I let out a long, weary sigh and dragged my heavy luggage forward, the squeaky wheels rattling loudly against the stone path.
The gate loomed overhead as I passed through its ancient archway.
Inside, the campus was... huge. Way too massive. We're talking wide cobblestone roads, floating lanterns hovering in mid-air, and grand gothic spires that looked centuries old yet somehow featured high-tech holographic banners.
Students in tailored uniforms walked past me in small groups, laughing, chatting, and casually flexing their magic— summoning hovering fireballs, conjuring delicate ice shards, or using telekinesis to float their heavy grimoires beside them.
Yeah. Totally normal, everyday academy stuff.
"Wow," I muttered flatly under my breath, adjusting my duffel bag strap. "I can already feel the immense joy and fulfillment of being enrolled here. Yey… 🤘😔"
A tall, wooden signpost stood near the primary plaza, pointing toward a marble pavilion.
『[NEW STUDENTS — REGISTRATION THIS WAY]』
With another tired sigh, I dragged my rattling suitcase along the arrow's direction.
The main registration hall was an absolute ZOO.
Lines stretched out the door, desks were lined up in neat rows, and faculty members in formal robes were running around with stacks of enchanted parchment.
At the front of my line, a girl pressed her palm against a large, glowing crystal orb mounted on a brass pedestal.
The orb flashed a brilliant, pulsing azure blue.
"WOW! High Mana!" the staff member announced calmly into a microphone, marking her sheet.
Cheers and polite applause erupted from her family sitting in the spectator bleachers.
Another student— red hair —stepped up, pressing his hand against a fresh orb.
The crystal instantly burst into wild, roaring flames. "Fire affinity! Grade-A mana output!" More applause.
Down the line, I heard the proctors calling out the rest of the magical spectrum: "Lightning, Good mana. Wind, ʙʟᴀ ʙʟᴀ ʙʟᴀ. ᴱᵃʳᵗʰ ᵇˡᵃ ᵇˡᵃ ᵇˡᵃ. ᴸᶦᵍʰᵗ ᵇˡᵃ ᵇˡᵃ ᵇˡᵃ. Dᴀʀᴋ. ˢᵖᵃᶜᶦᵃˡ."
Every single elemental affinity you could possibly imagine, complete with glowing lights and cheering crowds.
I swallowed hard, wiping a bead of cold sweat from my forehead. "Yeah, this is totally fine," I muttered to myself. "Everything is completely normal and fine."
When it was finally my turn after an agonizing 40mins wait, I shuffled up to the front desk.
A middle-aged staff member wearing small, wire-rimmed glasses looked up from his ledger, scanned my physical file, looked back at me, looked down at the paper again, and then slowly let his polite customer-service smile fade away into complete bewilderment.
"Rex Knox?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"That's me," I said flatly. "Unfortunately."
The staff member's fingers hovered nervously over his desk for a second before he carefully pushed the glowing crystal orb toward my side of the counter.
It rolled slightly across the felt pad, stopping right at the edge, its surface pulsing faintly with a soft, pale blue light.
"Please place your dominant hand on the detector for elemental registration."
I stared at the orb. Up close, the crystal looked unsettlingly organic.
It wasn't perfectly smooth; there were faint, branch-like veins running deep inside the glass, pulsing gently like frozen lightning trapped beneath an ice.
Around me, the bustling noise of the registration hall mysteriously began to die down.
The air grew unnaturally quiet.
I could feel dozens of eyes boring into my back— students whispering behind their hands, junior staff pretending to file papers while blatantly staring, and even the high-ranking senior officials standing near the back balcony shifting their attention toward my desk.
I had no idea why they were suddenly treating me like a zoo animal, but I desperately wanted to scream at all of them to mind their own business.
"Well... alright then," I muttered.
Slowly, hesitatingly, I extended my hand and rested my palm against the cool glass surface.
The crystal felt ice-cold against my skin. 'Damn... I wonder if this thing is going to shock me or something,' nervously.
Nothing happened.
No bright flash. No colorful flame. No magical hum. Just absolute, dead silence.
One second passed. Then two. Then three then four. Then Six and Seven.
Then, the soft blue glow inside the orb began to fade.
At first, I thought my eyes were just playing tricks on me in the hall light, but the color kept draining away rapidly, as if an invisible drain had opened inside the glass.
The bright blue turned into a dull grey.
The grey rapidly darkened, swallowing every trace of ambient light until the entire orb was pitch black.
The air in the room felt suddenly heavy, like the atmospheric pressure had dropped in a second.
