Pacing was one of the few things that Okoro truly disliked. It was a show of annoyance, often times, impatience. To him, those qualities showed a lack of control.

"For the love of the fallen can stop doing that," Mrs. Talwort groaned in exasperation. "The carpet is over a century old. All that pacing is going to ruin it."

Okoro stopped pacing. He took in a deep, calming breath, then let it out. It did nothing to calm him.

"You heard what I said, right?" he asked, slightly annoyed that the information he'd just passed on was not worrying Mrs. Talwort as much as it was worrying him.

"I don't really see the gravity of it," Mrs. Talwort said with a nonchalant shrug.

Okoro threw his head back in annoyance. He tried to calm himself once more and failed before stomping over to her desk and placing his hands on the surface as carefully as his current state of impatience could allow.

"Remember what I told you about forms?"

Mrs. Talwort looked as if she was doing her best not to roll her eyes at him. "That thing only the [Sage] class can see?"

"It also teaches you about the power of a class's skill," he added. "As well as its possible—"

Mrs. Talwort interrupted him with a sigh. "Okoro, in case you've forgotten, I knew about forms before you even saw your first form. You are not the first [Sage] I have had the fortunate misfortune of speaking with."

"And I just told you that the boy has no form!" Okoro snapped. "How can you not see that that is a problem."

"Because all you've done is panic. Have some composure, young man, you are an SS-rank Gifted for the fallen's sake. Act like it."

Okoro bit down on his lower lip to hold his tongue. He hated it when people said something like that, as if your rank determined your mental intelligence. Or your maturity. If the world was ending today and he chose to panic, there would be some idiot who would say something along the lines of what Mrs. Talwort had just said.

She might be the idiot, he thought, still forcing himself to composure.

It took him a moment, but after a while, he found his composure. Taking a moment, he adjusted his tie, loosened it a little.

"I need a seat," he said.

Mrs. Talwort pointed off in a seemingly random direction. "You can pick whatever you find usable from the store."

With a nod, Okoro did just that. Ignoring the medieval look of the room, he made his way to the store, not that he'd needed Mrs. Talwort's directions, and pulled out a large basin.

Without a word, he set it down on the ground, placing it upside down, and sat on it. Mrs. Talwort gave him a questioning look. Okoro knew the reason for it. There were more befitting things in the store even if there were no seats. What he'd chosen had left him so low that she had to tilt her head to look down and meet his gaze.

When he gave her no response to her look, she simply nodded.

"Alright, then," she said. "Tell me, in calm words, why it's such a big deal that this young child has no form."

"That's not the only thing that's a big deal, but here goes." Okoro adjusted on the basin, finding it uncomfortable. "A Gifted's form gives you an incite into how their skills can be handled, how a [Sage] may better protect themselves from it. If you are a strong [Sage], like me, it gives you insight into the rank of the skill which matches the rank of the class, how far down the line it is in its mastery, and other interesting things. For instance, if it is a world skill. It also determines how long it takes for a skill to be active."

"Skill activation is nigh instantaneous, Okoro."

"There's always a second or a fraction of a second delay. Channeled skills are most often always stronger because the form is given enough time to take its complete and perfect shape. But that's not what we are here for."

Mrs. Talwort nodded. "It is not."

"The boy having no form is important because of a few things. Being formless means that he has no activation time, Mrs. Talwort. His skill will always activate before even that of an SS-rank Gifted. After all, a fraction of a second, no matter how small, is still longer than zero."

"He's fast," Mrs. Talwort said. "Got it. What's the next deal?"

"It means that I can't see it's potential. The kid might have a World skill and there is not a [Sage] that would know. Then I can't see the kid's potential."

"I see." Mrs. Talwort stroked her chin. "So he's an anomaly to you. That's new. Even the Oaths couldn't get past you the first time you saw one." She paused for a while, thoughtful. "Do you think his Unranked growth potential might be the reason for this?"

Okoro shook his head. "My [Sage] contact in Edulard said they have an Unranked growth potential, too. He was normal, even if his form was a bit more difficult to read."

"Vera?" Mrs. Talwort asked to which Okoro nodded. "Oh, that's nice. How is she doing? Tell her it's been a while. We should have coffee sometime."

"I will," Okoro said. "Back to the mystery child who has no form, is currently being sponsored by an Oath, and can resist my skill."

Mrs. Talwort gave him a long look, as if contemplating on whether she wanted to keep having this conversation. It wasn't long before she conceded with a nod. "Alright, let's have it."

"I asked him to show me the skill he used to disable the cameras," Okoro continued.

"And? Did you find out how it worked?"

"Pure mana."

That got Mrs. Talwort's attention. Okoro saw the focus in her eyes now. She was no longer uninterested. The panic was not there yet, but it would be by the time he was done explaining everything to her.

He was sure of it.

"You're serious?" she asked.

Okoro nodded. "Like a heart attack."

"Please don't talk about heart attacks around the elderly," Mrs. Talwort chided him. "It's not a good thing."

