The shop bell had barely stopped jingling from his aunt's first customer when it chimed again, this time with a familiar, energetic rhythm.
"Ollie! You're not still day dreaming, are you? We've got a bus to catch!"
Sara Fenwick barge into *The Quill & Quantum*, her own grey apprentice cloak flaring behind her. She'd pinned a small, polished sun-amber to the collar, tiny the uniformity. Her kinetic boots, which helped her navigate Lyrhall's steep streets, were powered down, but she still seemed to vibrate with bondless energy.
"Just reviewing combat stances in my head," Oliver said, managing a weak smile. "Pivot foot, balanced center of gravity, controlled exhalation on the strike."
Sara rolled her eyes, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl Mira kept for customers. "You've memorized the manual. Your body just needs to catch up. Remember last week in Basic Kinetic Drills? You calculated the perfect angle to deflect that training orb, then tripped over your own feet."
"The calculation was correct," Oliver muttered defensively. "The platform was uneven."
"The platform," Sara said, taking a loud crunch of the apple, "was fine. You think too much between your brain and your boots. Today, you won't have to think. The Worldstone just… *knows*." Her confidence was a solid, warm thing in the room, but Oliver saw the faint tremor in her hand as she put the apple core down. She was nervous too, just better at hiding it.
A deep, hum echoed from the street, vibrating the windowpanes. Through the glass, they saw it: a large, sleek vehicle hovering a hand's breadth above the cobblestones. It was a fusion of enchanted darkwood and reinforced steel, with the angular crest of the Lyrhaven Adventurer's Guild emblazoned on its side in glowing blue paint. The Guild bus.
"That's us," Sara said, her playful demeanor sharpening into focus.
Mira emerged from behind a bookshelf, wiping her hands on her apron. She pulled Oliver into a brief, tight hug. "Remember, no matter what the stone says, you are Oliver Rill of *The Quill & Quantum*. That is your first affinity." She gave Sara a warm nod. "Look after each other."
The bus was filled with other grey-clad sixteen-year-olds from their district, a bubble of tense silence punctuated by nervous whispers. The vehicle moved with a silent, magical smoothness, gliding through the bustling streets of Lyrhall towards the monolithic Guild complex.
The Awakening was held in the Guild's central atrium, a cavernous space where ancient stone pillars met holographic displays listing logistical runes. The process was swift, impersonal, efficient. One by one, names were called. Oliver watched as a boy's hands sank into the solid floor of the dais—Earth, B-Grade. A girl's hair crackled with static, lifting around a visible aura of energy—Lightning, A-Grade.
"Sara Fenwick."
Sara shot Oliver a glance that was pure, undiluted fire, then strode forward. She placed her hands on the milky-white Worldstone. For a second, nothing. Then, the air around her *warped*. The light bent. The Guild banners hanging from the high ceiling dipped towards her. She didn't glow; she became a focal point, a subtle, powerful drag on the very space around her. The runes on the plinth blazed with complex geometric data.
The Guild evaluator, a woman with a data-slate, announced the result, a note of surprise in her professionally neutral tone. "Gravity Affinity. Designation: Geton. Preliminary Grade: S."
A true S-Grade. A rarity. A wave of excited murmurs swept the atrium. Sara, looking slightly dizzy but triumphant, was gently guided away by a Guild aide in, cordoned-off area.
"Oliver Rill."
Oliver's mouth was dry. He climbed the dais, the eyes of the atrium upon him. He placed his hands on the Worldstone. It was cool. He felt a faint, inner pull, a gentle drawing sensation, but nothing surged forth. No light, no heat, no warp, no elemental manifestation. A dull, grey-silver sheen, like tarnished lead, seeped from his palms into the stone's surface, where it pooled inertly. The runes on the plinth flickered, struggled, and resolved into a simple, unimpressive script.
"Affinity: Grey-Weaver. Mana-Type: Unaspected/Inert. Preliminary Grade: C."
The evaluator's face showed a flicker of polite disappointment before she motioned him towards the opposite side of the atrium from Sara, where a much larger group of grade:C teens stood waiting.
The registration hall was a study in efficient segregation. Oliver's group was processed in a large, echoing hall with automated kiosks.
At his kiosk, a mechanical arm scanned his mana signature—that same faint, static pull—and issued his Guild Adventure Card. It slid out from a black box. It was Bronze in color, which made by some metallic stone material. His name, his affinity written on the card and on the bottom corner of card there was some unique pattern which some time lit up with grey colour.
The bus ride home was a different world. The silence was gone, shattered by the raw energy of released tension and newly forged hierarchies.
He looked out the window at the passing spires of Lyrhall. The uncertainty wasn't just about being weak. It was about being an unknown. Was Grey-Weaver a quiet, useless thing? Or was it something else entirely, something the Worldstone and the Guild's categories couldn't quite measure? The blurry books in his aunt's study felt like a metaphor for his own future—a truth present but inaccessible, hidden behind a veil no one had taught him how to lift.
The bus hummed on, carrying him home with a pocket full unanswered questions.
End of chapter