The blinding, chaotic strobe light of the magic terminal was still burned into everyone’s retinas.
Just a fraction of a second ago when Kaelen’s hands had made physical contact with the smooth stone, the entire system had instantaneously gone haywire.
It hadn’t just measured his rank; it had bridged them all—snapping from Blue to Green, surging through Brown, exploding into Red, and igniting into S-Rank Yellow at a blinding, high-velocity pace before forcing its way into an undocumented, forbidden color.
A deep, abyssal, Phantom Purple.
The terrifying hue of absolute void energy.
Then, the true meltdown began.
CRACK!
A massive fissure split the orb down the center, a harsh static hiss echoing through the chamber.
Before anyone could even process the data, the entire magic globe shattered into a million tiny crystal pieces, raining down around the pillar in a glittering cascade.
The room plunged into an absolute, jaw-dropping silence.
The playful atmosphere from moments before vanished instantly, leaving everyone in total awe.
“What…
what just happened?” Karen whispered, her hands flying to her mouth, her eyes wide with genuine terror.
Lisa’s voice shook slightly, her analytical mind struggling to compute the visual anomaly.
“All five…
no, six colors…
they were all glowing at the exact same time.
The magical frequency didn’t stabilize; it collapsed under pure weight.”
Flair stood frozen, her fingers slipping as her clipboard dropped slightly, rattling against her side.
The teasing smirk was entirely gone from her face.
“I have never seen this before in my entire career…
a sixth color?
What does that even mean?
The terminal’s internal runes completely burnt out…”
On Karen’s shoulder, Pixel’s ears perked up, her posture turning unusually rigid.
Sensing the escalating panic, she unleashed a deep, serious telepathic broadcast straight into Karen and Lisa’s minds.
“Master Kaelen isn’t just an ordinary person.
He is special.
His system is filled with an overwhelming, ancient void energy—a power so dense and heavy that it completely eclipses any standard S-rank metric.
He is simply so strong that the magic globe’s structural integrity failed to measure his power; his power is just too overwhelming for a low-tier terminal to handle.”
Karen and Lisa slowly turned their heads, looking at each other in absolute astonishment, the sheer weight of Pixel’s revelation hanging heavily between them.
They looked back at Kaelen, their expressions a mix of reverence and shock.
“Wow…
this is interesting.
He’s totally the—”
“Hey, Flair,” Kaelen interrupted loudly, his voice cutting off Lisa before she could launch into any cheesy, dramatic “awaited hero” prophecy stuff.
He cleared his throat, crossing his arms and trying to salvage his dented ego with a confident smirk.
“I think your globe just broke.
It must be old or something.
Or…
you know, maybe it just couldn’t contain my incredibly huge, master-class mana reserves.
Quality control around here is a bit lacking, wouldn’t you say?”
Lisa’s dead-eyed, unblinking stare immediately shattered his bragging protocol.
“We both know you have a total mana metric of zero, Kae.”
Ouch.
Kaelen’s shoulders slumped instantly, his grand posture deflating.
“You didn’t have to be so mean about it, Lisa.
Can’t a guy just have one single minute of absolute glory without a technical audit?”
While they bickered, Flair remained completely quiet.
The silence from the usually boisterous receptionist was deafening.
Her gaze was fixed entirely on the shattered crystal shards littering the stone floor.
Deep within her mind, her internal monologue was processing the data in a slow, calculated tone.
This is strange…
the globe changing to all colors simultaneously…
forcing a completely undocumented sixth color…
let alone shattering into pieces.
There is something incredibly strange about this boy.
A zero-mana reading shouldn’t cause a structural feedback loop like that.
It’s almost like…
he’s a complete anomaly.
She stared intently at one of the larger shards, the memory of that terrifying hue burning behind her eyelids.
That color…
it reminded me of something buried deep within the forbidden archives of the High Academy.
The void energy.
A primordial, absolute force that doesn’t just register on magic terminals—it completely consumes them.
But that’s impossible.
Void energy has been dead, completely wiped from existence ever since the fall and death of the ancient Wraith King centuries ago.
Could Kaelen possibly be related to him somehow?
She blinked, shifting her gaze back up to the boy who was currently whining to Lisa.
She watched him pull at his hood, pouting over his ruined moment of glory.
