Dark.

It is really, really dark.

Where the hell am I?

I looked around trying to find where I was, but to no avail.

There was not even a single ray of light to illuminate the room, leaving me as good as blind.

“Just what happened?”

He was in the Bestowal Ceremony. Right! I received a True Blessing.

What happened after that?

The mage offered me something to drink.

He said something about calming my mind to better assimilate the rune.

And then I fell asleep.

Well, that makes sense since the drink had calming effects.

Still, nothing explained where he was.

Is it a room for people to rest while assimilating their runes?

Why is it so dark , though?

Suddenly, a ray of light illuminated the room.

With that I was able to realize that I was not in a comfortable room in order to rest.

It was a cell.

The light came from outside the cell.

A man stood there with a torch in his hand.

“Hey, you, you’re finally awake.”

The man was none other than the one who had guided me towards the room where I received my rune.

This time however, he was not smiling, which was more befitting to his weird face.

“What happened?”

I asked, the man worked for the Brotherhood of Celestia, so of course he would be able to help me, right?

“There are a lot of ways to tell you, I also could not tell you, but I will be straightforward with you.”

He breathed slowly before starting to talk again.

“Basically, you’ve been kidnapped, kid”

W-what is he talking about? Kidnapped?

When exactly was I kidnapped? After the Ceremony? Wait, the drink, is the mage working together with this man?

“Are you kidnapping me because of my father?”

“Your father?

“No, the reason why we kidnapped you isn’t because of your father.”

“Then, why?”

“Why you say?”

The man grinned.

“Why not?”

My blood started to boil.

I need to get free, but what can I do?

Wait a minute. I’m a little dumb aren’t I?

I have a True Blessing now.

If I enter Blessed Mode, I should be able to fight him, maybe even defeat him.

Even if my thoughts are wrong I should be able to at least escape.

Without much thought I focused on my core and ordered the mana inside of it to feed my rune and subsequently 

feed my entire body with magic.

At the same time, I did my best to replicate the same sensation as the one I felt during the time of bestowal.

However.

My body fell before I could even make a move.

“It’s useless, this room where you are blocks the usage of mana completely.

“As for your Blessed Mode, you were only able to activate it during the bestowal as an aftereffect of the 

ceremony. You are not capable of activating it again. Not yet at least.”

My heart sunk, so I am incapable of escaping?

For how much time will they hold me?

Why did they kidnap me in the first place?

“Just why?”

“It seems you really want to know the reason why, huh?”

The man looked at me, examining my body as if trying to reach a certain solution.

“Alright. Come here. You should be good enough to walk, right?”

“Huh?”

The man opened the cell door and signed for me to approach me.

Only after I started walking did I realized my body was still half asleep.

No matter, I reached the door cell and looked the man in the eyes.

Unexpectedly, a huge pain struck my stomach.

I kneeled, grabbing my abdomen with both my arms.

I finally understood what happened.

The moment I was in his range, the man hit me with a powerful punch, it didn’t need any mana to reinforce it, his own strength was enough to bring me to the ground.

I felt the sensation of cold metal on my neck followed by a click sound.

Right after that a burning sensation in the areas where my neck was in contact with the metal.

I felt like strong chains wrapped around my mana core.

I brought my hand to my neck and felt the sensation of something metallic around it.

It seems to be an item to nullify my magic.

“You want to know the reason why we kidnapped you? Then follow me.”

“What makes you think I will not run away from you?”

“Well, you don't know anything about the palace you are in and the item you have around your neck doesn’t allow you to exit the facility anyway.”

“Tsk.”

I clicked my tongue and followed him.

“The first thing you need to understand is that the ones who kidnapped are not just some criminals.”

“You are not?”

“No we are not.

“We are the Brotherhood of Celestia.”

The Brotherhood of Celestia?!!

Why did they kidnap me?

For what use?

“We are talking about the same brotherhood right?”

“Of course.”

They walked in a narrow corridor.

On the sides there were similar cells as mine. In them, there were children like me.

Some were still sleeping, others were awake and made a lot of noise.

They were of different ages, some were six, others were already fourteen.

In a specific cell just before the end of the corridor.

A young man of around nineteen years old was sitting against the wall of his cell.

I looked at him with curiosity and he stared back, with no such thing as emotion in his eyes.

They were dull and gray, almost like they were deprived of life.

The young man looked at the man guiding me and then looked at the ground, and didn’t move again, at all.

At the end of the corridor, right after the young man’s cell, there was a wooden door.

Without hesitation, the man opened it revealing a huge room.

The room was circular and its size was incredible.

It’s bigger than the church itself.

In the middle of the room was a group of around twenty children, all of the same age, which should be around 7 years old.

They were in a formation that resembled a rectangle, repeating a set of movements.

Those are martial arts aren’t they?

A bald man with a serious face was looking at them with a serious expression.

Is he teaching them how to fight?

I don’t get it. Are they from the brotherhood, or are they kidnapped children, like me?

“Tell me, kid. Do you know what the brotherhood’s greatest belief is?”

“The brotherhood believes that the celestials will come one day with an army to protect us from a demon 

invasion, is it not?”

“You are quite well informed, but you missed by a little.”

Missed? I just recently learned that.

Was the information my father taught me wrong?

Even if he was wrong, mother is a big believer of the Brotherhood of Celestia, how could she not know the beliefs of her own religion?

“You see, we do believe that the celestials will help us in a demon invasion, but they are not the ones who are going to fight, kid.”

“What?”

“We humans are the ones who are going to fight.”

I looked again at the children practicing hand-to-hand techniques.

“Are you guys training them?”

“Correct. One of the great oracles of our brotherhood had a vision where the demons would invade us.

“The vision was not really clear on the aspect of ‘when’ that will happen. However it pointed to somewhere nine 

or seventeen years from now.”

What?!!

Does such a thing happen so soon?

Nine years from now is just so little time.

Damn, nine years from now I will only be a teenager.

No, calm down. Think positive. It could land in the seventeen years from now, at that time I will be twenty three, so no worries.

“So you’re training these kids for the war that is about to come.”

“Oh. It is not only them. It’s you as well, besides the other villages around the continent.”

“The whole continent?”

I wasn’t really surprised by the fact that I would be trained aswell, after all, if their goal was to stop the demon invasion it was obvious that a True Blessing would be the greatest asset.

However the fact that the whole rural area of the continent was being used as a soldier recruitment and training area was just amazing.

“Our goal isn’t just to stop the demon invasion, but to create soldiers that do not care about anything but the victory.

“Soldiers without feelings of remorse, capable of killing the most innocent of beings if that benefited the war.

“Soldiers without any feeling of companionship, capable of sacrificing a teammate for the sake of a victory.

“A soldier without any free will, that would serve the celestial until his last breath.

“The Perfect Soldier.”

The man's speech sent chills down my spine leaving me with the intent of running away from here, but I couldn’t move.

“Welcome, kid.

“To the Neto Program.”