Okoro pushed her words aside even though he nodded.

"Good," she continued. "How many pure mana users do we have in college?"

"Three as far as I know," he answered.

"And how many pure mana Delvers are we affiliated to?"

"Nine world wide."

Mrs. Talwort puckered her lips in thought. "I thought we had eleven?"

"Brash died in a portal last year," he reminded her. "And Memnot broke ties with us over the whole Argentina debacle."

"Oh." She paused. "The whole underaged wife. If she really wanted to 'save' him, like she said, she could've just adopted him. Such a foolish woman she is."

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Okoro couldn't argue on that one. Memnot claimed that she was trying to save a boy of sixteen years from some village in Argentina through marriage, which made no sense then and now. Mrs. Talwort had refused to use her connections to make the Argentinian government turn a blind eye to it. In the end, they'd lost a pure mana user.

"I guess we really can't kick the boy out now," she muttered. "That's good. It will help silence some of the noise makers in the council."

Pure mana users were not the most common. Even amongst the all powerful Oaths, there was not one person capable of using pure mana. In the entire world, Okoro doubted there were more than one hundred and fifty pure mana Delvers alive. Heck, he doubted the number was even up to that.

And Melmarc was the first pure mana user he knew below A-rank.

"You are not understanding the gravity of things, ma'am," he continued. "The boy isn't just a pure mana user, he works differently from the others."

"How so?"

"All the pure mana users we know and have seen in action use pure mana in one simple way, they channel it from the world around them. Aras uses his own mana to ignite the air in front of his eyes which incite the pure mana around him. That is how he shoots out pure mana from his eyes. His eye blasts are not pure mana from beginning to end. He incites it from the world around, like every other pure mana user."

"And the boy incites his own how?" Mrs. Talwort asked.

Okoro was already shaking his head. "I don't think he incites it. These things are hard to see since he has no form to study, but I think he draws on the pure mana from himself."

"I certainly haven't heard about that type of use before." Mrs. Talwort folded her arms over her chest. "Are you saying that he might be capable of generating pure mana by himself?"

"I'm not sure what exactly I'm saying, ma'am, but he is immune to my ability to halt the activation of a skill. He draws pure mana from himself, and the skill he uses to copy other skills has a deteriorating effect on skills active in its presence."

"Like pure mana does to skills," Mrs. Talwort added.

"Exactly," Okoro confirmed with a nod. "The skill he used to disable the device in the test shuts down all skills in its vicinity, just as pure mana does, and the one that copies, makes it hard to focus on an active skill. I'm guessing that if his mana is not, in fact, pure, then it at least has trace amounts of pure mana in it."

Mrs. Talwort said nothing. In fact, she was so silent that the entire room took up her silence.

Okoro liked that. Through her eyes he watched her brain make calculations. She was weighing pros and cons, trying to make heads and tails of everything. She was watching the risks and benefits. He watched her slow descent into panic and was pleased.

When she finally spoke, it was with one word.

"Fuck."

Okoro nodded. "Fuck is correct, ma'am."

"But how didn't it show up during his registration?" she snapped suddenly. "We spend enough money on our connections in the government to not have to worry about things like this. We get updates on unique classes as well as skills associated with pure mana, just like everyone else with a stake in this. Why the hell were we not informed?"

It was funny how it was the pure mana aspect of the conversation that had sent her into annoyance and focus. Interestingly enough, that was not even the biggest problem. Everything he had said was to inform her of the benefits of the boy, the reason they should keep him around. There was still one more issue he had not informed her of.

Right now, he had no idea what Melmarc was. Personally, he wasn't even sure that the boy was human.

"I saw the information that we were given by the government connection," he said, hoping to calm the woman down. "I don't think they knew. Either his ability somehow got past their detection, or something happened to him while he was trapped inside the portal."

"You don't think this was some kind of growth over time?" Mrs. Talwort asked.

Okoro shook his head. "I do not think so. By the way, did you find out what made the boy so important?"

Mrs. Talwort made a vague gesture with her hand. "Nothing deep. He's just a tier one citizen."

That was definitely not deep. Fallen High had its fair share of tier one citizens due to association. The boy's parents were either powerful Delvers or powerful politicians.

"Who are the kid's parents?" he asked.

"Aurora Lockwood and David Lockwood."

Okoro mused. "Powerful Delvers, I take it. Maybe even…" He paused. "Powerful but not very famous, then."

Mrs. Talwort nodded. "I'm sure they would have some affiliation to at least an Oath since they got an Oath to step in for them. Maybe one of them is even an SS-rank Delver. I think I met the mother once, though. She seemed strict. But I can't remember."

"SS-rank? You're certain?" he asked. "One of the known?"

"I doubt it." Mrs. Talwort shook her head. "Probably one of the unregistered SS-ranks, like you. But I'm only making speculations because I think I've met her, but I can't be certain. I'll send over the kid's file and you can go through it yourself."

Okoro raised a cautionary finger, an idea coming to mind. "Pain didn't seem to recognize the kid, though."