No…
I highly doubt it.
He looks far too ordinary, far too clumsy to carry the weight of a legendary, world-ending bloodline.
And yet, the data doesn’t lie.
A standard terminal doesn’t just detonate into a million pieces from a zero-mana reading.
A chill ran down her spine as the sheer weight of what she had just witnessed finally settled in her chest.
The playful, casual facade she maintained for the rookies felt incredibly fragile right now.
I have to let the Guild Master know of this phenomenon the exact second she returns from the Capitol.
If what I think just happened is true, Kaelen’s presence here isn’t just an administrative quirk.
It’s a total wildcard that could disrupt the entire balance of the regional tiers.
And if it really is true…
if he actually possesses that kind of insurmountable strength beneath that zero-mana facade…
A slow, uncharacteristic thrill rippled through her anxiety, making her heart pace a little faster.
Then our guild didn’t just register a random bunch of rookies today.
We just stumbled headfirst into a very rare drop.
These new recruits might honestly be something else entirely.
Shaking off her serious thoughts, Flair rapidly forced her bright, joking persona back online to break the suffocating tension in the room.
She threw her head back and let out a loud, boisterous laugh, waving her hands dismissively.
“Well, that’s certainly strange, but no worries!” Flair laughed, her voice echoing off the high ceiling.
“We’ve got another spare magic ball locked away in our inventory.
I’ll just speak to the Master when she returns to get us a replacement.
This old one must have just grown brittle over time and finally shattered after measuring Karen’s massive, high-tier mana payload!
Her power was just too much for it to handle!”
She turned her attention fully back to Kaelen, her eyes gleaming with renewed mischief as she seized the perfect opportunity to double down on her favorite target.
“I mean, let’s be real,” Flair smirked, leaning forward and placing her hands on her hips.
“The machine probably just short-circuited trying to find anything inside you.
It went searching for a mana pool, realized it was an absolute desert, and literally blew up out of pure confusion!
You broke our equipment with your sheer lack of magical value, Mr.
Kaelen!
That has got to be a new guild record for E-ranks.”
Kaelen winced, his hand flying to his chest as if struck by a physical arrow.
“Ouch…” he muttered, his face twisting into a scowl since that specific, high-velocity insult aimed straight at his lack of magical metrics cut right through his defenses.
“Anyway, let’s go take your official ID photos in the studio below,” Flair countered, completely shattering the lingering tension as she shooed them back down the grand staircase and down into a dimly lit, subterranean room that smelled strongly of ozone and aged parchment.
“Wait, where exactly are we going?” Kaelen asked, his tone shifting into a sharp, structural audit as he tried to regain his executive footing.
“Where are you taking us this time, Flair?”
Flair completely ignored him.
She marched forward with a high-velocity stride, humming a cheerful tune to herself and pretending as if she hadn’t heard a single word that had just come out of his mouth.
Karen nervously fidgeted with the edge of her cloak, stepping closer to Kaelen’s side.
“I’m…
I’m starting to get really nervous,” she whispered softly, her eyes darting around the shadows of the subterranean corridor.
Before Kaelen could even open his mouth to offer a reassuring, high-status architectural response, Flair suddenly whipped her head around with a bright, comforting grin.
“No need to worry, Karen my dear!” Flair chirped warmly.
“We’re totally going to the studio to take the official photos for your adventurer IDs!”
Kaelen’s jaw literally dropped.
“What?” he muttered to himself, his voice dropping into a small, deeply irritated whisper as he fell back a step.
I asked her first and she acted all silent as if she didn’t hear a single word.
But the moment Karen whispers—she wasn’t even speaking to her directly—she replies instantly.
“Hmm, totally uncool,” Kaelen grumbled, a dark scowl crossing his face as he aggressively tucked his hands deep into his jacket pockets in pure anger, thoroughly annoyed by the blatant administrative bias.
Sitting behind a massive, old-fashioned magical camera—a wooden contraption bristling with glowing brass gears and a massive glass lens—was a grumpy but gentle old man with a thick, untamed beard that reached his chest.
Kaelen leaned slightly toward Karen, keeping his eyes locked on the contraption as he let out a low whisper.
“Psssst.
Who’s this old dude?
