Consciousness returned like surfacing from deep water, and the first thing I noticed was the absolute chaos surrounding me.
Only ten seconds? It felt like I was in that garden for hours. Time dilation during awakening... that's some serious Jojo's Bizarre Adventure shit right there.
The seven crystals were pulsing so violently they looked like they might shatter, casting rainbow lights across the grand hall. The starlight ritual circles were glowing so brightly they hurt to look at directly, and I could hear what sounded like distant thunder emanating from... me.
But something was fundamentally different about my vision. Everything looked sharper, more detailed, like someone had just upgraded my eyes from 480p to 8K HDR. Colors were more vivid, and I could see things that definitely shouldn't have been visible even from the previous enhancement in vision before the awakening.
Holy shit. These aren't just enhanced eyes, these are straight-up Byakugan-level magical sight.
Through my new vision, I could see magical auras around everyone like colored flames. My mother's now silver-dark aura flickered with worry and barely controlled desire. Cassandra's burned red-orange with fire magic and something that looked suspiciously like lust. Lyanna's ice-blue aura was shot through with cracks of purple that screamed arousal. Anna's gentle yellow glow was completely overwhelmed by waves of pink desire energy.
But more shocking than their auras was what I could see beneath their clothes more and more. Every. Single. Detail.
My mother's mature curves were completely visible through her duchess robes, the way her breathing made her chest rise and fall, the fact that she was wearing surprisingly delicate undergarments. Cassandra's emerald gown might as well have been transparent... I could see the exact shape of her full breasts, the way her nipples had hardened, even the color of her skin beneath the fabric.
This is like having X-ray vision but specifically designed by the most perverted manga artist ever.
Anna's maid outfit revealed her nervous fidgeting, the way her corset pushed up her breasts, and the fact that she kept unconsciously pressing her thighs together. Lyanna's ice-blue dress showed off her lean but distinctly feminine figure, and the small tremors running through her body that suggested she was fighting very hard against whatever I was doing to her.
And then there was Magister Celestine.
Even with these divine-level eyes, her liquid-night robes still managed to be both revealing and concealing simultaneously. But unlike the others, I could see everything with perfect clarity. The way the fabric moved against her unrestrained breasts, the exact curve of her hips, the fact that she truly wore nothing beneath those robes.
Holy fuck.
The combination of seeing every intimate detail of the most beautiful women I'd ever encountered, while they all radiated desire and arousal that I could literally see in their auras, had an immediate and very noticeable effect. My body responded with the enthusiasm of a seventeen-year-old who'd just been handed the ultimate voyeur fantasy.
Shit, shit, shit. This is not the time to get a raging hard-on in front of my family and someone centuries old.
[Divine Sight can be toggled on/off at will. Recommend disabling enhanced perception during social interactions to avoid... complications.]
NOW you tell me? Where was this helpful advice thirty seconds ago before I embarrassed myself?
[Apologies. System assumed user would prefer unrestricted access to enhanced capabilities.]
I quickly tried to adjust my position to hide the obvious tent in my robes, but Magister Celestine's sharp eyes had already noticed. Her twilight gaze flicked down briefly, then back to my face with what might have been amusement.
Great. She definitely saw that. This is like getting caught staring at your teacher's cleavage, except the teacher could probably kill me with a thought.
Through my enhanced sight, I could also see something else. Weaknesses. Tiny flaws in everyone's magical defenses, stress points in their auras where the right pressure could shatter their composure entirely. It's like having a strategy guide that shows all the weak points in a boss fight.
"Marcus!" My mother rushed forward, and my enhanced vision tracked every movement of her body beneath those flowing robes. "Thank the gods you're awake. The readings were... unprecedented."
Unprecedented. Yeah, I bet having someone awaken abilities that supposedly don't exist would register as 'unprecedented.'
"How unprecedented exactly?" I asked, though part of me was distracted by the stress fractures I could see in her magical defenses - tiny cracks that suggested she was fighting very hard not to touch me inappropriately.
Magister Celestine stepped forward, her twilight eyes studying me with new intensity. Even through her composed exterior, I could see she was genuinely shaken by whatever my awakening had produced.
"Young Marcus," she said, her voice carrying undertones of awe and concern, "your awakening has registered on magical detection arrays across the entire continent. Six different empires are probably dispatching investigators as we speak."
Six empires? Well, that's not ominous at all. Sounds like I just became the magical equivalent of a viral video.
"What exactly awakened?" Though given the system interface I saw earlier, I probably already know this is going to be completely broken.
She gestured, and magical text appeared in the air - not my system interface, but something far more ancient and formal:
[AWAKENING ANALYSIS - MARCUS VON RAVENCREST]
[Primary Magical Affinity: TIME MANIPULATION Classification: UNCLASSIFIABLE Notes: Thought extinct. No recorded awakenings in documented history.
Secondary Magical Affinity: LIFE MAGIC
Classification: UNCLASSIFIABLE Notes: Extremely rare. Less than 0.001% of population.
Special Manifestation: DIVINE SIGHT...
*Magical aura perception Weakness detection Illusion penetration Enhanced physical perception, Concealment negation.] Thank fuck it didn't mention i can see though their clothes.
[Magical Talent Rating: UNCLASSIFIABLE Recommendation: Immediate academy enrollment with specialized supervision!]
The silence that followed was deafening.
Unclassifiable. That's basically the magical equivalent of breaking the game's code.
"Unclassifiable?" Cassandra whispered, her emerald gown doing absolutely nothing to hide her body's reaction to my presence. "That's... that's not even a real classification."
"It is now," Magister Celestine said grimly. "The classification system was designed with certain assumptions about the limits of mortal magical potential. Those assumptions appear to have been... optimistic."
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