The next day, as the first rays of dawn pierced the smog of Neo-Veridia.
Kaelen woke up bright and early, his mood surprisingly excellent. He grabbed a synthetic-protein bar and practically skipped out the door, eager to clock into his shift at the library.
To him, the Astral Library was no longer a boring corporate wage-cage. It was a literal, infinite treasure trove of god-tier loot.
Just showing up, slacking off in a quiet corner, and scanning some barcodes was enough to facilitate his path to absolute invincibility.
Seriously, where else in the multiverse could I find a gig this broken?
However, just as Kaelen swiped his security badge at the grand entrance, his datapad chimed aggressively.
He pulled it out and glanced at the screen.
It was a priority-red emergency alert from the Floor Supervisor in the general staff channel.
[ATTENTION ALL PERSONNEL! REPORT TO THE MAIN ASSEMBLY HALL IMMEDIATELY! CHIEF DIRECTOR SILAS HAS ARRIVED FOR AN EMERGENCY DEBRIEFING!]
The stark red text made Kaelen pause in the lobby.
The Chief Director is here? Personally?
From Xander's endless gossiping, Kaelen knew that Silas, the absolute ruler of the library, was a highly elusive figure who spent 99% of his time meditating in the secure upper levels.
For a guy like that to call a mandatory all-hands meeting at 8:00 AM... he must have something massive to announce.
Not wanting to draw any unwanted attention by being late, Kaelen quickly joined the stream of confused employees heading toward the assembly hall.
...
The grand assembly hall, capable of seating over two hundred staff members, was already packed shoulder-to-shoulder, buzzing with anxious whispers and wild speculation.
Kaelen kept his head down, maintaining his perfectly crafted aura of an unremarkable, minimum-wage nobody, and slipped into an inconspicuous seat in the very back row.
After getting comfortable, he casually looked up at the elevated podium.
Standing at the microphone was a handsome, middle-aged man in a flawlessly tailored suit. His temples were lightly dusted with silver, and he exuded a refined, scholarly elegance. Every micro-movement he made was incredibly poised.
But even through the veneer of a corporate executive, Kaelen's heightened Aetheric Perception could easily detect the terrifying, ocean-like reservoir of raw Star Power actively suppressed beneath the man's skin.
"So that's him..."
Kaelen narrowed his eyes, mildly surprised by the sheer density of the man's core.
No matter how flawlessly he suppresses his signature to appear mortal, he can't hide from my radar.
This Chief Director Silas is genuinely a mid-stage Awakened Grandmaster!
But on second thought, it made perfect tactical sense.
A strategic asset like the Neo-Veridia Astral Library, which housed thousands of highly coveted, deadly combat manuals, would naturally require a terrifying apex predator sitting at the top to deter thieves and corporate spies.
Once the stragglers filed in and the doors sealed, Silas tapped the microphone lightly.
"Ladies and gentlemen. May I have your attention, please?"
His voice wasn't booming, but the subtle infusion of Aether carried his calm, gentle tone effortlessly into the ears of every single person in the massive room.
The hall instantly fell dead silent. You could hear a pin drop.
Seeing the absolute discipline of his staff, Silas nodded in approval.
"Excellent. I am well aware that your time is valuable, so I will be brief. I have summoned you all to enforce a strict, temporary shift in our operational protocols."
"Effective immediately, any and all patrons who enter this library must be treated with the absolute highest tier of respect and deference. I expect zero complaints, zero attitude, and absolute perfection in your customer service. You are to pay extreme, personal attention to any unfamiliar, elderly individuals you do not recognize. There is to be absolutely no laxity or disrespect permitted on these premises..."
The instructions that followed were essentially a highly aggressive, mandatory customer-service seminar.
Throughout the hall, the employees nodded vigorously, their faces tight with anxiety, listening to Silas's demands as if he were handing down the ten commandments. They were terrified of missing a single detail that might get them fired.
Every person in the room looked incredibly tense, as if they were preparing for an imminent siege.
Watching this bizarre display from the back row... Kaelen was completely and utterly baffled.
What the hell is going on here?
Why is everyone acting like the world is ending over a customer service update?
Don't tell me some stuffy corporate auditor from the Imperial Capital is coming for a surprise inspection?!
While Kaelen's brain spun with mundane corporate conspiracies, the bizarre morning assembly concluded as quickly as it had begun.
"That will be all," Silas said, sweeping his sharp gaze across the crowd. "Thank you for your tireless dedication during this highly sensitive period. You may return to your sectors. Execute my instructions flawlessly."
At the Director's dismissal, the tense crowd collectively exhaled and began filing out of the hall like a herd of cattle.
Kaelen slouched, blending seamlessly into the middle of the pack, projecting his usual aura of utter mediocrity.
However...
Just as he was passing the center aisle, directly beneath the elevated podium...