Karen shifted uncomfortably, shaking in nervousness as she whispered back, “I—I don’t know…”
Kaelen let out a quiet, amused chuckle, his executive profile relaxing just a fraction.
“Nah, he doesn’t look like he’s got it in him.
He looks more like a janitor than a camera guy.”
Karen glanced at the old man’s odd choice of attire, a sudden spark of humor cutting through her anxiety.
“The way he’s dressed like a toddler…” she whispered back, suppressing a giggle.
“His beard and outfit make him look like an old, big baby in suspenders, or even an infant leprechaun with a camera.”
Amused by Karen’s roast, Kaelen’s volume completely spiked.
He completely forgot to modulate his audio metrics and spoke right out loud: “An old big baby in suspenders or baby leprechaun with a camera!”
“Master,” Pixel’s telepathic voice suddenly drifted into his mind, dry and entirely unbothered.
“I believe you spoke that out loud.
If my baseline definitions are correct, I believe the right word for this situation is…
you’re toasted.”
Kaelen’s eyes snapped wide open.
The subterranean room had gone dead silent.
He slowly looked ahead and saw that the old dude was staring at him with an icy-cold, razor-sharp look that could have pierced through steel armor.
Kaelen instantly turned a light shade of pink.
He let out a forced, highly awkward cough, rapidly adjusting his cloak and standing back up into a rigid, high-status posture to try and mask his absolute embarrassment.
“Name’s Helios,” he grunted, not even looking up as he aggressively twisted a dial on the lens.
Karen stepped forward slightly, her fingers twitching with anxiety.
“Are you…
are you the camera guy who’s going to take our photos?” she asked softly.
The only reply she received at first was a sudden, icy-cold look.
Old Man Helios stopped twisting the dial and shot a barrage of daggers straight toward the group that clearly translated to: Do you see any other person down here, dork?
Fearing she had offended him, Karen quickly bowed her head, her voice trembling.
“I—I mean, excuse me, Sir Helios…
are you the camera guy?”
“Don’t blink.
Don’t breathe too loud.
And don’t touch the backdrop.” His eyes finally drifted over to Karen, and his hard, wrinkled face softened slightly.
“Yes, dear.
Indeed I am the camera guy.”
Behind them, Kaelen’s jaw twitched as he fell back a step, murmuring in a deeply annoyed, high-velocity whisper.
“What?
Why is everyone being so nice to Karen but completely freezing me out?”
“Because in that outfit, you look like a rogue mercenary or a bandit on the run,” Lisa noted deadpan, leveling a sharp, unblinking glare at his dark cloak.
CRACK.
Kaelen winced, clutching his chest as an imaginary arrow drove straight through his executive dignity.
“Ouch…
a direct hit…”
“Also because you’re like a broken radio ,you never shut up,” Flair chimed in instantly from the side, flashing a highly amused, triumphant smirk.
BOOM.
Kaelen stumbled backward, his face flushing crimson as a secondary tactical strike detonated his composure.
“Hey!
That is highly uncalled for administrative slander!”
“And also, you’re your face looks so fierce like you eat kittens for lunch,” Pixel’s telepathic voice drifted lazily into his mind, completely unbothered as she delivered the final blow.
KABOOM.
Kaelen’s profile completely shattered into monochrome despair.
He felt entirely ambushed, receiving a triple-threat combo of direct hits straight to the heart from his own squad, the receptionist, and his own familiar.
He sank low, clutching his head in absolute, breathless defeat.
Ignoring the boy’s psychological collapse, Old Man Helios aggressively tapped the side of his wooden contraption.
“I’ll take you one at a time.
The pretty young elf lady will go first.”
Karen’s face instantly turned a light, brilliant shade of red after being complimented, her hands flying to her burning cheeks.
“Step up first, dear.
Let’s get this over with.” Helios said in a soft voice
Kaelen slowly revived from his despair, narrowing his eyes as he watched Karen take her position.
He leaned toward Flair, muttering a tense, highly defensive question.
“Do you know why he called her first?
What’s the strategic metrics behind that baseline choice?”
Flair instantly seized the golden opportunity to completely shatter the boy’s remaining sanity and roast him into oblivion.
She leaned forward, her eyes gleaming with absolute, malicious joy.