1 Ch.1 Ritual

X769, Kingdom of Fiore, Unknown underground lab.

As Jax slowly woke up, he lifted his head with a tired face. He was now five years old, and he had been the victim of torture for as long as he knew. In the beginning, it wasn't awful as there were other children along with him. Of course, he didn't wish for them to be captured and tortured just like him. However, having some people to talk to while you were slowly healing from your injuries helped ease the pain.

The ones experimenting on them were researchers of a dark guild. Jax didn't precisely know what they were researching, but he knew that by using certain rituals, they were hoping to awaken the magic potential in ordinary people. All of the children who had been abducted and experimented on had never shown any signs of magical possibility. By going through the various rituals, they were hoping to find a way to awaken more mages.

As for a reason for their research? Jax had no idea. He only knew two things. First, it hurts a lot. The rituals were often through blood, and the dark mages made various markings on the victim's body. So, for each ceremony, they would bleed him to fuel the ritual's power, and they would cut him up to make various symbols on his body.

The first time he arrived in this underground lab, Jax couldn't even walk. Now that he had grown up, he knew that it had been at least three or even four years since they abducted him. The other children Jax met during those years were countless, and the ones who made it back after a ritual were minimal. He wasn't stupid. He knew that most of the children who went through the ceremonies never made it back alive, and he was merely lucky to be still breathing.

To this day, from the thousands of children who had been present in the past, merely ten of them survived. The ten of them knew each other but never saw one another due to the door and the walls, which blocked their vision. However, he knew one thing, their number was decreasing and decreasing fast.

Finally, two weeks later, as he was in a depressing mood, all alone in his cell with no one left to talk with, he heard the steps of one of the researchers. Considering he was the last one present in the cells, he knew that everyone else had already died. However, at this point, going through torture one day after another for who knows how long, already numbed Jax to the pain of loss and physical pain. He didn't feel anything at this point. In the last few rituals, he never screamed or moved under the knife of the various dark mages as he didn't feel anything anymore.

As the cage's door slowly opened under a screeching sound, a bald man covered with a dark robe and a staff in his hand entered the cell. He first used binding magic before slowly pulling him towards the ritual room.

It didn't take long as they arrived at the room three minutes later. At this point, Jax was bruised from all the bumps and was bleeding from the various sharp edges there was on the ground. As they entered the room, another mage appeared next to the bald one and got him up to tie him to a big flat stone. He knew that this was the ritual stone as he had been on it countless times. However, this time, he knew that this would be the final ritual because dried blood covered the ground, and he could hear the mages talk between themselves.

"Recently, mages of the Fairy Tail guild has appeared in the surroundings. They have been looking for us, and we can't get any more test subjects. After this last experiment, we will have to move the base. We don't have much time before they find us. So, let's get started. In ten minutes, we will be leaving this base." Said the mage with a white and red robe and a necklace made of small animals' skulls.

"Alright, we don't have much time. Let's get started." Said the other mages as they approached Jax and started to cut him to create the various marking necessary for it.

As Jax was bound to the stone plate, the mages started to rapidly make the various markings on his skin by cutting him out. The markings were deep enough just to be able to draw blood from him, which started to drip down onto the cleaned white ritual stone. As the blood dripped on the stone's grooves, it slowly started to light up with the help of the other mage's magical power.

Once they finished carving up the markings on his skin, they continued.

"Alright, it is time, carve his eyes out." The mage with the white and red robe said chillingly.

"Yes!" They answered as they reached out towards another instrument that Jax had never seen them utilize before.

As Jax heard the words, he immediately closed his eyes. He knew that even if he didn't feel any pain from the carving they did on his body, he wouldn't be able to handle it if they were to carve his eyes out. However, no matter what he could do, they would continue with their ritual. As such, they forced his eyes open before they inserted the instrument right under his eyeball and popped it out.

Under the cries of pain of Jax as he felt his eye pop out of its socket, he cried tears of blood as the mages who didn't care one bit about his pain continued with the ritual.

After taking his eyes out, they left them on each side of his head as they continued the carving. After what seemed like an eternity under this pain, they finally slashed a straight line from above the left eye in the middle of the forehead, which stopped right above the left cheek.

Once they completed the carvings, the mages circled the ritual stone and Jax, who was still bound on it and started chanting in a language he had never heard of before. As they were chanting, Jax's body began to glow in a white light, which seemed to have excited the mages as they continued their chant with even more enthusiasm.

Half a minute later, as they stopped chanting, a white cocoon had appeared all around Jax, and when they tried to come closer as they wanted to leave with Jax, who was the only successful test subject, they were repelled by the white light as the mage burned his hands upon trying to take him off the ritual stone.

Frowning, the leader of the mages had his subordinate prepare to move the entire stone. However, they weren't successful as two mages from Fairy Tail appeared at the entrance and started to attack them with weird purple fire magic and smoke magic.

As they entered the laboratory with great caution after having taken down the mages in the room, they saw a bright white light on a stone platform. They could see through the glow as they saw a young boy with silver hair with blood flowing from his body and two eyes on the side of his head bound to the platform.