Time itself froze.
The beam of plasma-lightning that surged from David’s hands hung suspended in the air, a jagged pillar of blinding energy frozen mid-strike. His arms, outstretched in strain, were locked as though sculpted from stone, every vein bulging but motionless. The world around him was caught in the same impossible stillness.
Along the perimeter, monsters were frozen in grotesque snapshots of battle—fangs bared, claws mid-swipe, some twisted in mid-leap as though about to tear into flesh. Others were already riddled with bullets, bodies stiff in the moment before collapse, eyes wide with feral rage that would never finish its course.
Even the robots had halted, their weapons raised, muzzles glowing with the ghost-light of spent charges. A few still carried the unfinished flashes of gunfire in their barrels, brief suns captured and suspended. In the air, if one looked closely, bullets were frozen in place, small fragments of metal.
The battlefield had become a frozen mural of chaos, a violent storm carved into absolute silence.
And only within the System did an unseen dialogue unfold:
[Candidate has reached the required threshold]
[Confirming stasis activation]
[Determining examiner]
[Commencing evaluation of candidate]
…
…
[Anomaly detected]
[Candidate’s world does not possess mana]
[Analyzing logs]
[Scanning]
[Error, world of this class does not meet criteria for candidate selection]
[Rechecking candidate]
[Error, candidate possesses mana]
[Scanning]
[Candidate’s world does not possess mana]
[Rechecking candidate]
[Error, candidate possesses mana]
[Scanning]
[Candidate’s world does not possess mana]
[Rechecking candidate]
[Error, candidate possesses mana]
[Scanning]
[Candidate’s world does not possess mana]
[Rechecking candidate]
[Error, candidate possesses mana]
…
…
[Warning, infinite loop detected]
[Situation cannot be resolved by pseudo-intelligence]
[Administrator call initiated]
…
[Administrator call initiated]
...
[Administrator call initiated]
...
The System began to spit out the same message, repeating it every few minutes. And though time itself had frozen for David, the counter in the void kept ticking. Days passed. Then weeks.
Administrator Kra’velon was not of the highest rank, but he was still an Administrator, and that alone made the notification from the "nursery"—and on the first stage of evaluation no less—all the more astonishing. What in the abyss was this? If some candidate had somehow broken the System to exploit it, Kra’velon would cut him in half and be done with it, then return to his real work without a second thought.
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He pulled up the logs, scanning through the last entries until he reached the endless loop of errors and repeated calls for an Administrator. He clicked his tongue, but then his eyes narrowed in curiosity.
Mana absent from the candidate’s world… yet present within the candidate himself? An anomaly.
Kra’velon’s clawed hands rubbed together with sudden amusement. Perhaps this wasn’t a bug at all but a gift. What if he had stumbled across a unique candidate? One who bent the rules of the System itself? With such a subordinate, he could climb far higher than his current standing. Perhaps even rival his superiors.
"Interesting," he muttered. "Very interesting. What grade could his core be, I wonder? A? Perhaps even S? Heh…"
A low, rasping chuckle escaped him. "Well then. Let’s have a look at this one."
Inside the dome, atop the office roof where David had been perched, a sudden presence flickered into existence. No clap, no magical flourish—just a hologram. The figure resembled a bear at first glance, though closer inspection betrayed its strangeness: nearly hairless, with the sharp, angular eyes of a goat, standing upright on two legs. Its armor was a patchwork of dark metal plates and the entire figure towered nearly two meters. Not exactly a bear, but the mental image was close enough to get the point across.
“What the hell…” the creature muttered in its own guttural tongue, its gaze locking onto the small flicker of energy inside David. It didn’t even need the system’s analysis—just by looking, it could sense the core. D or E rank. A pitiful, laughable thing. “What kind of joke did the system feed me? His output’s decent” He said looking at the beam of energy coming from his hands “But that’s relative to his weak core! What kind of anomaly is this? Bah! I could crush him in one bite.”
Its eyes swept down to the towering pile of crystals that David had amassed, and realization flickered across its grotesque features. “Ah, so that’s what happened! The creature must’ve been tough—killed a couple of the first monsters—and somehow converted them into mana, forging itself a core. Clever, little rascal.”
The anger simmering within the administrator ebbed just enough to restrain outright fury—but not enough to prevent a little mockery. World without mana? Ridiculous! Completely unnecessary. “I won’t even bother filing a full report to the higher-ups… but I’ll have to handle this little matter myself and you will disappear."
The creature opened a console—an interface only visible to itself—and triggered an override. The holographic menu flickered and lists unspooled.
"So you think you can pull my chain, little pest? Thought you could call an Administrator just like that? Not on my watch. I will pick the examiner who chews you up and spits you out."
It scrolled through candidates with a detached, almost ravenous interest. A hopper that spat paralytic quills—too trivial. A bloated frog-thing that vomited acid—brutal, but with a chance of adaptation; no, he wouldn’t give the creature that mercy. He rubbed his palms together, enjoying the calculation. His eyes skimmed the entries until one name made him chuckle.
"Ah, here we go. Perfect." The administrator’s grin was a bad thing to see.
The holographic file expanded into a three-dimensional mockup: a crystalline entity with writhing tentacles, its core encased in an energy lattice. The readouts pulsed warnings—energy shielding rated far above the candidate’s current magic tier, structural integrity suited to withstand sustained elemental assault. "How did something like this even make the shortlist?" he mused aloud. "I’d have trouble taking it down personally."
He leaned closer, eyes narrowing as he read the secondary notes. The creature’s shield not only reflected direct spells but rewrote incoming mana signatures, dispersing and neutering them. It hunted by resonance and crushed opponents with tendrils that drained life or core-energy on contact.
"This one’ll teach my little pet manners. Since you dared to flag an Administrator… well. Let this be a lesson.”
With a flick of a claw, he locked the examiner into the candidate’s evaluation queue and stamped the override with a flourish. A quiet directive pulsed down through the System’s arteries: Assign crystalline-tentacled examiner. Priority: overridden. Report: minimal.
He closed the console and left without even watching how this creature will struggle, he could always watch the recording later…