"Uh," I said, breaking the suffocating silence. "Is it supposed to go completely dark like that?"
Naturally, nobody answered me.
Then, a sharp, distinct sound echoed across the silent room.
CRACK.
It wasn't loud, but in the dead silence, it sounded like a gunshot.
A thin, web-like fracture spread across the orb's dark surface right beneath my palm.
Then another line shot across the side.
And another.
The staff member's eyes blew wide open behind his wire glasses. "W-Wait—!"
CRACK-SHATTER!
The crystal orb detonated outward.
Shards of glowing, dark glass skidded across the wooden desk and clattered violently onto the floor tiles.
A few sharp fragments bounced near my sneakers, while others slid dangerously close to the high-ranking officials standing in the back row.
Gasps erupted from every direction. Someone stumbled backward into a display case; another person cursed under their breath; a chair scraped loudly against the floor.
Slowly, carefully, I pulled my hand back and stared at the pile of broken glass sitting on the desk pad.
"What the actual fuck," I whispered under my breath.
The poor staff member looked like he was about to pass out on the spot.
His face had gone completely ghost-pale, his lips were trembling, and sweat was pouring down his forehead like he had just sprinted a full marathon in winter gear.
"N-No way..." he stammered, his shaking hands hovering over the sharp shards. "T-This is... this can't be..." He swallowed hard, looking up at me as if I were a terrifying demon lord in casual clothes.
"Y-You are..." His voice cracked painfully. "You're a 1/1000 anomaly."
He looked at me like I had just committed a terrible crime.
"You... you completely broke the testing orb," he whispered, awe and horror mixing in his tone.
I blinked slowly, feeling like a confused frog sitting on a log.
I looked down at my bare, uninjured palm, then looked back at the shattered pile of crystal. 'Wait, no... what the hell? I don't even have mana! I'm completely manaless! How could I break a magic detector?!'
The surrounding murmurs grew louder, rippling through the massive hall. Confused, uneasy, and genuinely fearful glances were being thrown at me from every angle.
Before the panic could escalate, the staff member seemed to snap back to reality.
He lunged frantically for my student ID card, his trembling fingers fumbling with the scanner as he processed my registration file at lightspeed.
"You... you are hereby assigned to—" he paused, swallowing nervously as the machine chimed, "—Class A."
The entire hall went completely dead silent for the second time.
"Huh?" I squeaked out.
He slid the freshly stamped student ID card across the wooden desk toward me like it was a live explosive device he couldn't wait to get rid of.
I picked it up, stared at the giant, bold letter [A] printed right next to my photo, and felt a dull, thumping headache immediately begin to form behind my eyes.
"Right," I muttered, tucking the dangerous piece of plastic into my pocket. "Sure. Why not. Class A. Perfect."
I turned away from the desk, gripping my luggage handle firmly, and began walking off as casually as I could manage— though every single step felt awkwardly stiff under the weight of a hundred staring eyes.
I was practically tiptoeing toward the exit archway when a voice called out behind me.
"Rex Knox."
I stopped dead in my tracks. Slowly, reluctantly, I turned my head back toward the counter. "Yes?"
The middle-aged staff member had suddenly straightened his posture.
His trembling hands were gone, replaced by a strange, gleaming intensity behind his small glasses.
He offered a smile— a sharp, unnatural smile that didn't reach his eyes at all. "Come back here for a moment," he said, his voice dropping. "I want to see that happen again. For official documentation."
"I actually have somewhere very important to be right now," I replied instantly, taking half a step backward.
His creepy smile widened. Without waiting for my permission, he reached under the counter and pulled out a second crystal orb.
This one was slightly smaller, crystal-clear, and completely unblemished— like a fresh specimen that hadn't been traumatized by whatever weird glitch I had caused.
"Just once more," he insisted, resting his hands on the desk. "For verification."
I stared at the orb, then stared flatly at his eager face, letting out a heavy sigh. "ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT."
Walking back to the desk, I casually reached out and placed my palm flat against the new orb.
This time, nothing crazy happened. No dark void, no atmospheric drop, no sudden fractures.
The crystal remained perfectly, crystal clear.
A second passed. Then, glowing golden letters slowly coalesced deep inside the glass, floating gently like a floating system notification.
「0 MANA / MF A MANALESS!??!』
The entire hall froze solid.
The staff member's triumphant smile vanished instantly, replaced by a look of sheer shock.
THUD!
He slammed his fist onto the wooden desk so hard his inkwell rattled.
"Preposterous!" he snapped, his face flushing red. "This is completely absurd! The primary sensor shattered, yet the secondary index reads absolute zero?!" He yanked his hands back, glaring at the clear orb as if it had personally betrayed his family honor. "This makes no logical sense!"
