The air in the System Academy Hall shimmered, thick with compressed power. Hundreds of graduating teenagers stood stiffly, their faces a mixture of pride and terror as the holographic display cycled through the results of their final Rank Assessment.
When the screen finally settled on his name, Kenji Tanaka didn't need to look up. He could feel the collective pity and scorn.
[ASSESSMENT COMPLETE]Rank: D (Unranked) Power Type: Scrapsmith (Residual Magic User) Potential: Minimum (0.01%)
A booming, synthesised voice echoed across the hall. "Rank: D. Power Type: Scrapsmith. The residual magic user. Potential: Minimum. Kenji Tanaka, assigned standard sanitation detail."
A low chuckle spread through the crowd. Kenji, eighteen, lean, and utterly powerless, felt the familiar burning shame. Scrapsmith. The ability to sense and utilise the faint, transient magical residue—the scraps—left behind when powerful magic dissipated. Useless.
"Zero potential. Zero respect. That's my Rank," he whispered to himself, his jaw tight.
He lasted exactly three hours in the normal world. His parents, Rank 4 professionals, looked at him with tired disappointment. His future was sweeping up other people's magical dust until he died of old age or despair.
Driven by a desperation that tasted like iron, Kenji did the only thing a true zero could do: he lied about his post-graduation assignment and headed straight for the urban fringes, towards a low-level sewer Dungeon-Hunt (D-H) zone.
The sewer D-H was a nightmare of damp concrete and faint, sparkling energy "scraps." He frantically tried to absorb them, but they dissolved the instant they touched his skin, giving him nothing but a static shock.
Slithering.
He was ambushed by a pack of F-Rank "Slime Rats," creatures barely stronger than large, aggressive rodents, but coated in corrosive slime.
"Too weak… they just dissolve!" Kenji gasped, his forearm guard cracking under a rat's acidic bite. "My power is useless, even here!"
He was pinned, the slick, cold bodies of the rats weighing him down, their squealing high-pitched and maniacal. He stared at the grimy ceiling, defeat a heavy, suffocating blanket.
Suddenly, the sewer vibrated. Light flashed violently from the levels above.
HIGH RANKER (Yell from above, muffled): "It's collapsing! Everyone back! Residual discharge is too volatile!"
A monstrous, dark shape—a massive, high-Rank Abomination—fell through the ceiling into Kenji's small chamber, already grievously wounded by the Rankers above. It dissolved instantly upon hitting the floor, its death throes releasing a massive, swirling vortex of pure, dark red energy—a 'Massive Scrap.'
Kenji's eyes widened with sheer panic. "That much power… it'll vaporise me!"
But before he could flinch, something deep inside him snapped. His body acted involuntarily, and the despised Scrapsmith power, for the first time, exerted real, magnetic force. The Massive Scrap—the residual essence of a creature that could obliterate cities—slammed into Kenji, searing his skin and vanishing inside his core.
The pain was a white-hot agony that stole his breath. The System interface, which had been dormant, suddenly flashed violently, displaying a brand-new, unauthorised message that overrode all warnings and combat logs.
[ERROR: UNPLANNED INTEGRATION DETECTED][SCAPSMITH PROTOCOL: OVERRIDE INITIATED][...RANK UP PATHWAY UNLOCKED...]