The final act of the Affinity Assessment belonged to the greatest anomaly of them all. After the last of the minor houses had presented, a heavy, expectant silence fell over the auditorium. There was only one name left on the list, the one that was a source of curiosity, contempt, and political debate throughout the Great Houses.
"Unaffiliated, student Kaelen Dusk. You are last."
Kaelen walked towards the platform with heavy, determined steps. He kept his head held high, his jaw set, ignoring the whispers that followed him like a cloud of insects. "The human." "The charity case." "The slave from the mines." "Why is he even here?"
He could feel the weight of thousands of eyes on him, most of them dismissive or hostile. He was a curiosity, a piece of political theater put on by the Emperor to show his benevolence. No one expected anything from him. They expected him to fail, to humiliate himself, and to be a cautionary tale about why the lower classes should stay in their place.
But he could also feel a few other gazes. Roselle was watching him with a look of warm encouragement. Borin gave him a thumbs-up from the crowd. Master Ashvale was observing him with a neutral, unreadable expression. And Isabella Pyralis was watching with an amused, challenging grin, as if daring him to surprise her. He drew strength from them. He would not let them down.
He stepped onto the platform, his worn boots making a solid, grounding sound on the stone. He looked small and brutish compared to the elegant, well-bred nobles who had preceded him. But there was a fire in his dark eyes, a stubborn refusal to be cowed.
The lead instructor looked down at him, his expression not unkind, but weary. He had a job to do. "Mr. Dusk," he said. "Please demonstrate your affinity."
Kaelen froze.
This was the moment he had been dreading, the insurmountable wall he had known was coming. The truth was, he had no affinity. Not in the way these people understood it. He couldn't summon fire or ice, he couldn't move the earth or talk to the wind. He was just… strong. And stubborn. He had been admitted as a political gesture, a symbol. He had nothing to show.
He opened his mouth to try and explain, to say that he was just a normal human, that this was all a mistake. But the words wouldn't come. His throat was dry. The whispers from the crowd grew louder, turning from curiosity to mockery.
"What's he doing?"
"He's got nothing, see? I told you."
"This is just embarrassing. What was the Emperor thinking?"
The instructors on the panel exchanged uncomfortable glances. This was turning into a political fiasco. One of them, a gruff-looking man with a specialty in energy diagnostics, decided to intervene, to end the boy's humiliation quickly.
"Perhaps the boy's affinity is dormant," the instructor grunted. "Let's give it a probe."
He raised a hand and sent a small, gentle tendril of pure Qi energy across the platform towards Kaelen. It was a standard diagnostic technique, a harmless probe designed to resonate with and awaken any latent magical potential.
The tendril of Qi, a shimmering ribbon of blue light, touched Kaelen's arm.
And vanished.
It didn't dissipate. It wasn't blocked or deflected. It simply… ceased to exist. One moment it was there, the next it was gone, as if it had been swallowed by a hole in reality.
Kaelen felt it. A jolt, not of energy, but of… satisfaction. A deep, primal hunger in the core of his being, a hunger he had never known was there, had just been given its first, tiny taste of a meal. And it was delicious.
The instructor who had sent the probe stared, his mouth slightly agape. "What…?"
The other instructors were now sitting bolt upright, their boredom forgotten. "Try again," the lead instructor commanded. "A different energy type."
A second instructor, a Pyralis mage, sent a small, controlled flicker of fire at Kaelen. It wasn't an attack, just a ball of pure heat energy. It hit Kaelen's chest and, just like the Qi, it simply vanished, leaving not even a scorch mark on his tunic.
Kaelen felt another jolt, this one warmer, spicier. The hunger within him purred with contentment. It liked this new flavor.
Now the entire panel was on its feet. A Glaciem instructor sent a shard of ice. It disappeared a foot from Kaelen's face. A Noctis master sent a tendril of shadow. It was consumed. Light, earth, wind—every fundamental energy type they sent at him was simply… eaten.
The whispers in the crowd had died, replaced by a stunned, disbelieving silence. No one had ever seen anything like this. It wasn't a shield—a shield would have flared, showing a sign of resistance. It wasn't absorption—an absorber's own energy would fluctuate. This was something else. This was annihilation.
While everyone else was confused, I was not. I was watching Kaelen with a sudden, intense, and predatory interest. My mind, the mind of Azrael the reader, was screaming a single word.
*Devouring.*
It was his affinity. The hidden, forgotten, Eternal-tier affinity that was the core of his identity as the novel's protagonist. The ability to consume any form of energy, to make it his own or to simply erase it from existence. It was the power that would eventually allow him to stand against gods.
But it shouldn't be manifesting now.
In the novel, Kaelen's Devouring affinity didn't awaken until much later, during a life-or-death battle in the second arc. He was supposed to struggle through his first year at the Academy as a powerless human, his successes coming from sheer grit and the help of his friends. This… this changed everything.
The timeline was wrong. The sacred text of the novel was not a prophecy. It was a guide to what *might* have been, and reality was already diverging from the script. The thought was both terrifying and exhilarating. If the future could change, then my foreknowledge was not a guarantee of certainty. It was merely an advantage. A powerful one, but one I would have to constantly adapt and re-evaluate.
On the platform, Kaelen was as confused and terrified as anyone. He didn't understand what was happening, this strange hunger inside him. He just knew that the mockery had stopped.
After a long, frantic, and utterly baffled consultation, the lead instructor finally addressed the silent auditorium. "The nature of Mr. Dusk's… talent is unknown to this panel. It does not conform to any known affinity classification." He looked at Kaelen with a mixture of fear and awe. "Rank: **Unclassified**. We recommend immediate and extensive further testing under the supervision of the Headmaster."
Kaelen stumbled off the stage, his mind reeling, his body trembling. He was no longer a charity case. He was something else. Something new and frightening. He didn't see the calculating looks from the Great House balconies. He didn't see the predatory interest in Prince Valerius's eyes.
And he didn't see my pale grey eyes tracking him, my mind already working, already calculating. The protagonist of the story had just received a massive power-up, far ahead of schedule. This was a dangerous complication.
Or a golden opportunity.