The public transport bus was a rusted, overcrowded relic from the pre-Collision era, filled with the unpleasant smells of stale sweat and damp clothes, mingling with the faint metallic scent of industrial leakage.
Griffin sat by a window so scratched and clouded that he could barely make out the towering skyline of Oracle City fading into the distance. He felt hollow inside, as if the Awakening Stone hadn't just measured his mana but had physically drained his spirit. His hands were buried deep in his pockets, trying to quell the trembling that had gripped him since he left the Monolith.
Every time the bus hit a pothole, his head thudded against the cold glass, but he didn't move. Instead, he stared at the small, cracked screen of his smartphone, watching as the digital clock counted down the seconds of his old life.
Then came a sharp chime, a notification banner appeared at the top of his screen. It was an official message from No.15 Normal Oracle Academy, the school he had dreamed of attending all his life.
He tapped on it with a numb finger, already knowing what it would say before it even loaded:
"Student ID: 9920-Griffin Creed. Based on your official G.R.A. Awakening results transmitted at 10:15 AM, your enrollment status has been re-evaluated. Due to a Mana Capacity of 0 and an Unranked Class classification, you no longer meet the minimum requirements for the Walker-Candidate Track. Your scholarship is hereby revoked, and your student account has been deactivated. Please collect your personal belongings from your locker by end of business today. We wish you luck in your future civilian endeavors."
Griffin stared at the word "Civilian" until it blurred into a grey smudge; in this world, "Civilian" was just a polite way to say "Meat." It meant he was no longer seen as an investment, he was now considered a liability.
The academy hadn't simply expelled him; they had discarded him like broken equipment not worth repairing. He leaned his forehead against the vibrating window, the coldness seeping into his skin and let out a long, shaky breath he'd been holding since the ceremony began.
By the time they reached Oracle City's outskirts, gleaming glass towers gave way to crumbling concrete blocks tangled in makeshift power lines.
This was where reality met despair, where air thickened with grey haze tasted like ash and copper. Griffin stepped off the bus and began trudging toward Sector 7, a housing complex locals called "the Hive."
It consisted of high-rise tenements leaning against one another for support; their walls were covered in graffiti and damp moss glowing with sickly violet light. As he climbed to the fourth floor, shouts from neighbors and cries from children reverberated through the narrow hallways.
He paused in front of apartment 402, his hand hovering over the door handle. Inside, he could hear the muffled sounds of his family, the clinking of cheap plastic plates and the low hum of a faulty nutrient processor.
He dreaded telling them that the "Creed Legacy" they had been praying for was officially dead.
With a push, he opened the door, its hinges emitting a familiar high-pitched groan. The apartment was cramped, a single space serving as kitchen, dining room, and bedroom for his younger siblings.
His mother, Sarah, stood over a small induction stove with her back to him. She looked older than her forty years; premature grey streaked her hair and her shoulders were hunched from years of working double shifts at the mana refinery.
At a wobbly wooden table, his younger sister Mia tried to help their eight-year-old brother Toby with homework under the flickering light of a bulb. The moment he stepped inside and closed the door, silence enveloped them.
Sarah turned around, her eyes wide with desperate hope mixed with suffocating fear. She searched his face for signs of success, perhaps the glow of a successful Awakening or the pride of becoming a new Walker but all she found was the shadow of a boy crushed by reality.
"Griffin?" Sarah whispered, her voice cracking as she wiped her hands on her stained apron but didn't move from the stove.
Her gaze remained fixed on him. "The ceremony... it finished hours ago. We've been waiting. Toby kept saying he saw a golden light in the sky toward the Monolith and thought it was you coming home in a G.R.A transport. We even bought some real meat from the market, just a small piece to celebrate! What... what did the stone say? Did you get a Vanguard class like your father? Or maybe a Guardian?"
She stepped forward, trembling hands reaching out to touch his arm as if pleading for just one more hour of hope before their harsh reality swallowed them whole.
Griffin looked down at the floor, unable to meet her gaze. "It was zero, Mom," he said softly, almost drowned out by the refrigerator's hum.
"The results were zero, no mana capacity, no grade. They called it 'Dimensional Hunter,' but G.R.A listed it as Unranked. I'm an F-Rank now." He paused briefly before adding bitterly, "The academy already sent notice; my scholarship is gone. I'm not going back tomorrow."
A heavy silence followed his words like an oppressive weight pressing down on their tiny room. Toby dropped his pen; it clattered loudly against the floor while Mia turned away, lips trembling as she stared at where their "celebration" should have taken place on an empty table.
Sarah didn't cry; instead, she let out a soft sound that broke like glass and slumped into a nearby chair with vacant eyes fixed on bubbling nutrient soup.
"How are we going to pay the rent, Griffin?" Mia asked, her voice sharp with the raw honesty of someone who had grown up too quickly.
She looked up at him, her eyes rimmed with red. "The landlord said if we don't have the back payment by the end of the month, he'll cut off the power. We were counting on your Walker stipend. The refinery cut Mom's hours again because of her cough, and Toby needs new filters for his respirator. If you're an F-Rank... if you're a civilian... you can only work as a laborer. That barely covers the nutrient paste, let alone any medicine. We were so sure about you, Griffin. You were a Creed. Everyone said talent was in your blood. How could the stone say zero? How could it be nothing?"
She wasn't trying to hurt him; her words felt like salt in a fresh wound. Fear gripped her heart, and in their world, fear often twisted into anger.
Griffin didn't respond, he couldn't find the words. He walked past them, his boots echoing on the cracked linoleum floor as he entered his tiny partitioned corner that served as his "room."
It was barely big enough for a cot and a small metal footlocker. Sitting on the edge of his bed, he gazed at the wall where his father's old training sword hung from two rusted nails. It was a simple piece of blackened steel, its edge chipped and dulled from years of use before his father upgraded to better weapons.
Next to it was a framed photograph with cracked glass in one corner: his father, Arthur Creed, stood tall in gleaming Walker armor, smiling confidently before a Grade 5 Gate, a giant who seemed capable of holding back an entire dimension with one hand.
Griffin reached out and took down the sword, feeling its cold weight familiar in his grip. He traced his thumb over a deep notch in the blade while recalling stories about what it meant to be resolute as a Walker, a Creed family trait that relied not on luck but on hard work and determination.
Yet now, looking at that chipped edge filled him with bitter resentment. What resolve could he muster when he had zero mana? How could he grind forward when life had already locked him out?
He turned to face the small grimy mirror hanging on the back of the door and stared at his reflection, the dark circles under his eyes, how thin he'd become, desperation etched into every feature.
He didn't look like a Hunter; he looked like someone defeated by life's cruel twists. Gripping the hilt of that training sword until his knuckles turned white, metal biting into flesh, he heard muffled sobs from outside as his mother cried quietly into her hands while Mia tried to comfort Toby who kept asking if Griffin would still be a hero.
The weight of his name felt like a heavy mountain pressing down on his chest, almost suffocating him.
He was Griffin Creed, and now he will be known as the "Zero" of Oracle City, a boy burdened with a legendary name and a future that had been wiped away before it even had the chance to start.
As he looked at the chipped sword in his hand, the silence around him felt oppressive, like the walls of a tomb closing in tighter with each passing moment.