The Grand Hall of Aethelgard was a cathedral of cold marble and shattered dreams.
High above, the enchanted chandeliers flickered with a ghostly, pale light, casting long, dancing shadows against the obsidian pillars that supported the vaulted ceiling. The air was thick, smelling of ozone, expensive incense, and the bitter, metallic tang of nervous sweat.
Today was the Day of Resonance.
It was the day every eighteen-year-old in the kingdom stood before the Awakening Stone to discover their destiny. In this world, your "Class" was everything. It was the difference between a life of glory and a life of quiet, desperate labor.
Kaelen Vance stood at the very back of the line.
His heart drummed a frantic rhythm against his ribs. His fingers, stained with the faint scent of old parchment and ink from his late father's study, twitched against the seams of his worn tunic. He was a boy of thin frame and sharp eyes—the kind of person who usually went unnoticed in a crowd of warriors.
Ahead of him, the line moved with agonizing slowness.
"Marcus Thorne!"
The High Priest's voice boomed, echoing like a crack of thunder against the stone walls.
A tall, broad-shouldered youth stepped forward. Marcus was the son of a minor noble, and he walked with the arrogant confidence of a man who already knew the world belonged to him. He reached out, his hand steady, and pressed his palm against the Awakening Stone—a jagged, six-meter-tall monolith of pulsing dark crystal.
For a heartbeat, the hall went silent.
Then, the stone reacted.
A violent, searing crimson light exploded from the crystal, illuminating the shocked faces of the spectators. Above Marcus's head, a holographic crest manifested: a sword enveloped in roaring, golden flames.
"Class: Flame Knight! Grade: A!" the Priest announced, his voice tinged with genuine awe.
The crowd erupted. The noble families in the viewing galleries cheered, their voices a deafening roar of approval. A Grade-A combat class was a golden ticket to the Royal Academy and a life of luxury.
Marcus smirked, glancing back at the commoners with a look of pure disdain before being ushered toward the VIP seating.
Kaelen swallowed hard, his throat feeling like it was filled with dry sand.
I don't need an A-Grade, he thought, closing his eyes for a brief moment. I just need something useful. A Scout. A Minor Mage. Even a Blacksmith. Just enough to pay off the debts and keep the house.
"Kaelen Vance!"
The shouts died down to a dull murmur. The name Vance carried a certain weight in the city, but it wasn't the good kind. It was the name of a disgraced scholar who had spent his final years chasing "system glitches" instead of earning gold.
Kaelen stepped forward.
His boots clicked softly on the polished floor, the sound unnervingly loud in the sudden quiet. He felt the eyes of the High Priest on him—cold, judgmental eyes that saw only a boy from a fallen house.
He reached the stone.
It hummed with a low-frequency vibration that made his teeth ache. Taking a deep breath, Kaelen placed his hand on the cold, smooth surface.
He waited for the fire. He waited for the roar of power that Marcus had triggered.
Instead, he felt a strange, quiet sensation.
It was like a cool breeze passing through his mind, or the sound of a thousand library pages turning simultaneously in a silent room. It wasn't a surge; it was a synchronization.
A faint, pale blue light flickered into existence. It was dim—so dim that those in the back of the hall had to squint to see it. Above Kaelen's head, a small, unremarkable icon appeared: an open book with a quill resting across the pages.
[Class: Librarian]
[Grade: F]
The silence that followed was far worse than the laughter that eventually broke it.
It was a silence of pure, unadulterated pity.
"Librarian?" someone whispered from the crowd, followed by a snicker. "What's he going to do? Shush the monsters to death?"
"Grade F..." another voice mocked. "I didn't even know the stone still gave those out. That's a death sentence in the dungeons."
The High Priest cleared his throat, his expression turning to one of bored dismissal. He didn't even look Kaelen in the eye as he spoke the final verdict.
"Kaelen Vance. Class: Librarian. Grade: F. Non-combatant status. Step down, boy. You are dismissed from the Academy trials. Next!"
Kaelen's hand dropped from the stone.
His palm felt unnaturally cold. He didn't look at the crowd. He didn't look at the Priest. He kept his gaze fixed on the floor as he walked toward the exit, his chest tightening with a mix of shame and a strange, bubbling frustration.
He had failed.
He was a Librarian—a glorified clerk. In a world of monsters and magic, he was effectively invisible.
However, as he crossed the threshold of the Grand Hall and stepped out into the afternoon sun, the world didn't look the same.
A translucent window, shimmering with a clarity that the Awakening Stone's holograms lacked, manifested directly in his field of vision. It didn't look like the standard system interface. The borders were jagged, flickering with a strange, golden static.
[Initialization Complete...]
[Scanning Host Soul... Found: "The Librarian" (Dormant)]
[Hidden Passive Ability Triggered: Structural Resonance]
[User Status: Authorized for Level 1 System Access]
Kaelen stopped dead in his tracks. He blinked, rubbing his eyes, but the screen remained, hovering in the air like a ghost.
[Warning: The World-System is operating with 14.2% Logic Errors.]
[Description: You do not see the world as matter. You see the world as the Architect intended. Everything has a pattern. Everything has a flaw.]
He looked around the courtyard. Suddenly, the reality shifted.
The stone walls of the Academy weren't just stone anymore. They were covered in floating strings of glowing, mathematical code. He looked at a heavy iron gate nearby. A glowing red "X" appeared on a specific hinge—a structural weak point that was invisible to the naked eye.
[Structural Weakness Detected: Oxidation Glitch]
[Action: A single strike at this coordinate will result in 100% material failure.]
Kaelen's breath hitched in his throat.
He realized in that moment that his father hadn't been crazy. The world was a construct, and the "System" everyone worshipped was just a layer of paint over a much deeper, more complex machinery.
The High Priest thought he was a non-combatant. The world thought he was an F-Grade failure. They saw a boy who belonged in a dusty room full of books.
Kaelen looked at his hands, watching the golden data-strings of reality dance between his fingers like threads of silk.
"Let them laugh," Kaelen whispered to the empty courtyard, a small, sharp smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"I don't need a sword when I can see the strings holding yours together."
The journey of the Librarian had begun.
But the world was not prepared for the Architect.