“Hi, what business do you have at a place such as this, young man?” The receptionist asked. She wore a gentle smile with a warm tone that would drain anyone of sadness and fear. Two crimson-orange ears poked out of her head, implying openly that she was a demihuman, of the fox species precisely.

Shii calmed down knowing that the mysterious assassin man wasn’t lying—there truly were people of all kinds of races and types that came to adventure.

With a calmer expression, Shii gulped once more and spoke out,

“Uh I would like to register as an adventurer”

Quickly, the receptionist returned an expression in the midst of tasteless disappointment and minor sadness; it was clearly something she had to deal with very often.

“Sorry but you are a bit too young for this job, don’t you think so?” The fox-girl told Shii nicely nonetheless.

“Y-yes, but I know what I’m doing… I didn’t come here on a whim… I really mean it”, Shii insisted further on, still not deciding to show the token just yet.

“It’s not the kind of job you are thinking it is. It’s dangerous, you can lose your life”, she warned the young man with a furthermore serious tone than before. It truly showed both the concern and annoyment that these kinds of requests gave a person at reception.

“You can give me a task such as hunting the head of a predator or so…and I would bring that head here. I’ve done that before…” Shii continued to press on further, his tone was lacking of any nervousness and left a somerly impact of merit instead.

“If you insist, I will register you as an adventurer in a few years when you gain more experience”, the receptionist suggested to Shii; although it was much more a statement than a suggestion from her tone and authority.

Finally, fed up with bargaining and stirring up trouble, Shii retracted his right hand out of his pocket and placed a certain token on the counter to show the receptionist.

“N-no way… A token of referral…from an adventurer such as him?!” The receptionist exclaimed for a brief moment, before quickly regaining her composure.

“Uh… Who is he exactly?” Shii asked since he’d always been wanting to know more about the mysterious eminence who decided to be so menacingly kind to him.

“His name is Xero, he is a Petera rank adventurer. He’s really strong and well respected here”, the woman answered with an open but surprised gaze towards Shii.

“Well… I have no choice but to register you now, considering you earned his approval. Normally though, you would have to be more…err…mature and strong”, the receptionist continued on with shifting tones; she was acting much more honestly now.

“I will prove my strength soon”, Shii calmly responded with confidence and continued to wait as the registration process had begun.

“It seems that the receptionist knows this Xero person for a decent timespan”, Shii remarked silently while he looked emptily at the counter.

The receptionist finished pre-filling a form and presented it on the counter table to Shii—it was in fact a registration form as expected.

Name: Shii Seles

Age: 14

Class: All rounder

Rank: Anem

“Damn, I see now, so you must also be the one that the elf lady was talking about“, the receptionist vaguely commented after receiving the result Shii filled.

“You’re quite popular already huh?” She giggled somewhat cheeringly to him—for once it felt like all of Shii’s nervousness had dropped away because of the composed genuinity of this woman. 

“Huh? What elf lady?” He asked instantly with visible curiosity.

“Ah, don’t mind that”, She replied implying that giving the contact is not a good idea.

“Anyway, your registration is complete. Welcome to the Withered Rose guild!” She changed the topic to the seemingly more important one and greeted him with joy.

“I see, so really that tavern has connections with the Withered Rose… No wonder that I ran into that assassin then”, the smiling Shii concluded in his head with both increasing suspense and accomplishment over progressing forth in this mystery.

Rineri, who wasn’t seen for quite a while, had spent his time mainly at the library. The teachers knew that he was trying to figure some things out­—like how his magic seemed so different from others and how he often failed simple combinations. 

“Zero… Zero information on this…” Rineri sighed with a look through a window to his side and pushed the book in front of him away. Not a single person in the past had the same elemental alignment as him, or even anything similar. It was always an element like air, water or other basic ones…

Rineri had a set of two unique alignments, Static and something he couldn’t describe. Due to this, most teachers of the magic classes hadn’t the slightest clue of how to help and teach him control and sustenance of casting. This caused the self study sessions that Rineri attended, along with him locking himself up in the library until he finds something or the day ends.

From the entrance of the library, someone else had entered with another unique case of not participating in the physical classes. It was Violet, who had already gotten the note that she’ll be part of the literature team in the competition, where her allowance was to have her study the literature themes chosen in the coming battle. 

“Rin?” She said to the sight of him sitting all in a mess of a book to the south side of the library, walking up to his side before sitting down. Taking a book of his in her hands, she recognised the title and author… The theoretical studies of unknown magic, written by Senna…

“H-hello…” Rineri shyly reacted with a greeting, avoiding most eye contact but his sinking mental state made his efforts shallow… His mind was already too tired to focus on other things; having been in the library for some hours already.

“Still at the ground base… Luck isn’t something for you…” Violet commented, she wasn’t new to him—her past meetings with him showed that nothing of his past or magic was known, only that he woke up in a crater and didn’t even remember his own name…

“Yes, static and some form of creation magic aren’t referenced as often, since they aren’t the generic elements…” He responded, setting himself up straight before turning to her with a slight smile. When it's about these subjects he’d be fine to talk, since he can just repeat what a book said instead of needing to think and formulate sentences himself.

“Have you tried, ‘A new line of magic’ from Quenne? It has a reference on energy like magic which uses a different kind of casting than normal elements' “, Violet suggested, her expression being that of a doll—unchanged. 

“Yes, but I’m bad at interpreting what it means completely, since I can’t even fully use my own base element…” He said with a slight sink in his previous smile. 

“If you combine the theory of that book, and the one you were reading… What if you try to form your own combinations and generate a sufficient amount of your energy beforehand? As theory would show, you’d be able to create a static form of unique mana in some contexts, forming combinations to create certain effects you want?” She started to quickly analyze and suggest; just simply combining the teachings of Senna about generation and the unique combinations of Quenne’s study. 

“That…t…” He fell out of words, he remembered how he used some of his static abilities to fight before and they didn’t fail since he just generated energy…

Standing up, he didn’t notice the small smile Violet had. He left to a more open part of the library before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath…

[ Static Generation ] + [ Static Compression ]
He used his two primary skills to generate energy which he normally does at small volumes and so never actually had to activate it at max, along with a compression skill to have it contained in a small radius instead of spreading around the entire room.

Following the activation, an orange tint mixed with twilight blue and purple energy started to become visible even to Violet, right in front of Rineri. It had instabilities inside of it; being compressed mostly in a sloppy, hasty manner. It would need more focus, but for now it would do more than necessary. 

Holding his hand out to it, he opened his eyes and tried to not to panic too much from seeing an energy source grand enough to heavily damage some shelves of books nearby… Generating large amounts of energy wasn’t that costly for him, but he never found real use for it, never occurring to him what his limits would be…

“Energy… What ca…can…” He started to think, while continuously using his static manipulation to keep it still. 

Once his mind cleared up a bit and generated an idea, he took another deep breath and used his other hand as an aim assist to the side of him. Having known a simple way to dash, he wanted to expand on that…