Chapter 14: S+ Awakening

“Students, line up by class and come here one by one to measure your magic aptitude! The banquet will begin after that.”

The teacher keeping order on stage was obviously the loli teacher, Miranda. Beside her hand was a round crystal ball, shimmering with a colorful black.

This banquet hall could not only hold an entire grade of new students, but seemed to have room for another grade as well.

Aelian and Karl wandered through the crowd and finally found their class, Class A.

He spotted Leon at once. The boy stood in the first row like a straight poplar.

Behind Leon was the Empire’s princess, Isabella. He didn’t see the elf princess or Mia.

“We’ll start with Class A. Everyone, keep your mouths shut and don’t sneak snacks during the test!”

Miranda’s words drew a burst of laughter from below. It was almost comical, hearing that old-fashioned warning from a teacher who looked like a little girl.

The first tester from Class A was Leon, standing in the first row. Almost no one noticed him when he walked up.

His washed-out gray-brown coat stood out among the richly dressed classmates. Even his steps onto the testing platform were too quiet.

He didn’t have the deliberate composure of noble heirs, nor the awkwardness of someone too nervous to walk straight.

Professor Miranda stood beside the crystal ball, a clipboard in hand, and casually glanced at the unremarkable boy. Honestly, she already had a good idea about most of Class A’s new students.

She kept a mental ledger: who came from prestigious families, who had outstanding talent, who needed special attention.

“Put your hand on it.” Miranda gestured gently.

Leon nodded and slowly placed his right hand on the fist-sized crystal ball.

Three seconds passed. The crystal ball showed no reaction.

Five seconds.

Then a faint light appeared inside the crystal ball, like a sleeping eye slowly opening. At first it was so weak it was almost unnoticeable.

But then it grew brighter at a visible speed. In an instant, light burst from the center of the crystal ball and lit up the entire stage.

Miranda almost dropped her clipboard.

“Magic affinity…” Her voice rose slightly in surprise as her eyes fixed on the runes appearing on the crystal ball’s surface. “S-rank!”

The hall erupted in an uproar.

“Magic affinity: S-rank. Earth element affinity: A+ rank! His magical aptitude is outstanding!”

A wave of surprised voices rose. Leon seemed so unremarkable; no one had expected him to have such high magical aptitude.

Miranda called out excitedly. Leon was in Class A, so she was naturally pleased by such excellent aptitude.

“This kid really has something. Our headmaster only has a single S-rank magic aptitude, you know? He’s actually on par with the headmaster! Teacher Miranda is only double A+.”

Aelian didn’t shift his gaze, still staring at the crystal ball. He nodded, which counted as a reply to Karl.

Seeing Aelian’s flat reaction, Karl lost interest in continuing the chatter.

In Aelian’s memory, Leon’s magic affinity was A-rank.

That was the Leon of the original work, the Hero Leon.

But now, his magic affinity had become S-rank.

Every year, there were always a few students with S-rank magic affinity or element affinity. That wasn’t rare. But if both were S-rank at the same time, that was one in ten thousand.

A tough character like that usually appeared only once every few years. Leon’s talent wasn’t especially extraordinary, but his strength was undoubtedly the fastest-growing in the original work.

Just as Aelian was pondering the reason for Leon’s changed aptitude, exclamations rose around him again.

It was probably the Empire’s princess, Isabella Rebel, going up for her test.

Magic affinity A+, fire element affinity S. Later known as the Flame Rose, a ruthless figure.

Was it because of the original plot’s correction force? Or some other reason?

Aelian was still thinking about Leon’s aptitude. The possibility of ‘original plot correction force’ seemed the most likely.

In the original work, Leon had the script of a commoner’s counterattack. His magic aptitude was limited to double A to reflect his hard work.

As the villain, he had obtained Netherforge early. In response, had the protagonist Leon’s magic aptitude been raised accordingly?

It made perfect sense!

But Aelian felt uneasy. If the plot correction force was this strong, didn’t that mean his downfall ending was still possible?

“Hey! Stop spacing out!”

