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# Entrance Ceremony The scent of lilies was overwhelming. Lin Kai knelt on one knee and placed his hand on the mana measurement crystal. The crystal glowed faintly. Or rather, it flickered. A candlelight-like, feeble glow repeatedly appeared and disappeared. "Hmm..." Professor Moran narrowed his eyes. His face remained calm. But Lin noticed. His observation skills were sharp. The inner corners of his eyebrows contracted slightly. The wrinkles around his mouth deepened. It was neither surprise nor suspicion. It was recognition. Lin slowly lowered his hand. The crystal went completely dark. "0.3%." The measurer recorded something on paper. His hand trembled. Ah, that was interesting too. Lin followed the measurer's fingers. The knuckles of the hand holding the pen alternated between turning white and relaxing. It was fear. "Thank you." Lin stood up. There was dust on the knees of his dress pants. Powder from the white marble floor. He'd heard that the marble in the academy's main hall was cleaned anew every year to make new students kneel on it. That was also a ridiculous tradition. The stand lights on the entrance ceremony stage were warm. Three hundred freshmen sat in the hall. All of them were looking at Lin. Or rather, they were looking at his mana reading. On a large screen, "0.3%" was displayed in red letters. Someone stifled a laugh. "Next." Professor Moran waved his hand. His voice remained gentle. Like the tone one uses when realizing they've misunderstood someone and apologizing. But Lin felt it. What lay beneath that gentleness. A simulacrum. A lie. Lin descended from the podium. At the back of the hall was the cadet section. All senior students observing the entrance ceremony. Their gazes were cold. The academy's hierarchy was determined by mana. 0.3% was a being outside the hierarchy. More like background than an existence. Such things whispered something as they looked at Lin. But he didn't listen. He heard only one person's words. Professor Moran was thinking about something. As Lin sat in the freshman section, the student next to him pushed his body away. It was natural. Sitting in the same seat as someone with 0.3% would be a disgrace. Lin left the adjacent seat empty and sat down. Then he looked back at the stage. Professor Moran continued the ceremony. His lips moved. Sound came out. But Lin's ears caught something else. A heartbeat. Regular and stable. Slightly faster, but not noticeably so. Before measuring the mana reading, the professor already knew something. Not the measurement result itself, but something else. The arrival of the System. How close it was to this world. Lin delved into his memories from his previous life. It took another three years before the System officially appeared. But even before that, the world was already changing. Those with mana were beginning to awaken. Cracks were forming in society. And Professor Moran... Lin dug deeper into his previous life's memories. What was Moran's true identity? He was not simply an academy director. There was a force preparing for the System's arrival. They gathered and cultivated those with mana. They sought to seize control of the new world. Moran was one of them. But Lin didn't know Moran's exact identity. In his previous life, Lin hadn't risen to a sufficiently high position. Because his mana was weak. Or rather, because his mana appeared weak. This time was different. Lin looked at his own fingers. The tips of his fingers were trembling faintly. It wasn't mana but tension. No, that wasn't it. It was anticipation. "...Freshmen, welcome to the academy." Professor Moran brought his hands together and clapped. The entire hall resonated with applause. It wasn't applause for the freshmen. It was a ritual. A ritual to welcome a god. Lin didn't clap. Instead, he looked at Professor Moran. At that moment, Professor Moran turned his gaze away from the audience. And toward the freshman section. Precisely, at Lin Kai. Their eyes met. Lin didn't smile. Neither did the professor. But something passed between them. Something before language. A fragment of recognition. In that instant, a word suddenly surfaced in Lin's mind. 'You know too.' Professor Moran's eyes trembled slightly. 'That something is different.' A freshman with 0.3% mana. A being that was supposed to be recorded as such. But it seemed the professor saw it differently. Like a small flashlight someone turns on in a dark room. Very faint, but very ancient light. The applause continued. Hundreds of hands came together and parted repeatedly. There was rhythm. There was music. There was ritual. But Lin Kai's ears pushed all of it into the background. He heard only Professor Moran's heartbeat. And it had just changed. It became faster. # The Dormitory The dormitory building was older than expected. Exposed brick on the outer walls, paint faded to a dull khaki color, ivy twisted along the window frames. Lin was listening to an explanation about how the floors were divided according to magical power levels, but in this decay, Lin felt something primordial instead. An intuition that this building had been constructed in an era before the System. Long before the hierarchy of magical power took root, someone must have spent nights here. "Fifth floor? Really?" Kyle's voice carried up the stairwell. It was the floor assigned to freshmen with low magical power. The top floor. An irony. "Some guy joked that with 0.3%, you should actually go to the basement." Kyle was panting on the stairs. He had a lot of luggage. Household items, clothes, several books. He was moving