak to a few of the other male students.

With those two gone, I was finally able to think.