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.

the results were going to be

the seed of limit, the artifact was no longer capable of

why the orb wasn't reacting to my

-Clank!

the call, not long after a man

old one with the new one, the man did not stay for long as

the orb was once again set up, Irene once again

place your hand

I moved and placed my hand

"Sure"

the orb did not

"What?"

not light up again, Irene directly moved towards the

time she wanted to test

not done this because she genuinely thought that the orb was broken, however,

-Fwua!

...and she was right.

orb, it quickly turned yellow indicating to me that her talent limit was G

at the yellow color being displayed on the orb, lifting

"Are you human?"

her comment, my

"I think I am"

working, is your body allergic

"...how should I know?"

of logic

Allergic to the orb?

going on

me with a complicated look on her face, Irene turned around and moved towards a secluded area of the room

"Give me a second"

"Alright, alright"

*Sigh*

another sigh escaped from my mouth as I stared at

point, we were just wasting

what they were going to try, they were never going to be able to measure my limit. This was what the seed of

say this out loud

higher-ups and coming up with a conclusion, returning towards where I was standing, Irene calmly pointed towards the right side of the

test aside

Good.

up on my talent assessment for

"Okay"

I soon spotted a large metallic capsule that stood upright. Next to the capsule was a black monitor

machine, a bitter smile

seen it in real life, I instantly knew what that machine

...Measure someone's rank.

Yes.

before me was a machine that measured

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

of how much someone tried to hide or suppress their rank, it would not go unnoticed by

and standing next to it, extending her hand,

please enter the

"Understood"

escaped from my mouth, I calmly

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

my E+ rank

my talent was, they could more or less make a guess as a 16-year old

-Clank!

doors 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

feeling was not annoying, it was still uncomfortable therefore I wished for

-Di! -Di!

as not long after, the tingling sensation stopped and the capsule opened and steam rose

as the steam dyed down, the first thing I saw was

face, turning around and looking in the direction of where she was looking, a bitter smile on my face as I

...yep.

no

a fairly high profiled one, the test results would soon become public for the

knew that I could no longer operate

my attention back to Irene who was looking

I free

voice as she looked at me in shock. Nodding her head, she stepped to the side

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

"Mhm"

I nodded my head and quickly made my way

honestly, did not listen to

started thinking of the future

was about time that

...

at Ren's figure leaving the hall, tapping on the earpiece

out, the student's rank has been determined to be

spoke, a deep voice filled