The special treatment.
This was what Noah was supposed to receive, and the grand visage of Dame Seraphine locked onto him as she spoke.
"Step forward."
Noah raised his brows but followed, his steps light. He patted Seo-yeon's head and communicated for her to wait, and she settled, watching with inquisitive eyes as he moved toward the Mesozoic Scale being holding the radiant obsidian sword.
He was genuinely interested in her, more interested than the ceremony itself warranted, because beings of higher Scales were the ones he most enjoyed studying. Peeling away the secrets of something that operated above his current tier was the kind of thing that taught him where his own ceiling actually was, and he had never met a ceiling he did not eventually want to break.
He arrived before her. She looked at him calmly. He looked back at her just as coolly, two beings taking each other's measure across the gap of a full Scale.
