Ether is a primordial force—not mere magical energy, but a living resonance that exists within all matter, memory, and motion. It does not grant power randomly; it responds to identity.
The first step toward becoming a Guardian is passing the Guardian Characteristic Test. After that, the participants proceed to the second step, the Etherpath Ceremony, during which they awaken their Ether Sigil—an emblem unique to their chosen path—on the back of their dominant hand.
Immediately after the ceremony, the initiates are placed into isolation chambers to begin the third and most crucial step: the Trine Awakening. This step must occur without any interference—free from distraction, fear, or outside influence. The Trine Awakening is not just a ritual; it is a confrontation with the self and the raw, resonant force of Ether. Those who are unprepared, misaligned, or carry unresolved conflict may suffer psychic overload, path misalignment, a partial awakening—or even a complete collapse of the Trine.
The Ether Trine is the threefold manifestation of the bond between a person and their Etherpath. It includes:
Flow – The active ability of a Guardian. This is their main power—what they can do.
Pulse – The sensory trait. A heightened instinct or perception unique to their Etherpath, shaped by their inner self.
Mark – The passive trait. A subtle yet permanent shift in how the user thinks, feels, or exists. It may not be visible, but it influences everything.
The three days of isolation follow the three stages of the Trine Awakening.
On the first day, the initiate experiences a kind of mental unravelling. Hallucinations, dreams, and flashbacks surface. They confront buried memories and unfaced fears. This stage breaks down the false self so that the Ether can reach their true core.
On the second day, the Ether begins to respond. The Pulse emerges—initiates begin to sense shifts in space, thought, emotion, or time. It is a moment of revelation. For some, it brings clarity; for others, it brings overwhelming confusion.
On the third day, the bond with the Etherpath completes. The Flow reveals itself, often triggered by an emotional or instinctual echo. The Mark seals—an invisible but eternal trait formed by what they held onto or what they chose to release in the chamber.
The Ether chooses how each path manifests. Two guardians of the same path may emerge with entirely different expressions of it. When the Trine is complete, the Ether Sigil glows briefly—then fades.
And the ceremony concludes.
In his isolation chamber, Sayan sat on the stone bed. Two torches flickered near the door, their light dancing across the walls. The room was sealed, silent, and heavy with expectation.
He thought to himself, "I've got the Tesseract Path—dimensions, distortion... But no one's written clearly about it. No guides, no mentors. Just fragments. Will I be strong enough to protect others? Will I be worthy to carry this burden?"
As the thought passed, a hum filled the room. The torchlight flickered unnaturally. The air thickened. His ears picked up strange reverberations—like whispers folding into one another.
Then the ripples began—space itself seemed to bend before him. His vision blurred, his heartbeat surged. Echoes overlapped in the room—some real, some imagined. He clutched his head. Flashes of his father, his mother working late into the night, Zavian's laughter—every memory pulled at his soul.
Sayan fell into sleep—or something deeper. In his vision, he stood in front of a vast, black, floating cube formed from Aether. Around him—an endless starlit void. When he reached out and touched the cube, his emotions fell silent. A calm washed over him. All confusion, fear, and burden melted.
This silence was not hollow—it was whole.
And in that stillness, Sayan slept.
Zavian sat with legs crossed, jittery. His thoughts raced: "Am I enough? Can I stand beside Sayan as an equal? Will I even awaken fully?"
The silence of the room was soon broken by a dull throb in his head. The room began pulsing with light in rhythm with his heartbeat. Pressure mounted behind his eyes.
Then the hallucinations began.
He saw his mother pleading with him to stay.
Blink.
She was gone.
Sayan stood in her place—calm, watching.
Blink.
Emptiness.
Zavian found himself drifting in a place without sky or ground. Only endless threads of light and darkness—like flowing rivers of ink and starlight.
He looked closer.
They were words—languages he recognized (Velanir and Aelthane), yet could not comprehend. Each word seemed to hum with endless depth and layered knowledge. When he tried to reach out, his mind reeled. Pain spiked through his skull as if every thread tried to pour itself into him at once.
He gasped and jolted awake, lying back in the stone chamber. Crawling to the bathroom, he vomited, then washed his face. His hands trembled.
It took time, but eventually, he returned to bed, breathing deeply. Though shaken, something in him had changed.
Thus ended the first night of the Trine Awakening.
The Ether had begun to see them. And they had begun to see themselves.
