Twelve Percent
“Do you have a lighter?” I asked the guard beside me.
He looked at me as if dumbfounded by my question. “Are you insane? We are at the Grand Assembly Hall’s doorstep! And you want to smoke here?”
“Blah blah, whatever. Just give me your fire spirit for a moment.”
The guard did not argue. Maybe he thought my banishment was enough fatigue for me, thus not forcing me to be respectful anymore. To be frank, they also hated the laws of the Family.
I put the family-emblemed cigar to my lips. The guard pointed his finger toward my face and summoned a lump of spark, shooting it onto the tip of my cigar.
“Damn it. Damn you elders,” I cursed.
I was waiting out by the South Portico, standing right under the veranda awning outside the grand assembly doors, waiting for the trial meeting to finally wrap up.
Inside the hall, there were twelve people debating on how to pass judgment on my failures: my father, who was the family head, alongside the two grand-elders and nine elders.
Even though I had been given two whole years longer than the rest, I still could not awaken my soul.
The deadline was fourteen. By then, every child in a Masterer family was supposed to push their insight far enough to break past the twenty percent barrier — the line between an ordinary human and something more.
Past it, your soul stopped being just a soul. It became a Soul Realm, and your body finally started producing Prana on its own.
I was almost sixteen. I hadn’t even cleared the barrier.
My father could have just let me be banished to live a normal life in the tenants’ quarters. But the elders were really contentious. Most of all, Uncle Rahul, who held the seat of a grand-elder, wanted to take over from my father.
For that, he had been scheming for years. Having most of the elders by his side, his faction had grown far too powerful.
“Who knows what you are scheming again, Rahul. I wish you could just die,” I sighed, letting out a slow plume of smoke.
I hated him.
Gritting my teeth, I crushed the cigar into pieces. The guards beside me acted as if they noticed nothing from the start.
“Do you have a bottle of vodk—”
“Step aside!” someone shouted from behind me.
Spinning around, I saw one of our family’s guards escorting two white-hooded figures. One of them was the master, and the other was the servant, I guessed.
Because the master’s robe was embroidered with their family’s emblem. While the servant’s figure could only be described as a ‘white-hooded’ figure.
“What was it... what was it...”
I muttered, and then it clicked — the white-and-gold thread at the collar. “Cheng. The Chengs.”
“Took you long enough,” the guard muttered, not quite under his breath.
“Sooner than your bald head to grow a single hair.” I smiled at them. “Why are the Chengs here? Do you know anything?”
“Maybe to recruit you into their family.” The other guard could not hold his laughter. “Sorry, sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Of course, they were making fun of me. And like always, I could do nothing but endure it — so I’d long since stopped trying to. Looking bored was the only move I had left that nobody could take away from me.
If I couldn’t win, I’d at least make sure none of them ever got the satisfaction of seeing it land.
Looking at the servant, I felt a kind of déjà vu. This dress, this posture, this hooded figure... I had seen him somewhere.
I needed to know who he was, or where I’d seen him.
After a nod from someone inside, the escorting guard took them inside the hall.
Just before the door could close, I threw a note of 1,000 Baowa at the guard who had helped me light my cigar. It was three days’ wage for him, easy, but I had nothing left to lose by spending it.
“Summon your eavesdropping spirit or whatever its name is.”
He looked at the note, then at me. “But, what if I get caught? They will surely find out whose spirit it is.”
“I take responsibility,” I said, and threw another note of 1,000 Baowa.
The guard smiled sheepishly and summoned a pair of spirits. One looked like a folded hand earcup, and the other like a donkey’s ear.
I threw the almost transparent donkey’s ear inside the room with all my might. Just after a breath, the door began to swing closed.
I quickly jammed my right foot forward, wedging it in the frame to keep it from shutting completely. It left only a tiny, narrow gap to look through—but it was enough.
I equipped the folded hand-like earcup over my left ear and began to listen. My smile slowly faded as I listened on.
***
“Your decision to keep your son here makes no sense,” an elder said, leaning forward.
“Have you forgotten the laws written by our ancestors, Asghar? Or do you truly believe being the family head grants you the privilege to ignore them whenever it suits you?”
My father sighed, looking at the door like he was already grieving something. “Even so, he’s still my one and only son.”
