Chapter 86: Mortal Danger
Darian had read a bit in the library about the powers of Spiritual Guardians. A blessing could be used in a bunch of different ways, depending on the user. The amount of energy, its density, and elemental affinity basically determined your future.
Of course, in the case of the High Humans from the New Arcadia Empire, affinity changed after going through the Array. But at the beginning, back in that other universe, everyone picked their blessing without knowing about that hidden factor.
As for the spiritual root, pretty much everyone had an ordinary one... only those who went through an ancestral awakening were different. According to Rhea, someone with that kind of root had absolute potential, since they already had the foundation of a full blessing inside them.
In that other universe, people like that could pick an existing blessing and easily reach insanely high levels of power with it — even with just one ring. Or they could try creating a blessing from scratch... which was basically suicide, since they'd develop it way too fast.
That's why his brothers didn't even need to do that regular test like everyone else. They could go straight to Celestia Academy, but by rule, they had to be taken at the same time as the others.
Darian, though, clearly fit the same criteria — but he'd been recruited as if he'd had a regular awakening. Which meant something really strange had happened to him.
That only made one thing clearer in his mind: He couldn't go around revealing his power.
What if the Empire decided they wanted to study him and use him?
His black power already looked kinda like the Risen's. And the white one was pretty much a cheat-level healing ability. The stronger he got, the scarier it would become.
And what if they tried to control him just to use his abilities? What could he even do to escape?
All the answers were simple: Nothing.