The knock came late.
Not loud enough to demand attention—just persistent enough to avoid punishment for neglect.
Eren looked up from the table, where several books lay open, their pages weighted down by smooth stones. He had been rereading the same passage for the third time, not because he didn't understand it, but because repetition brought calm.
The knock came again.
"…Enter," he said.
The door opened only halfway.
A man in plain servant robes stepped inside, head bowed, shoulders tense. He carried a small wooden crate held carefully in both hands, as if it were heavier than it looked.
"Monthly ration, Young Master," the servant said. "As scheduled."
He placed the crate on the floor and immediately stepped back two paces.
Instinctive. Trained.
Eren's eyes narrowed slightly.
There was mana in the man—controlled, steady, unmistakable. Not refined to nobility standards, but solid.
C-rank, Eren assessed.
He crouched and opened the crate.
Dried grain. Preserved meat. Two hardened loaves. A single vial of low-grade tonic.
Enough to live.
Not enough to grow.
The contents hadn't changed since the first month he could remember.
"This is everything?" Eren asked.
The servant stiffened. "Y-Yes, Young Master. This is the allocation designated for this residence."
Designated.
Eren straightened slowly and studied the man—not with anger, not with accusation, but with the same quiet observation he once used on targets.
"How long have you served the Veridian clan?" he asked.
"Seven years."
"And your rank?"
"…C."
That answered everything.
In the main estate, servants were never below B-rank. Some wings were attended exclusively by A-ranks—individuals strong enough to command squads elsewhere.
Here, in the residence of a Veridian by blood, stood a C-rank servant delivering survival rations.
Not because the clan lacked resources.
Because they had calculated his worth.
"You may leave," Eren said.
The servant bowed deeply, relief flickering across his face before discipline reclaimed it. He exited without another word, closing the door softly behind him.
Eren did not move.
Then he exhaled.
"They didn't abandon me," he said quietly. "They categorized me."
Food. Distance. Servants. All scaled to rank.
This wasn't cruelty.
It was bookkeeping.
His status window surfaced in response, translucent and silent.
F-rank.Low mana.Marginal stats.
In the Veridian system, this was the end of the road.
No amount of basic training or discipline would earn him access to official arts. Amplifier Mana demanded a lineage-compatible flow—mana that responded to command.
His did not.
Which meant the Veridian path was closed.
Eren dismissed the window and turned back to the shelves.
Books lined the walls—unofficial texts, forgotten manuals, theory without pedigree. The original Eren had gathered these quietly, patiently, learning what the clan refused to teach him.
But even this path had limits.
Foundations alone could not break hierarchy.
Unless…
A thought surfaced.
Not speculation.
Memory.
In The Ashen Crown, there had been a dungeon—unremarkable at first glance, ignored by major factions for years because of its location and classification. Hundreds of kilometers away. Too far. Too unstable.
Too dangerous for the reward it promised.
Sealed within it was a mana art.
Black Nox.
A 9 ★★★★★★★★★ Mana Art.
Not noble. Not sanctioned. Not understood.
It had belonged to a villain.
Not a tyrant. Not a world-ending threat.
Just a man who refused to die.
Low mana. No backing. No bloodline.
Yet impossible to finish off.
Shadow, dark, and decay woven into an advanced elemental state—not to dominate, but to erode. To outlast. To persist when everything else failed.
The novel had dismissed him as a "necessary obstacle."
Eren remembered thinking something different.
This power was wasted on someone reckless.
Black Nox did not reward ambition.
It rewarded endurance.
Calm minds. Slow growth. Acceptance of loss.
Eren's fingers tightened slightly.
He had low mana.
Low rank.
A body trained to survive pain rather than overwhelm it.
And a mind that had already chosen death once.
"…So that's it," he murmured.
Black Nox was not a shortcut.
It was a long road, one that began far beyond Veridian territory, in a dungeon no noble wanted to claim.
Perfect.
He closed the book in front of him and stood.
Outside, the main estate rose in the distance—bright, controlled, saturated with dominant mana.
Eren did not look at it.
Let them measure worth by amplification and obedience.
He would grow somewhere they couldn't see.