Both Sayan and Zavian woke up late on the second morning of the ritual. The previous night had taken a huge toll on their minds. Food had been placed inside their chambers while they were asleep, and they ate quietly, lost in thought, still processing the experiences from the day before.
In his room, Sayan began to notice subtle changes within himself. The first thing he saw was a Mark on his left forearm—a black tesseract cube with a title etched faintly below it:
"Fractaled Seer of the Veiled Fold."
He could now map spaces instinctively. He no longer needed to look twice to remember a layout. Oddities in symmetry stood out to him immediately. He could feel when something didn't "fit" in the geometry of a room or object.
His entire way of thinking had shifted. He started solving problems backwards or sideways. His intuition bent logic, as if he could see multiple solutions at once—though that often made him stall, overthink, or lose track of the present moment.
He felt lighter. His body more reactive. When his emotions stirred, objects near him would subtly vibrate, not visibly, but with space bending inward around them.
He felt slightly unanchored—like a part of him was always observing from the edge of space.
A strange hunger stirred in his soul. A curiosity—a pull towards unknown passages, lost writings, and impossible architecture.
Sayan murmured under his breath, almost in awe:
"I can feel the walls breathing. Fascinating."
Meanwhile, in another chamber, Zavian discovered his own Mark. It was etched on his right forearm—a silver-blue infinity loop, formed by overlapping runes, with the title:
"Whisperbound Listener of the Weave."
He sensed emotional pressure in the room, like tension still hanging in the air from past conversations. His reactions had become sharper, his insights more precise. He could "hear" emotional undercurrents in silence—not voices, but intentions.
Even the walls felt thick in places, as though sorrow had left imprints in the stone.
His dreams felt deeper, clearer, more meaningful. Emotions hit harder. He thought to himself:
"Thoughts are louder than words now."
The entire morning and afternoon passed in stillness, the brothers studying and trying to understand their Marks.
As dusk fell, both grew restless. They had been told that the second night must be spent in silence.
When night finally came, the Stronghold sank into a deep hush.
Sayan sat cross-legged on the floor, preparing himself. He had no idea what would come next.
For a long time—nothing.
Then, he felt it. A bend in stillness.
The air thickened. The temperature shifted. A subtle fracture formed in his perception.
And suddenly—
His chamber was no longer a simple circular room. It had warped into a four-dimensional lattice, endlessly folding and unfolding. Every breath distorted the edges. Every thought carved micro-tears in time.
The Parallax Sight had awakened.
His Pulse was not physical—it was perceptual.
He felt time like tension in a thread. He saw gravity as lines pulling from the corners of the room. He heard folds in space, like distant echoes from a dimension just beyond sight.
He looked down at his Mark—the tesseract—and it pulsed gently, geometric ripples sliding across his forearm.
While Sayan drifted through warped dimensions, Zavian remained in stillness.
There was no sound. No heartbeat. Not even breath.
Then—a low echo.
He opened his eyes. The room hadn't changed, but everything glowed faintly. Invisible lines crisscrossed the space. Logic hung in the air like light suspended mid-thought.
When he looked at the door, he saw everything—its design, flaws, the way it opened. Ideas flickered before him in symbols, as if thoughts could be seen.
Then, a rhythm formed in his mind.
"You are not thinking.
You are stepping through thought."
The Cognivault had ignited.
Zavian now navigated cognition. He saw thought structures forming before they were spoken. He sensed contradictions like fractures in glass.
His Mark pulsed—glowing in silver-blue, vibrating softly, echoing not just his thoughts, but the thoughts of others in the distance.
Neither of them slept.
Each sat quietly in their chamber, awaiting what came next.
For the first few hours of the third day, nothing happened. The initiates waited. Some meditated. Others paced.
But the worthy—those who had passed the first two stages—began to feel something stir.
A pulse beneath the skin.
Like a second heartbeat.
Not of blood—but of Flow.
Sayan felt it first.
The walls shifted. Gravity flickered. He walked toward a wall and felt like he was approaching another. Time stuttered, not visually but rhythmically.
His vision blurred with geometry. His gestures left ripple-trails in the air.
He didn't understand it fully, but he knew:
"The world is not as still as it seems."
Meanwhile, Zavian's mind sprinted.
He felt emotions pass through him like wind in tall grass. His breath synchronized with a deeper rhythm.
He could hear the memories of the room—intended actions, discarded thoughts.
"Thoughts are not confined to the skull," he realized.
By evening, the third day ended in eerie silence.
Not a single initiate slept.
Because they could all feel it.