The air in the Grand Vestibule of Skyreach Citadel thrummed with a predatory silence, thick and cloying like honeyed poison. Sunlight, fractured by the colossal stained-glass depictions of legendary Heroes and their divine Skills, painted shifting, judgmental patterns across the polished obsidian floor. Hundreds of fifteen-year-olds stood in rigid lines, their faces a mixture of desperate hope and gnawing terror. Today was the Day of Ascension, the sacred, unforgiving ritual where the Soul-Oracle would unveil the Skills woven into their nascent spirits by the tapestry of Fate.
Kael Virein stood amongst them, an island of unsettling calm in a sea of trembling anticipation. He was taller than most, his frame lean but with an underlying tension, like a perfectly balanced blade sheathed only by the thinnest leather. His hair was the color of midnight, straight and falling just past his jaw, framing a face that was too sharp, too still. His eyes, the grey of a winter storm cloud, observed everything with a detached clarity that bordered on unnerving. He felt the collective thrum of anxiety, the whispered prayers, the scent of nervous sweat and cheap ceremonial incense, yet it all seemed… distant. A play unfolding on a stage far removed from his own reality.
He was, by all accounts, a nobody. A commoner from the Ashwood district, a place where dreams went to die choked by soot and poverty. To be skill-less in this world was to be less than human, a burden, an error in the divine weave. And for fifteen years, Kael had shown no sign, no flicker of innate talent, no hint of the arcane energies that coursed through the veins of the gifted. He was the specter at their feast, the embodiment of their deepest fear.
The whispers followed him like his own shadow.
"Look, it's Virein. Still think he'll manifest anything?"
"A rock would have a better chance. He's cursed."
"My father said if I end up like him, he'll disown me."
Kael registered the words. They were data points, devoid of emotional sting. He had learned long ago that reacting was a waste of energy. Instead, he cataloged, observed, and occasionally, a quote would surface in his mind, unbidden, ancient. "The silence of a stone is not emptiness, but a universe held in reserve." He didn't know where these thoughts came from, these echoes of a voice that felt both intimately his and terrifyingly vast.
At the head of the Vestibule, upon a dais of veined marble, sat Elder Maeve, the current Soul-Oracle. Her face was a roadmap of wrinkles, her eyes milky with the Sight, yet they seemed to pierce through flesh and bone. Beside her, the Ascension Crystal pulsed with a soft, internal light, a multifaceted heart of pure mana. One by one, the youths were called. They would place their hand upon the Crystal, and it would blaze, projecting an arcane sigil above their heads – the symbol of their awakened Skill.
Cries of joy erupted for some. A boy from a minor noble house manifested 'Minor Pyrokinesis' – a respectable, if common, fire-based Skill. The sigil of a flickering flame appeared, and his family, watching from the gilded balconies, sighed in relief. A girl, daughter of a renowned Threadbinder, manifested 'Fatesparkle Weaving' – a lesser variant, but her mother wept with pride. Gasps of awe followed a youth who summoned the sigil for 'Ironhide Guard' – a powerful defensive ability.
Then came the disappointments. A pale, trembling girl received no sigil, only a dull, lifeless thud from the Crystal. The light within it seemed to recede, as if shying away. "Skill-less," Elder Maeve pronounced, her voice devoid of inflection, yet each syllable was a hammer blow. The girl crumpled, sobs wracking her small frame as guards led her away, her future a bleak canvas of scorn and servitude.
Kael watched, his expression unchanging. He felt no pity, no fear, only a strange, analytical curiosity. The system was efficient, in its own brutal way.
"Kael Virein of Ashwood!" The call, when it came, cut through the murmurs. A new wave of whispers, sharper this time, laced with derision and a touch of morbid anticipation, swept through the hall. Every eye fixed on him as he moved. His steps were measured, unhurried, each footfall on the obsidian making a soft, deliberate sound that seemed to echo louder than it should. He ignored the stares, the way nobles wrinkled their noses as he passed, the way commoners averted their gaze as if his lack of fortune was contagious.
He reached the dais, the air growing colder, or perhaps it was simply the absence of warmth in Elder Maeve's ancient gaze. He could feel the weight of hundreds of expectations – all of them predicting failure.
"Place your hand upon the Ascension Crystal, boy," Maeve instructed, her voice like rustling parchment.
Kael extended his hand. It was a commoner's hand, calloused from unremarkable labor, yet steady, without a tremor. As his palm made contact with the cool, smooth surface of the Crystal, he felt… nothing. No surge of power, no tingling warmth, no arcane awakening. Just the sensation of polished stone.
The Crystal, which had blazed with varying intensity for every other child, remained dim. A faint, almost apologetic glow emanated from its core, barely illuminating his hand. For a moment, absolute silence reigned. Then, a snicker broke it, followed by another, and then a wave of muted, scornful laughter rippled through the onlookers.
Elder Maeve leaned forward, her milky eyes narrowing, peering not at Kael, but at the air just above his head where a sigil should have blazed. Nothing. She frowned, a rare occurrence. "Again," she commanded, a hint of impatience in her tone.
Kael complied, pressing his hand once more. The Crystal's light flickered, struggled, then sputtered like a dying candle. It was an embarrassing, pathetic display. The laughter grew louder, more confident.
"They see only the surface of the water, and call it shallow," a voice whispered in the depths of Kael's mind.
Then, something changed. Not in the Crystal, not in the air, but within Kael. A flicker. A resonance. Deep, deep inside him, something infinitesimally small and ancient stirred, like a slumbering leviathan shifting in an ocean trench. It wasn't a surge of mana as others described. It was… an acknowledgment.