Karl poked Aelian hard. He looked around and saw his classmates staring at him. It was his turn.

Aelian straightened up and walked up slowly.

Netherforge whispered something in his mind, but Aelian ignored it.

He glanced at Miranda. She smiled and nodded at him.

Aelian placed both hands on the crystal ball. The moment he did, a change occurred immediately!

The fist-sized crystal ball began to flicker again. Colors churned wildly inside it, like a spilled palette, or a storm trapped under glass. Every color seemed to scream to break out.

Miranda’s pupils shrank. The quill in her hand fell to the floor with a clatter.

“What… is this?”

Before the words faded, the chaotic colors seemed to be seized by an invisible hand at the throat. They struggled violently for a moment, then were rapidly compressed by some force into a single purple.

That purple was not the light purple of lavender or the deep purple of grapes. It was an almost unreal purple, so dazzling it was hard to look at directly.

The air around the testing platform began to tremble. Tiny magic particles burst into crackling specks of light in the air.

“Purple…” Miranda took half a step back, her voice trembling. “What element’s color is this? I’ve never seen it before…”

The students below were too shocked to speak. Some gaped, others couldn’t help looking at Aelian.

But all they saw was Aelian’s calm face.

But it was far from over.

The dazzling purple lasted less than two seconds before it began to deepen at a visible speed.

The purple grew thicker and heavier, like the reverse of ink spreading in water. All the light was collapsing toward the center, swallowed by an invisible black hole.

Purple became deep purple, deep purple became black-purple, black-purple became pure black without any impurity.

The darkness swallowed all incoming light. Everyone in the testing hall stared at the black orb, falling into a dead silence.

Miranda stared at the black crystal ball, the color draining from her face. She opened her mouth but found she didn’t know what to say. She had taught for nearly ten years and tested over a thousand students, but she had never seen anything like this.

Below the stage, Moso Link, who had been resting with his eyes closed in the back row of the judging panel, suddenly spoke.

“Magic affinity: S+. Dark element affinity: S+. In history, this is generally called over-limit aptitude. Boy, if you were any other race, your future would be immeasurable. Unfortunately, you are human.”

Aelian finally removed his hands from the crystal ball.

The moment his hands left, the black crystal ball seemed to have some seal lifted. The black light quickly faded, and it returned to being a transparent, quiet, harmless testing ball.

As if all the chaos, all the brilliance, all the darkness just now had been an illusion.

But everyone knew it was not an illusion.

Even double S-rank would be enough to set the entire empire abuzz.

“Really?” Another voice rose from the crowd, thick with doubt. “I’d rather believe Headmaster Moso’s eyesight failed him!”

“Are you crazy? The headmaster is a legendary mage. His magic perception is precise enough to count every trace of magic flowing through your body. Would he be wrong?”

“Then how do you explain S+? There has never been such a rating in history!”

“That’s why I’m saying… this kid’s talent is terrifying!”

Those words were like a fuse lit in the banquet hall. Discussion, exclamations, sharp intakes of breath all mixed together like a boiling pot of porridge.

Someone tugged desperately at a neighbor’s sleeve. “Did you hear that? S+! The headmaster himself said S+!”

Aelian, however, couldn’t help wiping cold sweat and questioned Little Nether in his mind:

‘Hey, hey, hey! Little Nether, you bastard! I didn’t tell you to move, so don’t move!’

‘How dare you talk to Lord Netherforge like that! Besides, I didn’t do anything!’

Aelian looked at Headmaster Moso Link. The man’s eyes were fixed on him as if looking at a dead man.

“S+,” he repeated, his tone surprisingly calm.

“It means beyond the measurement limit of S-rank. It’s not that there is no rating; it’s that our current testing methods cannot measure where his limit is, so we call it over-limit. Among the people I know, you are not the first.”

The headmaster didn’t stop. He walked up to Aelian and continued in a voice only the two of them could hear:

“The human body cannot withstand such high magic affinity. You don’t have long to live.”

Moso’s sharp eyes looked straight at Aelian, pronouncing his death sentence word by word.

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