Before he could finish his rant, the heavy double doors at the side of the hall burst wide open with a loud bang.
A young girl with round, oversized glasses rushed into the room, nearly tripping over her own boots as she sprinted full-speed toward our desk.
She was clutching a thick, leather-bound file tightly against her chest, panting heavily for breath.
At first glance, she looked like a textbook academic nerd— messy green hair tied back in a loose, tumbling ponytail, an oversized cream cardigan slipping carelessly off one shoulder, and thick glasses slightly crooked from her sprint.
But then there was the glaring aesthetic contradiction.
The oversized cardigan was straining just a little too much across her chest.
Her voluptuous figure completely defied her scholarly vibe— it looked entirely out of place on someone who looked like she survived on instant espresso.
Every hurried, breathless step she took made it painfully obvious that nature had been unfairly generous to her frame.
She pushed her crooked glasses up her nose with a single finger, completely oblivious to the awkward silence she had just interrupted.
"S-Sir!" she gasped out, catching her breath. "We found her! We verified the candidate!" She slammed the heavy file onto the wooden desk with both hands. "The female applicant who placed her palm on the primary orb earlier— she's officially confirmed to possess the 1/10000 potential!"
Silence stretched across the counter.
The staff member slowly turned his head, looking back and forth between the thick file and my deadpan face.
"Y-You..." he whispered cautiously to me, "you're not the one who broke the testing array with raw mana?"
I blinked twice, giving him the flatly unimpressed stare he deserved. "I… uh, yea?"
His shoulders slumped in total defeat. "...Shit."
I scratched the back of my neck, pulling my newly issued ID card out of my pocket and raising it slightly. "So, uh... what am I supposed to do with this Class A pass now?" I asked, gesturing at the bold lettering. "Since I'm clearly not the legendary prodigy you guys were looking for..."
The staff member rubbed his temples, letting out a long, exhausted groan.
"Just take it," he muttered. "The system system override has already logged the entry. We can't redo the manual verification. They should change the rule asap."
He slid a second printed document across the desk toward me without looking up. "Oh. Here, you forgot, your living quarters have already been assigned. Just go to your building."
I picked up the housing slip and read the bold print: [Dormitory Assignment: [Block A — Room 404]
I stared at it. 'So… wait, what about the dorm my mom got me?' "pshh." I'll just check it out next time.
***
Twenty minutes later, I was standing in front of the heavy oak door of Room 404 on the 4th floor of Block A. I raised my hand and knocked firmly three times.
No answer.
I waited five seconds in the quiet hallway. "...Hello? Anyone inside?" Still nothing.
With a shrug, I slid my keycard into the slot, turned the brass handle, and stepped inside. "Well, this is an A-class dorm, so..." I stepped into the living room and looked around. "Wow." I paused. "...Okay, never mind. It's literally just a regular two-story house."
The roam featured a surprisingly spacious living room, a modern kitchen setup, and a clean bathroom.
I carried my heavy duffel bags down the short hallway toward the sleeping quarters, suddenly noticing that there was only one bedroom door on the entire floor.
My steps slowed down as a sense of caution kicked in.
...Ah.
I reached the doorway and gently pushed the wooden door open. Inside, someone was already very much settled in.
A girl lay stretched out comfortably on the top bunk of a wooden bed frame, looking completely relaxed with one slender leg lazily dangling over the guardrail.
She had long, soft brown hair spilling messily across her pillow, her purple tinted eyes half-focused, half-bored as she scrolled through her smartphone.
She was wearing a loose, oversized white t-shirt that slipped low over one shoulder, paired with casual gray shorts that barely reached her thighs.
Every slight shift of her body made it obvious she wasn't exactly expecting housemates today.
And to make matters worse— her soft pink undergarments were partially visible from my angle below the ladder.
I wasn't a pervert, so I immediately averted my eyes.
"Hello?" I called out politely.
She didn't react, move, or even acknowledge my existence, completely engrossed in her phone screen.
I let out a long, quiet sigh, deciding not to make it awkward, and began unpacking my duffel bag near the vacant wooden wardrobe.
Only then did I take a proper look at the bedroom layout.
Two sturdy, double-decker bunk beds stood in opposite corners of the room, facing each other like two competing fortresses.
"Great," I muttered under my breath. So this wasn't a two-person suite. It was a four-person shared unit, which meant I was going to have two more chaotic roommates moving in soon.
After stuffing my folded clothes into the bottom drawers, I sat down on the lower bunk— the empty mattress directly beneath the brown-haired girl's bed.
