The Awakening

The Awakening is the process where by many wizards, bards, and mages gain their ability to manipulate the forces of magic. This is different from how other practitioners of the arcane arts gain their power. Sorcerers are born with a tie to magic conveyed from an ancestor or other event while warlocks and witches gain power from contracts with eldritch powers. Clerics and paladins from their devotion and oaths, and wardens or druids from their connection to powerful ley lines.
The awakening is handled differently in different traditions, but they use one of the three awakening humours. Each has differing properties and side effects. Intrac Jelly is the most reliable, understood and manageable. The other two are known as Archmage Elixir and Iridescence. The archmage elixir is crafted by a skilled mage, but it is an art and not a science, leading to more peculiar and diverse outcomes. Iridescence is a strange liquid found on the astral or outer planes, and most often trafficked in the more obscure realms. It is surprisingly safe to imbibe compared to the others, but has reliable side effects that are most often undesirable.

Traditions

Many traditions will try to maximize the usage of these rare liquids. Some will try to find those that are most likely to handle to process well. Others will dilute the liquids to try to awaken as many apprentices as possible, relying on other methods to expand the magical capacity. 
The hermetics will have one practitioner take on up to three apprentices and dose them incrementally over the course of several years. This early apprenticeship appears to most as a form of indentured servitude where the apprentice handles mundane tasks and manual labor.
The ascetics go a step further where the awakening is an elaborate ritual in an amphitheater after a period of long labor to harden the body for the full dose to be applied at once.
The experiencialists feel that luck or divine providence should mark who should have magic. They usually have lavish parties with a weak humour distributed in food and drink to see who reacts well.