the weight of the life he'd lived. Lin followed lightly. He had only one bag. A few school uniforms, a notebook, a pen. And things left behind from the old world. But those weren't luggage. They had no weight. Or perhaps they were too heavy to feel weight. "511, 512…" Kyle counted the doors. "Here. 510." The door was green. Paint peeling away to reveal the wood grain beneath—green. Lin liked that color. Just as this building was slowly decaying, the color too was gradually fading. Like magical power. No. Magical power doesn't fade. Magical power accumulates. It compresses. And at some moment, it explodes. "Open it, Kai." Kyle set his luggage down in front. "My hands are full." Lin inserted the key. An old key, an old lock. The turning sensation was clear. Click. The door opened. The room was larger than expected. One bunk bed, two desks, one window. Through the window, the academy campus spread below. A lake, a magical power measurement station, a training ground. And far away, the silhouette of the city. The world as seen from the height where freshmen with low magical power could see. Kyle set down his luggage with a groan. "Fifth floor really is a punishment, huh." He sat on the edge of the bed. "The guys with strong magical power get the first floor. Close to the convenience store. We have to climb these stairs every time…" "Right." Lin was organizing his belongings. With one hand, he was placing everything in its proper place. Notebook and pen on the desk. Bag under the bed. A picture on the wall. Kyle saw the picture. Lin had taken it out and hung it. A black and white drawing. A hand reaching toward something. At the fingertips, a small light. "What's this?" "A memory from a past life." Lin said it casually. Kyle burst out laughing. "You're joking. But seriously, where'd you get the picture?" "I drew it." Had Kyle ever seen Lin's hands before? He thought about it. It seemed like this was the first time he'd really looked at Lin since the entrance ceremony. The fingers were slender. The wrists were slender. But the movements were precise. There were no meaningless gestures. "But…" Kyle asked slowly. "What happened at the entrance ceremony?" Lin stopped. His hand froze in mid-air. That moment of stillness lasted so long that Kyle felt uncomfortable. "Professor Moran looked different when she saw you. Her expression." "Really?" "Yeah, seriously. She tilted her head slightly at you. Like…" Kyle struggled to explain. "Like she'd found something." Lin started moving again. His hand returned to normal speed. "It was probably because my magical power is 0.3%. That's unusual." "No." Kyle shook his head. "It wasn't that kind of expression. Not unusual, but…" He couldn't continue. He'd said it looked like she'd found something, but thinking about it again, that wasn't quite right either. It was the expression of the moment of recognition. The expression when discovering something that had been hidden. Or the expression when something already known was confirmed. "I don't know about that." Lin stood by the window. The sun was setting. Lights were beginning to turn on in the dormitory courtyard. Lights powered by magical power. A soft purple glow. The standard color of this academy. The color of those with abundant magical power. "You're really strange." Kyle lay down on the bed. The lower bunk. "From the start." "What is?" "I don't know. But there's something…" Lin turned around. The light from outside the window was creating his silhouette against the darkness. Kyle couldn't see Lin's face clearly. It was dark. "There's something. Inside you." "0.3% magical power?" "No." Kyle got up. He came down from the bed and stood in front of Lin. The distance between them was about a meter. Close enough for a standard dormitory room. "Why is it so cold?" Kyle's hand touched Lin's shoulder. It immediately pulled away. "What, seriously…" "Is something wrong?" Lin's voice had changed. No, it hadn't changed. It had become even more emotionless. Kyle raised his hand. The fingertips were warm. But the forearm was cold. As if two different temperatures coexisted in one body. "About Professor Moran." Kyle asked. "What were you thinking? When your eyes met?" Lin didn't answer. Instead, he looked out the window again. The magical power lights were turning on one by one. In every room of the fifth-floor dormitory, freshmen were unpacking. Those with weak magical power. One with 0.3% magical power. One with 1.2%. One with 2.5%. Each carrying a different light. But to Lin's eyes, all those lights looked the same. So weak, like things from so long ago. "Kyle." "Yeah?" "Can I ask you something, since you're my roommate?" Kyle nodded. "Is something strange about me?" Lin asked. "Right now. When you look at me." Kyle thought about it. Should he tell the truth? Should he lie? But he'd already said it. "Yeah. Something's strange." Lin let out a laugh. That was strange too. It was closer to the sound of exhaling than actual laughter. "Good." "What's good?" "You feel it. That's enough." The dormitory room's light turned on automatically. Motion-sensing. Someone had raised their hand, or movement had been detected, or it was time. The reason didn't matter. In the brightened room, the faces of the two freshmen became clear. Kyle looked into Lin's eyes. Those eyes didn't shine even under the light. As if they were swallowing the light. Like a black well. But deep within that well, very faintly, something was burning. Kyle couldn't tell what it was. But he knew this: His roommate was not the recorded 0.3% magical power. And he was already beginning to be drawn into it.

Chapter 1