The instructor stays beside me, close enough that I can smell coffee on his breath and see the tension set into his jaw. He is trying to decide what I am, and the uncertainty is making him sharper by the second.
A malfunction. A liar. A fluke.
He has not considered the real option yet, the one that would break the neat little categories he uses to keep his day predictable.
That the System lied.
The hall does not return to normal after the first abnormal reading. People pretend to focus on their own rigs, but their eyes keep drifting back to mine. Even the low ranks stop looking embarrassed, replaced by the kind of curiosity people get when someone else risks being punished first.
I do not look around too much. You can feel attention without feeding it.
Lee Minho is quiet now. I can hear that too, the way a room changes when a certain kind of person stops laughing. People like him always notice anything that threatens the usual order, because the usual order is what makes them comfortable.
The technician stands at the rig's side panel with his fingers hovering as if touching the wrong button will get him blamed. He clears his throat and speaks quickly.
"It's calibrated," he says. "It should be reading correctly."
The instructor does not answer right away. He keeps staring at the display like the machine might confess if he pressures it hard enough, then his eyes slide to me again.
"Again," he says. "But this time, do not exceed beginner output."
It is not a suggestion. It is a test, and the whole room can feel it.
I nod like a polite student.
Inside, I count variables.
My authority is already spent, which means whatever shifted in me has shifted for real. If the trait is active, it is not active in the way reinforcement skills felt in my first life. There is no satisfying click, no warm surge, no immediate instinctive sense of power rising through my limbs. What I do feel is that cold pressure behind my eyes, steady and watchful, as if something has adjusted its focus.
I place my hand on the sensor pad.
The rig hums and the screen resets. The instructor watches my fingers like they might give away a trick. Students nearby hold their breath in that half embarrassed, half excited way people do when they think something is about to happen and they want to be part of it without being responsible.
I release the smallest output I can manage, just enough to register.
The needle climbs.
It should barely move. It rises anyway, faster than a beginner's core should allow, like the machine is reading a different kind of structure than the one it expects in an eighteen year old D Rank.
The instructor's eyes narrow.
I reduce output further, careful and controlled. The needle still rises, slower now but still wrong. A whisper starts behind me, the kind of whisper that spreads because it is not sure it is allowed to be loud yet.
"D Rank," someone says, like the word is an explanation.
Another voice answers, quieter. "That's not D."
The display flickers. For a brief moment, a line appears that is not part of the normal interface.
Unauthorized measurement detected.
Then it disappears, replaced by the normal output number, as if the rig is trying to pretend it never showed anything unusual.
The technician blinks and looks away fast, which tells me he either did not see it or has decided he did not see it. The instructor does not look away. His pupils tighten slightly, and I can see he did read it.
My overlay pulses.
Detection Risk: 8%
So it is not only watching.
It is reacting.
I remove my hand. The hum lowers but does not fully settle, like something inside the rig is overheated and struggling to return to baseline. The instructor turns toward the technician.
"Did you install any non standard components," he asks.
The technician looks offended. "No sir. This is Association equipment."
The instructor's gaze returns to me.
"What is your family background," he asks, as if bloodline is the easiest file to place me in.
If I say nobody, he will relax. If I say anything else, he will dig. Either way, it becomes a story, and stories are how people start circling you.
"None," I say.
He studies my face, searching for sarcasm. He does not find it.
Behind me, the boy who mocked me earlier speaks again, but his voice has lost its edge. It sounds uncertain now, like he is trying to convince himself more than anyone else.
"It's a trick," he mutters. "He's cheating somehow."
I do not turn around. Cheating implies rules. This is bigger than rules.
The instructor exhales through his nose, frustration seeping into his posture.
"Fine," he says. "Output is unstable. We move to control. Compression pulse. Low level."
He gestures at the second mode on the rig, a standard test for shaping mana without wasting it. In my first life, I failed this part early on because control comes from either talent or pain, and I did not have enough of either back then. Now I have years of muscle memory, and I have a sealed trait that has started to loosen.
That combination is dangerous.
I place my hand on the sensor pad again. The rig shifts modes with a soft click, and a small indicator light turns on. I breathe in and shape my mana into a compact pulse, tight and clean. It is the same technique elite hunters use when they want to crack armor without burning through reserves, a movement that feels simple only after you have almost died learning it.
The needle climbs into a safe beginner range at first.
The instructor's shoulders loosen slightly, like he just convinced himself the earlier readings were a glitch.
Then the rig stutters.
The lights flare once, bright enough to turn heads across the hall, and the needle jumps higher than it should. A sharp snapping sound comes from inside the casing.
The technician curses under his breath.
Component stress limit reached, the display flashes.
The instructor steps back half a pace, sudden caution showing through the professional mask. He does not like equipment doing anything unexpected, because unexpected equipment means unexpected reports.
I end the pulse immediately.
Too late.
The snapping sound repeats, louder this time, followed by a faint crack as a hairline fracture forms along the glass panel. The rig's hum cuts out completely, lights dying as if someone pulled the plug.
Silence drops over the hall for a single beat.
Then the noise surges.
"What the hell."
"That machine is expensive."
"Did he break it."
The instructor stares at the dead rig like it personally insulted him. In the back, a scout raises a phone and speaks quietly into it, not bothering to hide the urgency. Another scout pushes off the wall and takes a step forward, no longer pretending this section of the room is irrelevant.
Lee Minho is not smiling.
I finally check my overlay.
Detection Risk: 11%
A warning line flickers into existence, faint and cold.
System Attention Increasing
My stomach tightens slightly, because that is not a normal alert. Hunters do not receive warnings like that. It feels like a message meant for something else, something that sits above the ranking system and does not care about guild politics or contracts.
The instructor turns to me. His voice is lower now, controlled, but there is an edge under it.
"You're coming with me," he says.
He tries to make it sound like authority, but his eyes flick toward the scouts and then back to my face. He is worried about who is going to claim me, and whether keeping me close is protection or a liability.
I nod once and step away from the dead rig.
As I move, the hidden layer above my head flickers again, clearer than before, as if the seal has loosened enough to show me what it has been hiding.
Primary Trait: UnsealedTrait Name: Authority LinkStatus: DormantCondition: First Evolution Required
Dormant.
So the door is open, but the real power is still asleep, and that means the spike everyone expects has not even happened yet.
The instructor leads me toward the side door near the scout section. The scouts are no longer pretending not to care. One of them is already moving to intercept us, expression polite, eyes sharp, the posture of someone who knows exactly what he wants to buy.
Behind my eyes, that cold pressure tightens again, like whatever is watching has leaned closer.
My overlay updates one more time.
Detection Risk: 14%
The warning repeats, clearer than before.
System Attention Increasing
I keep walking anyway.
If the System is paying attention now, I cannot afford to hesitate. Hesitation is what gets people killed, and I already know how dying feels.
I am not doing it twice