The SSS Talent That Wasn't Supposed to Exist

THE SECOND TEST

Iron-shod footsteps echoed coldly down the underground corridor of Aegis Sector 4 Headquarters. The air inside this specialized containment and testing facility was sterile, filled with the sharp scent of liquid ozone and bone-chilling air conditioning. The walls were lined with special steel plates designed to suppress mana fluctuations, capable of dampening even an S-Rank Hunter's rampage.

Arka walked amidst the tight escort of four soldiers in tactical armor. His thin-framed glasses reflected the rigid glow of the white neon lights. Before him, a thick hydraulic sliding door opened with a drawn-out hiss of air, revealing an isolation testing laboratory worth trillions of rupiah.

Floating in the center of the room was a latest-generation scanning machine—the Aegis Soul Core Analyzer v8. Unlike the university's Resonance Pillar, which only read the surface of soul waves, this machine could dissect down to the molecular structure of mana and map out the genetic code of a person's Talent.

"Take off your jacket and stand on the center platform, Arka Pratama," commanded a senior technician in a white hazmat suit from behind bulletproof protective glass.

Arka complied with the instruction without argument. He stepped onto the circular platform, letting a giant sensor ring lower to encompass his body from top to bottom.

"Begin the soul frequency rescan test," the technician told his assistant. "Inject a low-dose mana stimulant."

Bzzzzzt.

An invisible wave of energy struck Arka's chest. That familiar warmth churned once more at the base of his heart, coaxing the Storyteller Talent to awaken. The sensor ring spun rapidly, projecting calculations of neon numbers into thin air.

[Scanning Soul Core...] [Talent: Storyteller] [Rank: F-Class]

The technician furrowed his brow from behind the glass. "F-Class? But the data from the campus surveillance cameras shows an 80% drop in local fluctuations. Increase the stimulant dosage to Level 3."

BZZZZT!

The air pressure inside the isolation chamber suddenly surged. The air around Arka vibrated violently, causing his black hair to flutter wildly. The sensor ring rotated at extreme speed until it produced an ear-splitting, high-pitched hum.

[Re-evaluation: F-Class]

"Strange," the technician muttered. "The foundational data is absolute F-Class. But why are his mana fluctuations non-linear? Raise it to Level 5! Use the maximum limit!"

"Sir! That's too dangerous for a normal F-Class user; his soul core could crack!" his assistant cried out in panic.

"Just do it!"

The sensors forcefully blasted a dense wave of mana. Arka's eyes widened slightly as his chest felt as if it had been struck by an invisible sledgehammer. Yet, instead of exploding or sustaining injuries, the empty vortex inside Arka's body absorbed all the stimulants like a bottomless black hole.

SPARK!

The sensor ring above Arka's head suddenly burst into red sparks. The technician's monitor screen flickered wildly and erratically.

[System Warning: Memory Overflow] [Error Code: 0x000_NOT_FOUND]

"Switch to the secondary scanner!" the senior technician shouted, cold sweat beading on his temples.

The backup machine powered up. Bzzzt! [Error.]

The third scanner was activated. Bzzzt! [Error.]

Four times. Five times.

Every time the machine attempted to dissect deeper than the "F-Class" label's limit, the trillion-rupiah instrument ended up exploding, short-circuiting, or displaying rigid error codes that were never recorded in any manual. Yet, when the machine reverted to shallow scanning mode... the result consistently and mockingly read: F-Class.

"It makes no sense..." the technician whispered, his hands trembling as he stared at the monitor screen, which was now covered in red pixels. "His soul structure refuses to be read... this machine is being forced to read what it should read, not what is actually in there."

The isolation chamber door slid open. The Aegis officer who had brought Arka stepped inside with a face as dark as coal. Without a word, he pressed his red card authorization against the main console.

[Central Command Authority Warning] [All Subject Test Results: Arka Pratama — SEALED LEVEL 0] [Access Restricted Exclusively to the Director of National Security]

The sensor ring powered down completely and rose upward. Arka stepped down from the platform and straightened his slightly disheveled collar. He walked over to the Aegis officer who was packing up all the data-recording hard drives.

"What actually happened?" Arka asked softly, his eyes fixed straight on the officer. "My result was F-Class, right? Why does the data need to be sealed?"

The officer paused his fingers for a moment, then turned to look at Arka with an intensely cold gaze—the kind usually reserved for a time bomb with no known way to defuse.

"That is not for you to know, Arka Pratama," the officer answered rigidly. "The examination is complete. You are returned to normal student status under passive surveillance. You may leave."

No answers. No explanations. Aegis chose to seal this anomaly tightly rather than admit that the nation's finest security system had just been fooled by a freshman.

Later that night, at 02:14 AM WIB.

Heavy rain poured over Astra City, masking the sound of thunder and the gusts of wind slamming against the outer walls of the Aegis Sector 4 Data Storage Facility. High-level laser defense systems and mana scanners were fully active, guarding the nation's classified archives.

Hiss.

Without an emergency siren sounding, five armored tactical guards in the main storage corridor collapsed simultaneously. There were no traces of blood, nor any marks from slash wounds. Their bodies slumped like puppets whose strings had been abruptly cut.

From the dark shadows of the corridor, a figure wrapped in a black cloak stepped forward casually. The footsteps were so light that they failed to trigger the floor's pressure sensors.

The intruder did not head toward the S-Rank artifact weapon vault. Nor did the intruder pay attention to the containment chamber housing pure energy crystals worth billions of rupiah. The cold gaze from behind a dull mask was locked onto a single round steel door at the end of the corridor: Level 0 Sealed Archive Room.

With a relaxed motion of the fingers, the intruder touched the thick steel door panel. A strange black-and-gold wave of mana flowed from the fingertips, hacking and destroying the internal locking circuitry within seconds without setting off the main alarm.

Click.

The steel door slowly swung open.

The intruder stepped into the room, which was filled with rows of liquid-cooled data servers. The figure walked straight to the central console that had been used by the Aegis technicians just hours earlier. A gloved hand reached into a pocket, pulled out a specialized crystal drive, and plugged it into the storage slot.

Across the dimly lit monitor screen, rows of data downloaded at a fantastic speed.

It was not military data. Nor was it national defense strategy data.

It was a single bundle of confidential files that had just been sealed earlier that evening:

[Subject Profile: Arka Pratama] [Talent: Storyteller (F-Class)] [Incident Log & System Error Report]

The intruder stared at line after line of Arka's downloading file. From behind the mask came a raspy, enigmatic chuckle—a laugh suggesting that after waiting for so long... the "Lead Actor" had finally awakened.