The hallway was dimly lit, but Jack still spotted the change in his cousin Joanna right away.
She was wearing a brand-new mage robe. Its fabric shimmered with a dark-red sheen, and faint traces of magical circuitry flickered across the surface.
The robe on Joanna radiated a pure light and stable mana pulses—clearly a Blue Rare-quality piece.
Gear of this tier typically came with substantial bonus stats. Joanna herself was a Fire Mage with a B-rank talent, currently stuck at Level 16. With the Intelligence boost and mana regeneration this Blue Rare robe provided, both the punch and frequency of her Fireballs would shoot way up. That meant she could venture into higher-level zones to farm mobs, and her leveling speed would hit a whole new gear.
Obviously, the costly robe was a gift from that rich boyfriend who’d just left.
Riding high from that shiny new present, Joanna was in an uncharacteristically good mood. Spotting Jack climbing the stairs, she didn’t bark at him to go clean up like she usually did. Instead, she actually paused right where she stood.
“Jack, today was your Awakening Ceremony, right?” Joanna looked him over, her voice carrying a rare note of patience. “You’re back early. How’d it go? What class did you awaken, and what’s your talent rating?”
Jack stopped a few steps below her, face calm. “Archer. The academy’s Awakening Pillar rated me F-rank.”
He wasn’t lying—that really was the result everyone had seen. As for the hidden SSS-rank talent panel, that was his ace in the hole, something he’d never reveal to a single soul.
Hearing that, every trace of Joanna’s smile vanished like smoke.
The flicker of expectation in her eyes curdled into pure disgust. Her voice jumped an octave: “F-rank?! You mean you’re a blank Archer with zero starting skills?”
In this world, “blank-slate professional” was just another way of saying “worthless.”
Archer as a class wasn’t trash-tier at all. According to the Professional’s Guild records, Archers had always been a highly sought-after ranged physical DPS class. Some genius Archers awakened with incredibly powerful unique starter skills—elemental augments that fired explosive arrows, or Multi-Shot that could lock onto multiple targets in a flash.
Others got even more straightforward and brutal talents—flat 50% crit damage boosts, or massive attack-speed steroids. High-talent Archers like that held a unique edge all the way through the leveling grind; they were the indispensable core DPS in top guilds tackling new dungeons for the first time.
Historically, there’d even been a legendary Archer with an SS-rank talent—one arrow from them could level a fortified city.
But that was ancient history now. To become someone that mighty, you first had to pull a high enough talent.
Out of the billions of people on the planet, maybe one in ten even had the potential to awaken. That potential was detectable in childhood—local governments used basic scanning devices to check kids for faint talent fluctuations. Anyone who triggered a reading was flagged as a prospective professional and funneled into a preparatory academy for training.
Once they turned seventeen and their bodies and minds had matured, they’d head to Awakening Square, touch the pillar, and undergo the real class awakening.
During all those prep academy years, students drilled combat techniques, monster-weakness charts, and wilderness survival protocols day in and day out. But the truth was, all of it was just groundwork for the talent awakening.
This was a world that worshiped stats and talent above all. If you rolled a strong enough talent, it didn’t matter if your footwork sucked or your arrow form was full of holes—you could just steamroll everything with raw skill power and stat boosts.
On the flip side, if your talent was garbage—like an F-rank with its trash energy affinity and zero skill bonuses—then no amount of polished technique or book smarts would get you far. The thick HP bars floating over every monster’s head wouldn’t even budge under the pathetic attacks of a blank-slate pro.
Jack’s academic performance at the prep academy had actually been decent, and he’d often ranked near the top in physical training. But an F-rank talent, in the eyes of a regular pro like Joanna, was already a death sentence for his career.
“What a waste of time.” Joanna stared at him coldly, her tone sliding right back into sharp, cutting contempt. “If you’re just F-rank trash, then the next step’s real simple. Tomorrow you buy a train ticket and head straight back to your hometown.”
She crossed her arms, and her blue robe rippled with a watery wave of mana. “Prospect City is where high-level pros gather—you know exactly how brutal the cost of living is here. You’ve graduated now; the school’s stopped sending you stipends. A dead-end F-rank Archer like you won’t find any decent work here. Don’t expect me to keep housing you forever. My place isn’t a charity ward.”
Jack had known exactly what to expect from his cousin. He stood his ground, not a flicker of anger at her vicious words.
He looked Joanna in the eye and laid out his demand. “I’m going to clear the Novice Dungeon and get my Guild Badge. I need money—enough to buy a beginner’s bow and a decent supply of arrows.”
Joanna froze for a second.
Then her grating, cold laughter echoed through the hallway.
“Have you completely lost your mind? Do you even understand what an F-rank talent means?” She stared at him like he was crazy.
She jabbed a finger at him, hammering the point home. “Even the lowest-level beast mob—you’d need to sink a dozen arrows, maybe two dozen, just to bring it down. And the whole time, if that thing gets close and grazes you once, your pathetic HP bar drops to zero. Unless you’re ready to risk your life on every single trash pull, you’ll never clear that dungeon!”
Archer really was a money-hungry class. Unlike melee fighters who could just keep hacking away with an iron sword, every draw and release of an Archer’s bow sent actual coins flying downrange. Novice arrows were cheap, sure, but the sheer volume you’d burn through would add up fast.
“Even if you want to throw money away on yourself and march off to die in a dungeon, that’s got nothing to do with me.” Joanna snorted. “But get this straight: the coins for a bow and arrows don’t just poof into existence. You want to borrow from me? Not a chance. I’m not throwing my money down the drain.”
Jack took a slow breath. His voice stayed level—but what he said next made Joanna’s face freeze solid.
“I’m not asking to borrow from you.” Jack held his cousin’s gaze, his voice quiet but every word crisp. “I just want to remind you—when my parents passed away, they left a will. Part of their inheritance was entrusted to Aunt, your mother, to manage.”
He paused a beat, watching Joanna’s eyes dart nervously. Then he went on. “The will was very clear—that money was set aside for me to use when I awakened. I’m seventeen now. An adult professional. Since I’m of age, it’s about time I got to use it, don’t you think?”