The bed frame creaked slightly under my weight.
Above me, she shifted her position slightly, still completely absorbed in her phone, totally unaware— or expertly pretending to be unaware —that a guy had just claimed the sleeping space directly below her.
"Please let my roommates be the quiet, normal type," I prayed under my breath, staring at the wooden slats above my nose. "The sleepy, mind-their-own-business type. Not the loud, explosive chaos type."
I leaned back against the thin pillow, closing my eyes as the immense fatigue of the day finally caught up to my muscles.
My mom's surprise enrollment scheme, the absurd Vahard entrance gates, the exploding crystal orb, the Class A mistake, the girl sleeping above me... the entire day had been a non-stop train wreck of stress.
Before I could even process my next thought, darkness pulled me under, and I fell fast asleep.
***
Trrrng... trrrng…
A strange, rhythmic metallic buzzing dragged me out of the deep sleep. My eyes fluttered open, vision blurry and heavy.
Everything around me was pitch black. Way too dark. I hadn't turned on the bedroom lights before passing out, but even at night, the window moonlight should have made the room somewhat visible.
This wasn't normal nighttime darkness; it felt unnaturally thick, oppressive, like the heavy paralysis that grips your brain during a nightmare.
...Wait.
My breath hitched in my chest.
I tried to lift my arm. Nothing. I tried to wiggle my toes. Nothing. My entire body was completely unresponsive, frozen flat against the mattress as if an invisible, fifty-pound weight was pressing down on my chest without physically touching me. I tried to shout, but my jaw was locked shut.
...Fuck. Sleep paralysis?! Right now?!
Then, the ambient darkness shifted.
A figure was standing right beside my bunk bed.
It was a girl.
She had cascading, raven-black hair that fell like a dark curtain down her back, her presence completely silent and eerie.
She was draped in thin, semi-translucent pale silk fabric that floated around her frame like light mist— something akin to ancient elf robes.
The fabric clung to her silhouette in a way that made it impossible to tell whether it was meant to be functional clothing or purely decorative wear.
Not gonna lie... she looks like a dark spirit that's about to devour my soul... please don't, another terrified thought flashed through my mind.
She tilted her head slightly, her eyes glowing with a faint, crimson light in the pitch-black room as she looked down at my frozen face.
Slowly, soundlessly, she stepped over the side of the wooden frame, lowering her body onto the mattress until she was straddling my waist.
Her weight felt ice-cold against my torso.
I still couldn't move a single muscle.
She leaned down until her cold lips were hovering right next to my ear, her icy breath sending shivers down my spine.
"I'm sorry..." she whispered, her voice surprisingly soft, gentle, yet carrying an underlying, hypnotic weight as her body shifted against mine. "But I desperately need to live."
Her pale fingers pressed firmly against the center of my chest.
An unnatural, pulling pressure violently expanded through my bloodstream, as if something deep within my soul was being relentlessly siphoned out of me.
"So. I'm going to use you..." she whispered seductively, her glowing eyes locking onto mine, "...as my personal, living power generator."
What the FUCK! ಠ_ಠ?
The darkness around us violently deepened. My vision warped into spinning colors.
THUD!
I jolted upright on the mattress, sucking in a sharp, desperate lungful of air as cold sweat soaked straight through my t-shirt.
My heart was pounding like a war drum against my ribs— fast, frantic, and deafeningly loud in the quiet room.
I pushed myself up instinctively, nearly cracking my skull against the wooden bunk frame above me.
"Woah—!"
The brown-haired girl on the top bunk suddenly leaned over the wooden guardrail, her loose hair falling over her shoulders as she stared down at me with a startled, wide-eyed look.
"Whoa, who the hell are you...?" she asked cautiously, rubbing her eyes. "Have you been sleeping down there this whole time—"
I didn't answer her. I didn't even look at her face.
Because hovering directly in mid-air, 5 inches from my nose, was a floating user interface.
It was pitch-black, outlined with a sleek, neon-pink glow that hummed silently in the dim morning light. It didn't flicker. It didn't cast light on the walls. It just sat there floating in front of my face.
『INITIALIZING SYSTEM...」
SYNC COMPLETE.
[WELCOME, REX KNOX.]
[ADULT QUEST SYSTEM — ACTIVATED.]
[FIRST QUEST WILL BE ISSUED SHORTLY.]
[FAILURE CONDITION: IMMEDIATE DEATH.]』
I stared at the glowing pink warning text, my jaw dropping open in sheer horror.
"WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!!!!!!" I screamed at the top of my lungs.