And on the surface of the Ascension Crystal, directly under his palm, a single, microscopic character etched itself into the light. It wasn't a sigil. It wasn't a rune. It looked like a broken line, a fragment of some forgotten script, utterly unimpressive, almost invisible unless one knew where to look.
Elder Maeve, whose Sight perceived far more than ordinary eyes, gasped. It was a tiny sound, lost in the renewed murmurs of the crowd, but Kael, standing inches away, heard it. Her ancient eyes widened almost imperceptibly, a flicker of… something unreadable passing through them. Confusion? Disbelief? He couldn't tell.
She recovered in an instant. Her expression smoothed back into its customary severity. She raised her voice, projecting over the noise. "The Ascension Crystal has… identified a designation." The hesitation was minute, but Kael caught it. "Kael Virein, your assigned Skill is…" She paused, and for the first time, a trace of what might have been bewilderment tinged her voice. "…Reality Code."
Silence. A different kind of silence this time. Not predatory, but utterly baffled.
Then, a noble in the balcony guffawed. "Reality Code? What in the blighted realms is that? Sounds like something a failed scholar coughed up!"
The dam of decorum broke. Laughter, raw and unrestrained, echoed through the Grand Vestibule. It wasn't just scorn now; it was pure ridicule.
"Did the Crystal break?"
"Reality Code! Maybe he can file parchments for the Scribes' Guild!"
"More like 'Useless Scribble'!"
Even the commoners, usually too fearful to make much noise, let out nervous chuckles. It was too absurd. A Skill no one had ever heard of, with a name that sounded like a bureaucratic error or a philosopher's failed thesis. It wasn't a combat skill, not a craft skill, not even a minor utility skill. It was… nothing. Less than nothing. It was a joke.
Kael slowly withdrew his hand. He looked at his palm, then up at the space above his head where the grand sigils of others had blazed. There was nothing there for him, no visual representation of this "Reality Code." To the world, he was still skill-less, now with an added layer of farce.
Elder Maeve watched him, her expression unreadable. "The designation is… unusual," she stated, her voice carefully neutral, yet Kael detected an undercurrent, a dissonance. "It has no known precedent. No established sigil. For all intents and purposes…" She trailed off, but the implication hung heavy: it's useless.
Kael met her gaze. His grey eyes were like polished steel. "I understand," he said, his voice calm, even. It was the first time he had spoken. His tone was flat, carrying no anger, no disappointment, no shame. It was the voice of someone commenting on the weather.
This simple, unperturbed acceptance seemed to unsettle some of the closer onlookers more than any outburst would have. It wasn't natural.
He turned to leave the dais. The path back through the assembled youths was a gauntlet of jeers and derisive stares.
"The Error of Ashwood!" someone shouted.
"Make way for the Master of Reality Code! Careful he doesn't 'code' you to death with boredom!"
Kael walked. He didn't falter. He didn't look down. His gaze remained fixed ahead, focused on the massive bronze doors that led out of the Vestibule, out of this crucible of judgment. Each step was as measured as the last.
As he passed a trio of sneering aristocratic boys, one of them, a burly youth named Tybalt who had manifested 'Stone Fist', deliberately stuck out his leg. Kael, without seeming to look, adjusted his stride by a mere fraction of an inch, his foot passing harmlessly over Tybalt's ankle. Tybalt, overextending and expecting resistance, stumbled, nearly crashing into his companions.
"Watch it, freak!" Tybalt snarled, his face flushing red, humiliated by his own clumsiness.
Kael didn't acknowledge him. He continued walking, the quiet rhythm of his footsteps a stark contrast to the simmering anger he left in his wake.
"The ant scurries. The mountain watches." The internal voice again, a whisper of ancient snow and cosmic dust.
He finally reached the bronze doors. The guards, common soldiers with basic enhancement Skills, regarded him with a mixture of pity and contempt. One of them made a show of opening the door with exaggerated effort, as if Kael himself was an unbearable weight.
Emerging from the oppressive grandeur of the Vestibule into the starker light of the citadel's outer courtyard was like surfacing from a deep, murky dive. The air here was sharper, carrying the scent of distant forges and the city below. He was alone now, the sounds of the Ascension ceremony fading behind him.
He stopped. The courtyard was mostly empty, save for a few patrolling guards who paid him no mind. He flexed the hand that had touched the Crystal. Nothing felt different. He was still Kael Virein, the commoner, the anomaly.
Reality Code.
He didn't know what it meant. He had no framework for it, no understanding. But as the jeers of the crowd echoed faintly in his memory, a different sensation settled within him. It wasn't emotion as others experienced it. It was… a profound, chilling sense of correctness.
They called it a joke. They called him an error.
But as he stood there, under the vast, indifferent sky, a single, lucid thought, colder and clearer than any before, coalesced in his mind. It wasn't an echo from his forgotten past. This was Kael, now.
They are looking at the text, but I can feel the grammar.
He didn't know what it signified, this nascent feeling. But as he looked out over the sprawling city of Skyreach, a city built upon the rigid laws of Skills and power, a city that had just branded him a failure, Kael Virein felt the first, almost imperceptible stirrings of something that was not despair, nor anger, nor even hope.
It was the quiet, patient understanding of a craftsman looking upon a flawed, intricate machine, knowing, with absolute certainty, that he possessed the blueprint.
The world believed him to be an error in its system.
A faint, ghost of a smile, so fleeting it might have been a trick of the light, touched Kael's lips.
The truth, he suspected, was far more terrifying. The system itself was about to meet its author.