The Author's POV

-Di! -Di!

"Alright, you can remove your hand"

Indifferently staring at a blue orb before me, I removed my hand from it as Irene looked at the tablet in her hand with a small frown on her face.

With each passing second, the frown on her face deepened as an odd and confused look appeared on her delicate face.

Lifting her glasses up with her finger, she softly muttered.

"Odd..."

After a couple of seconds, alternating her eyes between the orb and me, she once again asked me to place my hand on the orb.

"Please put your hand on the orb again"

"Okay"

Heeding her command, once again placing my hand on the orb I inwardly clicked my tongue as thought to myself

'tsk, how useless'

The orb before me was called the 'Talent assessment orb'

A dwarven artifact that measured the talent of an individual. Although the relationship between the humans and the three races wasn't the most ideal, trades between them still happened, as dwarves required a lot of resources to develop their artifacts.

The talent assessment orb was an orb that the dwarves had created and developed with the goal of assessing an individual's talent.

By measuring the general structure of the body from the veins to muscle fibers as well as mana proficiency and mana affinity, the orb was able to determine the talent limit of a person.

In general, the test was fairly accurate with more than 99.98% of cases reaching their dictated talent limit. For the 0.02% of cases where the artifact was inaccurate, generally, it was only by a margin of error of one rank. Meaning that if the orb dictated that someone's talent was D rank, there was a 0.02% chance that their talent could be C.

However such occurrences were rare. Furthermore, aside from that, there really haven't been any cases where the artifact was wrong by a large margin.

...at least as of yet.

Once again staring at her tablet and then proceeding to look at the orb that was beneath the palm of my hand, Irene muttered.

"Is the device perhaps malfunctioning?"

Typically once someone placed their hand on the talent assessment orb, the orb would immediately change color depicting their talent limit.

Yellow - G

Green - F

Orange - E

Red - D

Blue - C

Purple - B

Grey - A

White - S

Pink - SS

Black - SSS

...those were the different colors that the orb would display upon someone touching it. However, as she looked at the orb that I was currently touching, she couldn't see any changes in color as the orb did not light up.

Was the artifact perhaps malfunctioning?

Though extremely rare, such cases were not unheard of.

Placing her finger on her ear where her earpiece was, Irene softly muttered.

"Sir, we've got a situation. It seems like the talent assessment orb is malfunctioning"

"Yes, it seems to be that way"

"I haven't tested it myself but the looks of things it really seems to be broken since everything else is working fine"

"Understood, yes"

Staring at Irene who was obviously speaking to a higher-up, I tried to eavesdrop on their conversation.

Since the conversation was related to me, it was only natural that I was curious.

Unfortunately, as the earpiece was stuck in her ear, I couldn't hear what she was talking about and thus could only give up.

Either way, although I wasn't able to properly listen to their conversation, from what I've gathered it seems as though they wanted to replace the talent assessment orb.

Realizing this I shook my head.

were going

limit, the artifact was no longer capable of assessing my talent as it was

the orb wasn't reacting to

-Clank!

the call, not long after a man wearing a black suit came in holding onto another similar-looking orb

the man did not stay for long as he nodded his head in Irene's

set up, Irene once again took out her tablet and

your hand

I moved and placed my hand on the

"Sure"

the orb did

"What?"

not light up again, Irene directly moved towards

wanted to

was broken, however, seeing a similar reaction from the

-Fwua!

...and she was right.

it quickly turned yellow indicating to me that her talent limit

at the yellow color being displayed on the orb, lifting her head

"Are you human?"

comment,

"I think I am"

is this not working, is your body allergic to the

"...how should I know?"

kind of logic

Allergic to the orb?

was going

me with a complicated look on her face, Irene turned around

"Give me a second"

"Alright, alright"

*Sigh*

another sigh escaped from my mouth as

we were

were never going to be

I could not say this out loud resulting in

up with a conclusion, returning towards where I was standing, Irene calmly pointed towards

like we will leave that test aside

Good.

have given up on my talent assessment

"Okay"

was pointing at, I soon spotted a large metallic capsule that stood upright. Next to

bitter smile

real life, I instantly knew what

...Measure someone's rank.

Yes.

me was a machine that measured someone's

about the technicalities of the machine, I knew that it could measure someone's rank extremely accurately with

tried to hide or suppress their rank, it would not go unnoticed by the

next to it,

now please enter the

"Understood"

head as an extended sigh escaped from my mouth, I calmly walked towards the large capsule in the distance and entered

with my talent assessment, I knew that I couldn't dodge this

my E+ rank would soon

could more or less make a guess as

-Clank!

of the capsule closed, I suddenly felt a weird tingling sensation around my body as my mana instinctively channeled around my body, and a white hue exuded

was not annoying, it was still uncomfortable therefore I

-Di! -Di!

my prayers were quickly answered as not long after, the tingling sensation stopped and the capsule opened

dyed down, the first thing I saw was

shock displayed on Irene's face, turning around and looking in the direction of where she was looking, a bitter smile on my face as I saw

...yep.

was no going

one, the test results would soon become public

knew that I

turning my attention back to Irene who was looking through her tablet,

free to

of her thoughts was my annoyed voice as she looked at me in shock. Nodding her head, she stepped to the side and

you may leave. We have taken all of your answers and have also finished with the testing, you are free to go. We will soon send you an email detailing the follow-up of our investigation. Thank you for cooperating with

"Mhm"

head and quickly made my way towards the exit of

did not listen

racing as I started thinking of the future that

circumstances, I knew it was about time that I stopped

...

the hall, tapping on the earpiece in

results came out, the student's rank has been determined to be E+

spoke, a deep voice filled with authority echoed in