He requested of them. “Elders, please give him another chance. If he fails, I will strip his nobility and family name and banish him from ever returning to the Ahmed family.”
The hall went silent. I felt that silence in my chest, a held breath that wouldn’t let go.
By family law, if the head dies or resigns without naming a successor, his children inherit the seat. No one can take it from them. That law was the only reason I was still standing here at all.
“We have told you many times, Asghar,” said Rahul — my father’s cousin, and the one who’d arranged tonight.
“Every child in this family awakens before thirteen. Ruhan is fifteen and hasn’t even reached the threshold of Human Soul Mastery.”
Rahul paused, drawing a slow, deliberate breath. “However, to ensure our judgment is absolute, I have invited a special guest tonight. He will explain Ruhan’s condition, and then... we will decide.”
I’d guessed the guest would be some academy instructor who barely knew my face — I never went to class enough for anyone to know me well.
But to my surprise, one of the elders shouted, “Why did you invite the Chengs here, Rahul?”
I looked closely and saw the two white-hooded figures moving forward.
I heard their footsteps stopping right beside the ear I threw in. My heart was pumping hard. Maybe they had found out about my eavesdropping. I was just bluffing when I said that I would take responsibility.
The guard was a fool to believe it. Man, come on. I was here as a criminal on whom most of the elders were trying to force judgment, and you expect me to save you?
But by the Goddess’s grace, they did not find my donkey’s ear.
The master unhooded himself and said in a bored tone, “It’s my honor to be here at the Ahmed family’s meeting.”
But all of a sudden, murmurs ran through the hall. Maybe after seeing who the person was, they were shocked. I could not clearly see him myself, just a blur.
Then someone asked the master, “What do you have to tell us, Headmaster Russell?”
I went cold. The academy’s headmaster? Here. For me?
My father’s face went grim the instant he recognized him, just like me.
Rahul had played this dirtier than even I’d guessed. No one in the village could contradict Headmaster Russell Cheng.
My jaw tightened. You never once looked at me in five years. Now you show up to discuss my banishment.
Russell Cheng didn’t waste time. “Fifteen percent Soul Mastery is the minimum to be called human. Most children cross it by age ten, and break the twenty percent barrier — true awakening — by thirteen.”
He looked toward the doors, not unkindly. “Ruhan is fifteen. He is still at twelve.”
The room didn’t move. But my ears were ringing.
Did he just bury my whole future in one sentence? My eyes burned, and I hated that they did.
Did he find out that I’m secretly watching and listening?
“But,” he continued, “I studied his soul for a week. There is a curse on him — one suppressing his insight. A foreign curse. Not from any path used in this village.”
“Bluffing.” The word left my mouth. The guards turned to look at me, their faces practically asking what kind of shit I was talking about.
“You’re just bluffing. Trying to make this sound better than it is.”
I shook my head. I wasn’t going to let myself hope for something that wasn’t real.
I’m not cursed. I’m just — this is just what I am.
Some elders weren’t convinced. So my father asked him, “What evidence and explanation do you have?”
Russell Cheng waved his hand and the servant beside him went forward. Then, the servant kneeled down, lowering his head.
“I have been keeping an eye on Ruhan’s soul for the past few weeks, specifically sending my personal scout to monitor his condition. And here is the evidence.”
He held his hand out toward the servant. Suddenly, a green lump of light came out of him and landed on Russell Cheng’s hand. Then, he activated the spirit.
An illusory wall presented itself in the air, showing all the recordings the scout had done of Ruhan.
“As you can see...”
I went still. The training yard, half-hidden by the storehouse wall. The road outside the academy gates. The corner of the market, that one evening I’d stayed out too late to avoid going home.
Each time, a white hood, gone the moment I looked twice — and I’d told myself I was imagining it. The same hood. The same posture I’d felt that flicker of déjà vu over, not even an hour ago, standing right outside this hall.
The memory clicked into place all at once, and with it, a cold certainty that he was telling the truth. I had no words left to argue with.
Then he went on to explain the specific traits of the curse, breaking down exactly how it worked and what it would mean for my future if it remained unchecked.
Mainly, the curse was suppressing my insight and knowledge regarding the nature soul. Because a person’s Soul Mastery only rises when they gain more insight and knowledge, the curse trapped me in a loop: I couldn’t understand new knowledge because of the restriction, and because I couldn’t gain that insight, my Soul Mastery would never rise. It was something like that.
