Today, every child in this city turned ten.
The dawn air was still cold, but the children, following the appointed order, gazed at the light upon the altar.
From that moment, an invisible scale of fate settled quietly upon each pair of young shoulders.
According to the oath sworn today, the scale's weight would tilt slowly to one side and decide the whole of a child's life.
On this day the children formed contracts with the Beasts that would be with them for life, and that single contract determined their future station, their rights, and even the share of danger they would have to bear.
When the ceremony ended, some would carry a blessing, and some a curse.
Footsteps seeped into the stillness of the temple.
Before anyone noticed, the Master presiding over the ceremony stood before the altar.
As the temple's holy light fell upon his powerful frame as though carving it, his presence pressed in all the more overwhelmingly.
The Beast that kept watch at his side was one that had grown all the way to stage 2 of the Silver grade.
Beasts grew through ten stages - Iron - Bronze 1 - Bronze 2 - Silver 1 - Silver 2 - Silver 3 - Gold 1 - Gold 2 - Gold 3 - Platinum - and even reaching Silver was a feat permitted to only a few.
The soft radiance pouring from the Beast's body proved its high standing.
When the Master struck the floor with his staff, a majestic sound echoed through the hall of the ancient temple.
"The ceremony of the tenth year begins now. The Beasts will draw out the mana that gathers like a toxin in your young bodies, and they will save you."
His voice carried the weight of a tradition that could not be defied.
"Bear this in mind. The grade of the Beast you contract defines your fate. Iron will be slaves, Bronze commoners, Silver the upper class."
He did not so much as speak the grades above those aloud.
As though they did not merit the daring of mention.
The Gold grade.
In the entire city, only five families possessed a Gold-grade Beast.
And the one absolute being among all living humans who commanded a stage 10 Platinum Beast, a thing held to be mere legend, he was the King who ruled this country.
***
When a red egg was set upon the altar, confidence filled the face of the boy standing at the center of the circle, 'Ron Blackfire.' Cracks began to spread across the egg, and before long it spat out a dazzling light.
"Crimson Salamander!"
At the Ceremony Master's cry, the red egg burst open splendidly into flame.
Out of the blazing fire emerged a crimson creature whose scales glowed like living embers.
The whispers of admiration soon turned into cheers, for the small salamander opened its mouth and spat out a perfect sphere of fire that danced above Ron's outstretched palm.
Of course, the Crimson Salamander was an Iron-grade Beast, the lowest grade of all.
But its potential was boundless.
With a proper training method it could clear Bronze with ease and even set its sights on the Silver grade.
For an ordinary student it was like a key that would open the comfortable life of the privileged.
The smile hanging at Ron's lips was arrogant, as though he had already tasted an upper-class future.
With his family's secret training method, handed down through the generations, added to it, his salamander would without doubt reach the Silver grade and guarantee him a comfortable life.
"Next!" the Ceremony Master called.
In that instant, Ren's heart seemed to drop to the floor.
It was his turn.
At the sight of the gray egg on the stone altar, Ren's mouth went bone-dry, and a terror that tasted like blood clamped around his heart.
The dozens of eggs held in the hands of the children around him glowed blue, green, or red, each whispering of a better future.
Most were eggs from which Beasts of at least the Bronze grade would be born.
From a few costly eggs were born Beasts with the potential to evolve all the way to Silver stage 3.
Only his own egg was ash-gray, as though every hope in it had gone out.
This was the egg his parents had barely managed to obtain by selling the last of the family's possessions.
In Ren's trembling hands the ash-gray egg barely pulsed.
It was a beat so faint that he could feel it only by holding his breath, as though it might stop at any moment.
With the congratulations and cheers for Ron still ringing through the temple, Ren stepped up to the altar.
Perhaps because it came right after the Crimson Salamander's splendid entrance, his ash-gray egg looked all the more wretched.
'There's still hope.'
Ren went back over the possibilities as though coaxing a dying ember back to life.
A 5% chance.
With luck, a Marsh Frog might be born.
It was not as showy as a salamander, but with a proper training method it could be raised to an adult of stage 2, the highest of the Bronze grade.
But he had already resigned himself.
With a 95% chance, he would get a Common Plant.
'Even so, that's all right.'
The Common Plant was an Iron-grade Beast that, raised properly, could grow to the lowest of the Bronze grade.
There were rare cases where, through a secret training method, its growth had been restrained and it had been pushed up to Bronze stage 2.
It was not an easy road.
To buy a secret training method he would have to pour in every coin he earned, and he would have to work twice as hard as anyone else.
Still, at the very least, he could make an honest living.
A life in which he could repay his parents even a little.
That alone was enough.
But the problem was that this 'failure's egg' had a third option.
The real reason people called it that.
It was because of the 'Spore,' born at a 0.01% chance.
The weakest Beast on record.
A thing so feeble it could not even grow, never reaching even the average Iron grade.
If 0.01% in any other egg was a symbol of fortune, meaning the potential of Silver or Gold class, then 0.01% in this egg was a symbol of hell.
