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

artifact was no longer capable of assessing my talent as

the orb wasn't reacting to

-Clank!

central government was high. After Irene took the call, not long after a man wearing a black suit came in holding onto another similar-looking orb to the one that

one, the man did not stay for long as he nodded his

that the orb was once again set up, Irene once again took out her tablet

your

placed my hand

"Sure"

did

"What?"

moved towards the orb and placed

she wanted to

genuinely thought that the orb was broken, however, seeing a similar reaction from

-Fwua!

...and she was right.

as she placed her hand on the orb, it quickly turned yellow indicating to me that her talent limit was G

on the orb, lifting her head and looking

"Are you human?"

her comment, my mouth

"I think I am"

is your body

"...how should I know?"

kind of logic was

Allergic to the orb?

what was going

a complicated look on her face, Irene turned around and moved towards a secluded

"Give me a second"

"Alright, alright"

*Sigh*

my head, another sigh escaped from my mouth as I stared

point, we

were never going to be able to measure my

could not say this out

with a conclusion, returning towards where I was standing, Irene calmly pointed towards the right side of the

like we will leave that test aside for now. For now, we will

Good.

they have given up

"Okay"

attention towards where Irene was pointing at, I soon spotted a large metallic capsule that stood upright. Next to the capsule was a black monitor that was facing away from the capsule with different numbers

machine, a bitter

I had never seen it in real life, I instantly

...Measure someone's rank.

Yes.

a machine that measured

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

hide or suppress their rank, it would not

standing next to it, extending her hand,

please enter

"Understood"

I calmly walked towards the large capsule in the distance

with my talent assessment, I knew that

my E+ rank would

from there, although they wouldn't be able to know what my talent was, they could more or less

-Clank!

capsule closed, I suddenly felt a weird tingling sensation around my body as my mana instinctively

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

-Di! -Di!

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

down, the first thing I saw was Irene's shocked

Irene's face, turning around and looking in the direction of where she was looking, a bitter smile

...yep.

was no going

the

once that happened, I knew that I could no longer operate as I did

Irene who was looking through her tablet,

free

of her thoughts was my annoyed voice as she looked at me in shock. Nodding her head,

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"

and quickly

not listen to what she

mind was currently racing as I started thinking of the future that lay ahead

the circumstances, I knew it was about time that I stopped

...

the hall, tapping on the earpiece in her ear, Irene

student's rank has been determined to

spoke, a deep voice filled