My father’s grim face cracked into something sharper. “Are you telling me someone — inside this family or out — cursed my son?” His voice dropped, low and dangerous. “I’ll kill them.”
“It’s nearly impossible for a spirit of that kind to exist here at all, my lord,” Russell Cheng said.
The elders’ shock rippled through the hall — gasps, murmured outrage, hands pressed to chests. I watched it happen and felt something curdle in my stomach. They’re good. I’ll give them that.
But underneath the disgust at their performance was something I hadn’t expected: relief. I’m not a failure. I was never a failure. Something did this to me.
A few elders’ voices softened toward sympathy — not his fault, we’ll find whoever did this and make them pay. I almost laughed through my tears.
Just stop. Please. I just want a normal life.
They debated another half hour before calling me in.
The door swung open before I could pull my foot back. A guard’s hand closed on my shoulder. “You’re being called in.”
I yanked the earcup off, shoved it into my pocket, and stepped inside before anyone could ask why my foot had been in the doorframe at all.
My father’s face hadn’t moved since the headmaster spoke. I’d seen that look only once before — the day my grandmother died.
“Ruhan Ahmed,” he said, and his voice was steady in the way voices get right before they break.
“This family raised you, fed you, gave you everything it had. You failed your first exam. But given your condition, the elders have agreed to bend an old law. I will carry the consequences myself.”
He paused. “It was Elder Gerd who reminded the council that no judgment — favorable or not — can be passed before an official result is read.”
“Whatever the outcome of your remaining exams, the law forbids your banishment before that day arrives. Even those who expect you to fail must wait for it in writing.”
Somewhere to my left, an elder was looking at the floor, his jaw tight and shoulders slumped like a man who had just fought a losing battle.
I recognized him. He was the only one who didn’t look at me with disgust; whatever defense he’d tried to offer for me in their private chambers had clearly been instantly crushed by Rahul and the others.
“You have two exams left — physical and Sentira.”
My stomach dropped. The physical trial was brutal enough, but the Sentira—the test where they forced your raw soul energy (Prana) to manifest outside the body through spirits—would be impossible with a blocked curse.
“Pass them, and you graduate, and you keep your place in this family. Fail, and you are banished, once the result day comes. And I will lose the only thing I have left—the seat I have held since I was twenty-one.”
“No—” I was on my feet before I knew it. “Why does he have to pay for my failure?”
“Because you are his only son,” Rahul said quietly, no longer performing anything. “He is breaking our oldest law for you. Be grateful, child. He is giving up everything he built, for you.”
I couldn’t look at him. When I finally forced my eyes up, the fierce family head was gone.
His posture was still rigid, but his jaw was clenched so hard the muscle twitched—a tiny, desperate effort to keep his face from breaking. He looked terrified.
“I’m sorry, Father,” I said, and the tears came before I could stop them.
He pulled me into his arms, and I felt how tightly he held on, like letting go meant losing me for good. “Don’t think about it too much,” he said into my hair. “Just do your best, Ruhan.”
I pulled back first. Wiped my face with the back of my hand before anyone else could see. Then I walked out, and the door closed on the only warmth left in that hall.
***
The guards walked me out all the way to the elders’ private exit, wearing the same expressions of disgust they always did around me. I hated all of it — and for the first time, hating it made me want something more than to just disappear.
These were the weakest guards the family had, barely past the twenty percent barrier, and even they could summon spirits, bend power I couldn’t touch. My hands curled into fists at my sides.
This is rigged, isn’t it, Elders. Whatever I do. You just want me gone.I thought about the guard who’d summoned that spirit for me — whether anyone had noticed it yet, whether he’d already been dragged off because of it. I didn’t have the nerve to look back and find out.
A voice cut through the corridor behind me. “Do you want to break the curse?”
I spun around. Headmaster Russell Cheng stood there, an old, weathered book held loosely in one hand, smiling like he already knew my answer.
“Do you want to get stronger? Do you want to make sure they never look at you like that again?”
He stepped closer.
“There is a way to lift the curse on you. The best way I know of.” His eyes held mine. “It may also be very dangerous.”