"That's because he wasn't the one that pulled the string."

"Then maybe we know why the string was pulled."

Mrs. Talwort cocked a brow. "I'm listening."

"What if the Oath that pulled the string is actually aware of his pure mana status? What if everything I just found out is something the Oath knows?"

"That is… possible." Mrs. Talwort frowned. "It would make sense, in my opinion. God knows he's been looking for a pure mana user since forever. Someone young and…" her eyes widened in realization. "It all makes sense now. That's why he was insistent on breaking his rules and tainting his 'oh so grand' dream of The Promise project by adding some B-rank [Faker]. I could never wrap my head around that. In fact, it sent the entire council into a confused spiral. It all makes sense now. He's grooming a powerful pure mana user."

She chuckled as if the world was finally in perfect order. Then she let out a relieved breath.

"That's one ginormous question answered."

And leaves a bigger one, Okoro thought.

"Would you say this Oath might know all that there is to this boy?" he asked.

Mrs. Talwort shrugged. "Considering who the Oath is, I wouldn't be surprised if he did. Why?"

Okoro shifted a little closer, dropped his voice to a whisper. "Remember that my one skill that allows me to see everything?"

Mrs. Talwort nodded very slowly. "The one that shows you everything?"

"Yes."

Mrs. Talwort swallowed visibly. She knew he rarely talked about the skill even though he used it quite often.

"Do you remember what I said when you showed me the video of that portal?" he pressed. "The one that ended up killing some of the Oaths."

"'Why would anyone go in there?'" she said, repeating his flabbergasted words verbatim. "Not surprising, though. That Heaven's Gate portal was… terrifying. Everyone knew that. Even the interfaces didn't give it a rank, just a name. Never seen the likes before."

"I don't know what was inside that portal," he said, "but I used the skill on the boy. And I saw something."

"Something?"

"You know that thing we have trapped in the basement?"

Mrs. Talwort's expression hardened suddenly. "Careful, Chinedu. Some secrets should not be given a voice at all."

"Well, that thing can destroy the world if you ever let it out," he finished, pushing past her threat.

"And that is why it has never been let out and will never be let out, not until we've learnt how to kill it."

Okoro paused when he heard those words. This was news to him. He hadn't known that they didn't know how to kill it. He'd always thought that they kept it trapped there because they were studying it. This new piece of information gave him pause.

Are you sure you should tell her what you saw?

"So," Mrs. Talwort said, "what does the kid have to do with that thing?"

Okoro hesitated. "His pure mana felt very similar to it."

"That is definitely interesting," she muttered, thoughtful. "Maybe there is more to this Melmarc Lockwood than meets the eye."

That's if he's even human.

He had wanted to tell Mrs. Talwort that judging from what the skill had told him, the boy wasn't human. But hearing what he was hearing now, maybe it wasn't the right choice. Jumping to such a conclusion could make things terribly wrong for the boy.

At least he knew that as long as the boy was human, he had nothing to fear from the council.

With that, he got up from the basin.

"That's it?" Mrs. Talwort asked when he picked the basin up. "You panicked because the boy's pure mana is similar to our guest?"

Okoro paused halfway up. "When you put it that way, I was acting like a child. It just worried me at the time, I guess."

Mrs. Talwort said nothing. She simply watched him for a while longer. He could tell that she knew he was hiding something. And he was.

"You should make peace with what you have in mind, Okoro," she said, in the end. "Then sort out what problems you've noted. Got it?"

Okoro nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

He returned the basin and made his way to the exit. At the door, he paused, hand hovering over the door knob.

"Whatever it is, Chinedu," Mrs. Talwort said. "I don't want to hear it until you're completely certain that you want to tell me."

Okoro looked back at her, and she had already returned her attention to her tab. She wasn't looking at him.

"Yes, ma'am."

As he walked out of the room, he knew that there were things he needed to find out. Majorly, was the boy human? He had definitely been human once, but was he human now?

He had to be completely certain before he told anyone that the quality of the existence of the sixteen-year-old boy made him a far greater threat to the existence of humanity than the creature trapped at the foundation of Fallen High.

He can either save us or kill us.

Being human certainly made the outcome more favorable for the world.

…

The weapon was heavy in Naymond's hand. He did his best not to frown as he waited patiently on his knees with hands raised high above his head. He was being punished like a child, and he wasn't even sure if he was actually being punished.

For all he knew, Madness just wanted him like this because he just wanted him like this.

The [Dreadnaught] stirred back awake only for Madness to punch him in the face, knocking him back out.

Kneeling's better, Naymond decided. It was a child's punishment.

Personally, he didn't want to know what Madness would decide was an adult's punishment for him. It was just uncomfortable holding up a loaded rocket launcher while kneeling down.

Where had Madness even gotten a rocket launcher to begin with?

Madness finally looked at him, after more than twelve hours of having him kneel down and hold up an armed rocket launcher.

The Oath, father of Melmarc Lockwood, spoke, and his voice was iron.

"What is your plan?"

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