Silas, who was organizing his notes, suddenly paused. He raised an eyebrow, his sharp, predatory gaze locking directly onto Kaelen's retreating back.
For a brief, inexplicable second, his honed Aetheric instincts screamed that something was fundamentally... different about that particular young man. A vast, hidden depth, like staring into a dark ocean.
Is my paranoia acting up from the stress of last night?
The Floor Supervisor, who had been hovering nearby and was highly adept at reading his boss's micro-expressions, quickly leaned in and whispered:
"Director Silas... is there an issue with that junior archivist?"
"No," Silas shook his head slowly, his eyes still fixed on the exit. "He just... feels peculiar. When did he join the staff? I don't believe I've ever seen him before."
"It's entirely normal that you wouldn't recognize him, sir. He's a new hire assigned to the ground floor. He's only been scanning barcodes for a few months and hasn't even completed his probationary period."
The Supervisor pulled up a holographic file on his datapad, frowning as he read the stats. "His genetic aptitude is officially graded as 'Lowest-Tier Trash'. There is absolutely nothing remarkable about his combat potential."
"Is that so..."
Hearing the damning genetic grade, Silas immediately lost interest and looked away, his brief suspicion completely dispelled. "He is quite aesthetically pleasing, though. Shame about the genetics."
After all, this was a brutal reality that worshipped raw destructive power above all else. Having the face of a model couldn't stop a Rift Beast from biting your head off. The only true currency in this world was the body count you could rack up.
...
After stepping through the doors of the assembly hall, Kaelen felt the intense, laser-like gaze finally lift off his spine, and he let out a microscopic sigh of relief.
He had felt Silas probing him.
But thanks to the passive, flawless cloaking field generated by his own Awakened Tier core, he easily fed the Director false readings of a weak, mortal body. It was nothing to worry about.
What truly surprised Kaelen, however...
Was that Silas's combat intuition was so terrifyingly sharp that he could sense an anomaly just by glancing at a passing crowd!
This world is full of paranoid monsters. I'll have to double down on my slacker camouflage from now on.
Making a mental note to act even lazier, Kaelen quickened his pace toward Sector 1 to begin his shift.
But before he could reach his desk...
"Yo! Wait up, Old Kaelen!"
A highly familiar, incredibly annoying voice echoed down the corridor.
Kaelen turned to see his resident degenerate coworker.
It was Xander!
"Dude, what's the rush?! You slipped out of that meeting like a ghost! I was trying to flag you down, but I couldn't catch you!"
Xander jogged up to Kaelen, actually panting for breath.
"If I told you I was in a massive hurry to get to my desk and do my minimum-wage job, would you believe me?" Kaelen smiled smoothly, feeding him a casual lie.
"Get outta here! You're the biggest slacker in the building!" Xander rolled his eyes so hard he nearly pulled a muscle. "I bet you're just rushing back to the archives hoping to bump into the legendary Sword Master, right?"
"You're just way too eager to kiss up to authority!"
"What legendary Sword Master?" Kaelen froze, his smile faltering slightly. "What kind of hallucinogenic nonsense are you spouting now?"
"Are you seriously playing dumb with me right now, bro? I ask you to go to The Platinum Mirage and you act like a monk... and now you don't even know about the biggest geopolitical event of the decade? Open your datapad! Look at the trending news! It's literally breaking the internet!"
As he spoke, Xander aggressively shoved his own datapad into Kaelen's face.
Kaelen looked at the glowing screen.
Occupying the number one, undisputed top-trending slot globally was a high-resolution drone photograph of a massive, completely sheared-off mountain peak.
Seeing his own handiwork plastered across the global net, Kaelen was secretly horrified.
Isn't that the mountain I gave a haircut to last night?!
It's a global trending topic?!
Misinterpreting the sheer shock on Kaelen's face, Xander assumed his friend was just having his mind blown by the raw power, and couldn't help but explain with intense, fanboy enthusiasm:
"You had no idea, did you?! Sometime late last night, this entire mountain in the outer ranges was completely severed in half by a single sword strike! The global forums are losing their absolute minds trying to figure out which legendary Ascendant-Tier Grandmaster has descended upon our city!"
"The news has already breached the Imperial Capital! The only reason Director Silas called that emergency meeting and told us to kiss up to old people is because he's terrified we might accidentally offend this hidden god if he walks in looking for a book!"
As he delivered his dramatic exposition, Xander sighed, his eyes shining with deep, unadulterated envy. "Man... if I could just find that old master and become his disciple, my life would be set. Did you see the clean cut on that rock?! That 'Heavens-Severing' strike is the coolest thing I've ever seen!"
Hearing this passionate declaration, a highly amused, strange expression crept onto Kaelen's face. He couldn't resist.
He looked at Xander and smirked. "You want to be his personal disciple? Why don't you get down and kowtow to me right now? I might consider it."