The silence in the Frostfall guild hall was not the quiet of peace. It was the dense, brittle silence that follows a gunshot in a crowded room. The air still hummed with the ghost of dissolved ice magic and the echo of Vesperion's humiliation.
Sai Ji stood at the quest completion desk, the rough wood of the counter the only solid thing in a world that felt like it was tilting. He could feel hundreds of eyes on his back—not with the lustful curiosity or jealous rage of before, but with a new, unsettling emotion: dreadful awe. He had done nothing. He had simply existed, and a powerful spell had un-made itself. That was more terrifying than any display of strength.
The clerk, a different one from before (the first had claimed a sudden migraine), took his completed potato delivery slip with trembling fingers. She avoided his eyes, sliding the five copper coins across the counter as if they were hot coals. The transaction was made in utter silence.
"Thank you," Sai Ji whispered. The words sounded absurd.
He turned. The crowd in the hall didn't part like before. They recoiled, creating a wide, empty circle around him and his party. It was the kind of space afforded to a lit fuse or a sleeping dragon.
Midnight Wolf, for once, had no words. He just stared at Sai Ji with the wide-eyed fixation of someone who has seen a ghost and is now trying to decide if it's friendly.
Aeliana's hand rested lightly on Sai Ji's arm, a steadying touch. "We should go," she murmured, her voice barely audible. "The air here is turning to glass."
Nyx flanked his other side, his usual serene mask in place, but his eyes were constantly moving, cataloging threats, calculating angles. The playful duelist was gone. The bodyguard was fully present.
They had almost reached the great doors when a voice, low and rough as grinding stone, stopped them.
"Not so fast."
Guildmaster Rokan leaned against the archway leading to his office, his massive arms crossed. He wasn't emanating power. He was containing it, a dam holding back a river. His flinty eyes were fixed on Sai Ji, but the earlier theatrical suspicion was gone. Replaced by a weary, grim understanding.
"My office," he said. It wasn't a request.
The office was a reflection of the man: large, utilitarian, and built to withstand catastrophe. Thick stone walls, a desk hewn from a single block of ironwood, maps pinned with daggers. There was no fire in the hearth, only a permanent, enchanted chunk of glowing hearthstone that gave off a dry, smokeless heat.
Rokan didn't sit behind his desk. He leaned against it, studying Sai Ji as the young man stood awkwardly in the center of the room. Aeliana and Nyx positioned themselves near the door, a silent, elegant wall.
"One percent," Rokan said abruptly.
Sai Ji blinked. "Pardon?"
"When a new recruit shows… anomalies… I have a room. Sealed. Warded. I release one percent of my aura. It's enough to make seasoned A-ranks sweat, to test their mettle, to see if they're hiding demonic pacts or cursed lineage." He pushed off the desk, taking a single step closer. "I looked at you standing there after you made a mockery of the Crimson Talon's best parlor trick, and I knew. One percent would be like blowing on a mountain."
Sai Ji's throat was dry. "Guildmaster, I swear, I don't want any trouble—"
"I believe you," Rokan interrupted, surprising him. "That's the damnably frustrating part. I've seen power-hungry maniacs. I've seen arrogant nobles playing soldier. You?" He shook his head, a gesture of profound professional annoyance. "You look like a lost puppy who accidentally ate a god's heart and is now terrified of its own shadow. The problem isn't your intent. It's your existence."
He walked to a cabinet, pulled out a bottle of clear, viscous liquid, and poured two glasses without asking. He shoved one into Sai Ji's hand. "Drink. It'll stop your hands from shaking."
Sai Ji looked down. He hadn't even noticed they were trembling. He took a sip. It tasted like pine needles and lightning, warming him from the inside out.
"That spell Vesperion used," Rokan continued, leaning back. "Frostfall's Kiss. Not the strongest in his arsenal, but complex. It weaves intent, water mana, and a kinetic thrust into a single package. To counter it, you'd need a shield of equal strength, or a dispel of perfect timing." He fixed Sai Ji with a piercing stare. "You didn't counter it. You didn't dispel it. It reached the sphere of your… personal reality… and it ceased. Like a story the world decided not to tell. That's not a skill. That's a property. Like gravity. Or time."
"He is more perceptive than he looks," Sal Vera mused, a note of respect in her tone.
"He's about to kick me out of the city!" Sai Ji thought desperately.
"I'm not kicking you out," Rokan said, as if reading his mind. Sai Ji jumped. The Guildmaster's lips twitched in what might have been a smile. "Your face is an open book, kid. No, I'm not kicking you out. Frostfall's charter is clear: we judge by actions, not by what you are. Your actions have been, against all odds and reason, benign. You returned a calf. You delivered potatoes. You humiliated a prick without drawing blood." He took a long drink. "But I can't have you as an F-rank. It's a farce, and farces get people killed when others try to call the bluff."
He reached into a drawer and tossed a new badge onto the desk. It was bronze, like the last one, but larger, with a subtle, intricate etching of a mountain peak wrapped in mist around the letter 'M'.