In a world where strength was everything, it was as good as a death sentence.
"Look at that! It's the failure's egg!"
Klein Goldcrest's jeer cut the air like a whip.
"I guarantee it, if even a single frog comes out of there, it'll be a miracle?!"
The children burst into mean laughter all at once.
Ren did not take his eyes off the egg.
He had no intention of satisfying them by letting them see him shaken.
"Silence!"
The Ceremony Master's voice rang out beneath the ancient stone arches.
"Remember this. This is the most sacred moment of your lives. The moment you are reborn from mere children into Tamers."
Ren closed his eyes and forced himself to turn away from the open pity and the undisguised sneers.
His ash-gray egg sat on the altar like a mockery from fate itself.
Beneath his trembling fingertips he could just barely feel the faint pulse.
The son of the Partinder family.
The boy with the ash-gray egg.
At last the first sunlight of morning pierced the temple's stained glass and fell upon his egg.
......How good it would have been, if that were what he could say?
The egg only gave off a faint glow.
The light was so weak that some of the children had to narrow their eyes before they could confirm it was light at all.
'Please...... anything but a Spore.'
He prayed desperately.
A crack ran through the egg.
But no flame and no light leaked from the fissure.
It did not burst open splendidly like Ron's egg, nor did it open into dazzling petals like the others.
There was only a crack.
A wretched, dry sound, like a dead branch snapping.
And what seeped out of the gap was a small cloud of gray spores.
Before it had even taken shape, jeering laughter broke out on every side.
A Spore.
The weakest existence in the history of Beast Tamers.
A failed product that in the end could not grow and could not even reach the upper Iron grade, it was also known by the slur 'Weakest Beast.'
"Silence!" the Ceremony Master barked, but even his voice carried a trace of mockery.
"Ren Partinder, stretch out your hand and accept your companion. It will absorb the mana eating away at your body and heal you."
The Spore drifted slowly up over his hand.
It had no weight and no warmth.
It was a lump floating there in ash-gray meaninglessness, with no bond to be felt at all.
"0.01%......."
Someone's murmur in the crowd spread like a wave.
"He actually drew the 0.01%!"
Ren held his head straight.
His steps were heavy as he came down from the altar.
His parents had given everything for this moment.
They had worked day and night and staked everything on their son's future.
That was why he could not cry.
Not here, of all places, and least of all before those mocking eyes.
***
The bond of the contract barely lit his wrist with a faint glow.
The power the Beast granted him was a mere 10% increase in physical strength.
For scrawny Ren, that amounted to the strength to carry one more small water pail, the ability to last a few more minutes in the fields.
The other children, by contrast, gained elemental control, explosive agility or endurance, even healing abilities.
From the most common to the rarest, it was law that every Beast granted power to the Tamer who contracted it.
Ron let out a satisfied groan.
Crimson scales sprouted along his forearms, and his nails turned into red claws that scraped the stone floor.
His canines lengthened, and golden flames burned in his eyes.
His salamander raised his brute strength by a full 40% along with the authority to wield fire, and it lifted his endurance, agility, and reflexes by 20% each.
These figures would stack with every evolution.
On the day the salamander rose to Silver stage 2, Ron would hold three times the strength of an ordinary man, double the physical ability, and the power to command flame itself.
Compared to that, even the Common Plant Ren had dreamed of was pitiful.
It raised vitality by 20% and all physical abilities by 10%, no more.
Of course, even that was enough to live an ordinary life.
But a Spore.......
"Pathetic."
The voice that burst from the crowd was full of the contempt of someone looking down at an insect.
"The only Beast without even a basic ability. A mere 10% improvement to physical ability, and that is all!"
Bound by the rules, Ren stood in place.
As the ceremony went on and each new summoning appeared, his failure was branded into him more vividly.
A Wind Eagle that honed its master's reflexes to a sharp edge, an Earth Bear that doubled physical resistance, a Mystic Fox that flung open perception and the senses.
And then the last summoner stepped up to the altar.
Luna Starweaver.
Blue hair spilled over her shoulders like a waterfall.
What she set on the pedestal was a black egg, the most expensive and called the finest of all.
The moment they saw it, the whole temple held its breath.
CRACK—
The crack that spread across the egg was like lightning splitting the night sky.
What revealed itself through the gap was a Shadow Wolf.
Ancient mystery flashed in the wolf's elegant eyes.
In that instant, the aura wrapped around Luna blazed dazzlingly.
Doubled speed, senses honed to a keen edge, and even a talent for wielding various elemental magics.
With that being at her side, growth of 500%, no, 1000%, was not impossible.
"A Beast with the potential to evolve all the way to the Gold grade!"
The Ceremony Master's voice trembled with excitement.
"Remarkable! Even from a black egg, the finest egg of all, this is a Beast born at less than a 1% chance!"
Ren watched the wolf bow its head before Luna.
It was the moment a contract of fate was sealed, one that could raise her to the very top of the city.