Ravi didn't go back into the guild hall. He just went home.
He walked through the crowded streets of Aethelgard in a daze. The world seemed a little sharper, the sounds a little clearer. He was no longer invisible. He could feel it in the way people glanced at him. The story was already spreading, passed from adventurer to merchant to street urchin in a wave of whispered gossip.
He was a local legend. The dumbest local legend in Aethelgard's history. The man who broke swords by blocking and felled giants by tripping over his own feet.
Back in his ramshackle cottage, the silence was a welcome relief. He ran a hand over his meticulously reassembled wall. It was solid. Real. A small piece of order in the chaos he was creating.
The lie was growing. It was taking on a life of its own, sprouting new heads like a hydra. He'd survived the goblin cave. He'd survived Kaelen. But he knew, with a certainty that settled deep in his gut, that the true threats to his secret weren't going to be monsters or bullies.
They were going to be the people who were smart enough to ask the right questions.
He was so lost in thought that he didn't hear her approach.
"Contemplating your next accidental home renovation?"
Lyanna was standing in the open doorway, a slight smile playing on her lips. She held up a small cloth-wrapped parcel. "Fresh cheese. A vendor owed me a favor."
She walked in, her presence filling the small, dusty space. She placed the cheese on his only unbroken chair and looked around. "It's looking… less like a complete death trap."
"High praise," Ravi said, leaning back against his handiwork.
She walked over, stopping a few feet in front of him. The playful mood of her entrance had faded, replaced by that same intense curiosity from the training yard.
"So," she began, her tone casual, but her eyes anything but. "You just happened to fall in a way that perfectly neutralized a charging man three times your size?"
"I'm very good at falling," he said, meeting her gaze. He wouldn't back down. That was the new rule. No more stammering. Own the absurdity.
"I'll say," she mused. She took a step closer. The air between them felt charged. "You know, for someone with no mana and the physical strength of a wet noodle according to the guild's tests, you have an incredible sense of timing. And balance. And an innate understanding of leverage."
"I watch a lot of… acrobats," he improvised.
Her smile widened. She knew it was a lie. He knew she knew. It was their new game. A verbal sparring match to complement the physical one.
"You're a terrible liar, Ravi."
"I get that a lot."
"But," she continued, her voice softening, "you're a good man. I saw it in the cave. And I saw it today. You had Kaelen beaten, but you chose to humiliate him instead of hurting him. There's a difference."
He hadn't thought of it that way, but she was right.
She took another step closer. She was so close now he could see the flecks of a darker blue in her icy irises.
"Whatever you're hiding," she whispered, "I hope you'll trust me with it one day."
Before he could process the intensity of the moment, a sharp rap echoed from the front of the cottage. A young boy in the Adventurer's Guild livery stood there, looking nervous.
"Message for Ravi," the boy squeaked, holding out a sealed scroll. "From Guildmaster Theron. He wants to see you. Right now."
Lyanna's posture straightened, the soft intimacy of the moment instantly gone, replaced by the alert stance of a warrior. "The Guildmaster?" Her expression was laced with concern. A direct summons was not something given to F-Rankers. Ever.
"Guess my fame has reached the highest echelons," Ravi muttered dryly.
The Guildmaster's office was on the second floor of the guild hall, a space Ravi didn't even know existed. It was lavish compared to the raucous tavern below, with thick rugs, shelves full of leather-bound books, and a large oak desk.
Guildmaster Theron was an old, bear-like man with a magnificent gray beard and eyes that had seen too many adventurers not come back. He wasn't alone.
Standing by the window, silhouetted by the light, was a woman. She was an elf, judging by the elegant point of her ears. Long, golden-blonde hair was tied back in a severe but practical braid. She wore the immaculate, dark blue robes of a royal mage, embroidered with silver runes that seemed to subtly shift in the light.
She turned as he and Lyanna entered. Her eyes were a sharp, intelligent shade of green, and they immediately fixed on Ravi, not with curiosity, but with the cold, analytical focus of a scientist observing a particularly interesting insect.
"Ravi, Lyanna," the Guildmaster grunted. "This is Archmage Celeste Moonwhisper. She is... a consultant for the Mage's Guild and the Royal Academy."
"A pleasure," Lyanna said, her voice formal and wary. She subtly moved to stand slightly in front of Ravi.
Celeste ignored her completely. Her entire world had narrowed down to Ravi.
"So this is it," the elf said, her voice crisp and laced with academic disdain. "The F-Rank anomaly. The epicenter of a series of statistically improbable events."
"I'm sorry, I think you have the wrong guy," Ravi said. "I'm just a clumsy adventurer."
A humorless smile touched Celeste's lips. "Your performance in the training yard was not clumsiness. It was a textbook application of kinetic redirection principles disguised by an absurd level of performative incompetence. And that report about the 'exploding' practice sword? Wood does not spontaneously sublimate into splinters upon a low-velocity impact, regardless of pre-existing material flaws. That requires an incredible amount of localized energy transfer."
Ravi just blinked. "I have no idea what most of those words mean."
"She means she thinks you're special," Lyanna interjected, her tone defensive.
"I think he's a living paradox," Celeste corrected sharply. She took a step forward, her green eyes scanning him from head to toe. "My instruments in the Mage's Tower detected an unusual energy signature originating from the training yard during your little spectacle. It wasn't magical. It was… physical. Raw, kinetic energy on a scale that shouldn't be possible from a subject with your biological readings."
Oh, crap. They have instruments.
"Therefore," Celeste continued, getting to her point, "I am requisitioning you for study. Under the authority of the Royal Academy's charter on Unexplained Phenomena."
"Requisitioning?" Lyanna's hand fell to the hilt of her sword. "He's a person, not a piece of equipment."
Celeste finally deigned to look at Lyanna, her expression one of supreme annoyance. "He is a puzzle, warrior. And I intend to solve him."
She turned her gaze back to Ravi. "I want to subject you to a full diagnostic array at my laboratory. Physical stress tests, magical resonance scans, ethereal composition analysis. I want to quantify your 'luck.' I want to find the formula behind your accidents."
Her proposal hung in the silent room, cold and sharp as a shard of ice. This wasn't a request. It was a demand. He was no longer a person.
He was a specimen.