"Mystic Bronze," Rokan stated. "It's a provisional rank I've used… twice before. Once for a dragon in human form doing a penitence quest. Once for the crown prince of a fallen kingdom training incognito. It gives you access to D and C-rank quests—real work, goblin clearing, minor hauntings, escort duty. But it comes with a log. You report to me, or my designated lieutenant, once a week. You tell me where you're going, what you're hunting. And if you feel that… pressure… building again, you get out of the city. You go to the blast ranges to the north and scream at the sky. You do not have a magical tantrum in my streets."
The relief that flooded Sai Ji was so potent it felt like weakness. He sagged slightly. "Thank you. You have no idea…"
"I have some idea," Rokan grunted. "Now get out. Your fan club is causing a disturbance."
---
The "fan club" was not cheering. It was a silent, watchful crowd of adventurers and city guards mingling outside the guild. News of the non-duel had spread, morphing with each retelling. Some said Sai Ji had stolen Vesperion's magic with a glance. Others claimed he'd spoken a Word of Unmaking from a dead language. The most popular version involved him being a sleeping war-god cursed into a beautiful man's body.
As they pushed through, a figure detached from the shadow of an alley. It was Shade, the masked assassin, moving with a respectful, non-threatening pace. They fell into step beside Sai Ji, ignoring the wary looks from Nyx and Aeliana.
"The Guildmaster is a wise man," Shade said, their filtered voice low. "The 'Mystic' rank is a leash, but a long one. It is an acknowledgment of truth, wrapped in bureaucracy."
"What do you want?" Aeliana asked, her tone cool.
"To serve," Shade said simply. "The Obsidian Court's contract is void. I have… recalibrated my mission parameters. My new objective: ensure the Silverfall scion survives long enough to understand what he is." The mask turned slightly toward Sai Ji. "You are a lighthouse in a storm, Lord Sai Ji. Every power in the realm—the Empire, the other Kingdoms, the secret societies, the hungry things in the deep—they have all seen the flash. Some will seek to control the light. Others will seek to extinguish it before it grows. You need more than pretty bodyguards and a hopeful noble. You need a blade that works in the dark."
Nyx's smile was thin and sharp. "We are capable in the dark."
"But you shine like him, in your own way," Shade countered. "I am a shadow. I can go where you cannot, hear what you will not. Consider me… an advance scout for the inevitable."
Sai Ji stopped walking, turning to face the masked figure. The absurdity of it all—the potato sack, the bowing Behemoth, the dissolved spell, now a professional assassin applying for a job—threatened to overwhelm him. But beneath the panic, a cold, new feeling was crystallizing. Resignation had given way to a faint, steely resolve.
"Fine," Sai Ji said, his voice quieter than he intended. "But you follow my rules. No killing unless I say. No 'protocols' or 'court edicts.' You report to Nyx. And you take that mask off when you eat with us."
For the first time, Shade seemed thrown. The blank mask tilted. "…A dietary stipulation?"
"A humanity one," Sai Ji said, and started walking again.
Back in their rented rooms at a quiet, unassuming inn, the weight of the day finally settled. Sai Ji placed the new Mystic Bronze badge on the rough-hewn table. It looked so ordinary. It felt so heavy.
"A leash," he repeated Rokan's word.
"A lifeline," Aeliana corrected softly, sitting across from him. "He gave you a path. A way to be strong in the open, on your terms, with rules."
"He is buying time," Nyx said, standing by the window, watching the street below. "Time for you to gain control. Time for him to prepare the city for what you may become."
"And time for your enemies to make their move," Sal Vera added, her voice losing its playfulness. "The Guildmaster's protection is a declaration as much as a shield. It tells the world you are here, and you are under his eye. Some will be deterred. Others… will see it as a challenge."
Sai Ji picked up the badge, running his thumb over the etched mountain. A Mystic Bronze. Not a king. Not a sovereign. An adventurer with a mysterious past and unusual strength. It was still a story, but it was a story he could maybe, possibly, learn to live inside.
He looked at his strange, assembled party: the loyal noblewoman, the fanatical agent, the pragmatic bodyguards, the ex-assassin lurking in the corner, and the terrified otherworlder currently trying to brew tea in the fireplace.
"Okay," Sai Ji said, to no one and everyone. "Okay. Mystic Bronze it is." He looked at the quest board flyer they'd picked up on the way back—a C-rank contract to investigate missing travelers near the Whispering Caves. "Tomorrow, we do our job."
For a moment, in the quiet of the inn room, it almost felt possible.
Then the window rattled. Not from wind. From a deep, resonant thrum that passed through the stone of the city itself, a frequency felt in the teeth more than heard. It was the same feeling as the Behemoth's roar, but older. Deeper. Coming from the direction of the Frostpeak Mountains.
All eyes went to the window.
No one spoke.
The unspoken question hung in the air, heavier than any guildmaster's aura: Had their first day on the new path already attracted the next, greater storm?
Sai Ji closed his hand around the bronze badge. The metal was warm from his grip. He didn't sigh. He didn't complain. He simply looked at the distant, moonlit peaks and whispered the only thing left to say.
"Of course."