Grom obviously thought so too, and he even filled in various details for Irene in his head.
Lynn's 9.9 earlier, which had practically reached the theoretical limit, had indeed given him quite a scare. But after the brief shock passed, the old dwarf's attention quickly returned to the white-haired dumpling in front of him.
‘If Lynn, who is in the Red Garden, is already this outstanding...’
‘Then... Irene Durandal, as a member of the White Garden who ranks above him...’
He swallowed hard and subtly glanced at the neatly placed magic ball.
‘Could it be like what I've heard those bards boast about... that her monstrous affinity will far exceed the measurement limit and directly go "boom," blowing the magic ball to pieces?’
Thinking of this, a trace of anticipation couldn't help but well up in his eyes.
Gwah! If he could witness such a powerful scene with his own eyes, this old man wouldn't have to worry about having nothing to brag about in taverns for the next fifty years!
What? You ask why he didn't feel bad for the magic ball that clearly looked very expensive?
‘The academy will reimburse it anyway, so let Anz headache over it himself.’
Right, speaking of Anz...
Long before enrollment, when the faculty saw a White Garden student on the freshman list, they had been dropping hints left and right, giving the black cat headmaster quite a headache.
But even the Star-Gazing Sage, whom Anz was worst at dealing with—that vixen of a woman—had only managed to pry a mysterious answer out of the kitty.
“She is the chosen one. At the same time, she is very...”
Seemingly finding it a bit hard to put into words, the kitty irritably licked its paws.
“Special? Yes, that description is very fitting.”
[Special]
This assessment quickly spread like wildfire among the faculty.
To make that old fossil—a cat who had lived for nearly a thousand years and looked down on everyone—say such things...
Thinking about it, Irene's absurd remark about “saying hello to the elements first” suddenly took on a mysterious sense of “returning to simplicity” in Grom's eyes.
‘That's right.’
‘Why would someone with truly absurd talent bind themselves to rigid theories?’
‘Didn't the Arcane Sage from four hundred years ago also say that elements are never livestock to be tamed by formulas, but voices that need to be listened to?’
The more Grom thought about it, the more sense it made. The confidence that had been shattered to pieces by Irene's “hello, thank you” was actually pieced back together by him, bit by bit.
‘Yes.’
‘It must be so.’
‘This child doesn't lack knowledge at all; she has already bypassed the stage of “understanding” the elements and directly entered the realm of perceiving them by instinct!’
‘Haha! As expected of this old man! Still possessing such precise insight!’
Thinking of this, Grom's gaze as he looked at Irene became much warmer.
“Come on. Don't be nervous, it's just a simple test.”
“Oh, okay...”
Under the gaze of the entire class, Irene slowly walked up to the crystal.
Her ahoge, which had stood up slightly earlier due to her logic of “White Garden is greater than Red Garden,” disappointingly went limp by half once she actually stood before the giant crystal.
Isn't it just touching it?
I'll give it everything I've got!
The girl took a deep breath as if finally making up her mind, then stretched out her right hand and carefully pressed it against the surface of the transparent crystal.
Buzz—
Accompanied by a low resonance.
Inside the crystal, the various colored lights that had been drifting quietly began to tremble slightly.
The first mark lit up.
Grom nodded with satisfaction.
‘Very stable.’
Then, he held his breath and widened his eyes, determined not to miss a single second of the upcoming world-shaking moment.
And then... until his eyes grew dry from staring, the various colored lights remained completely motionless.
It was as if they were very satisfied with their current home; all the elements nestled quietly at the 1.0 mark.
“...?”
...
...
“It... it's not moving?”
After repeatedly confirming that his old eyes weren't playing tricks on him, he spoke in disbelief.
Refusing to believe it, the old dwarf injected a strand of his own mana into it. Only when he saw the light representing his own affinity climb normally to its proper position did his heart, which had been hanging in suspense, finally die inside.
“...”
He felt his vision go slightly blurry.
What intuitive genius, what returning to simplicity, what once-in-a-four-hundred-years duplicate of the Arcane Sage...
In an instant, Grom felt as if all those arguments that had been shining brightly in his mind just now had grown hands and feet, lining up to slap his old face repeatedly.
‘The affinity for all these elements... is only one mark?’
What was this? Equal treatment for all? Making sure she wasn't close to any of them?
‘...No way.’
At first, no one spoke.
Or rather, no one knew what to say.
After all, less than a minute ago, they had witnessed Lynn—the one some privately called the “Red Garden connected student”—push his Fire Element Affinity all the way to 9.9.
That burning red light was still burned into everyone's retinas.
Then, in the blink of an eye. Smack.
The top student of the White Garden... one mark?
It felt as if one second you saw someone split the sea with a wave of their hand, and the next second, a legendary expert rumored to be even stronger stepped up—
Only to perform a chest-shattering boulder trick... and fail to break the boulder.
“...One mark?”
Finally, someone couldn't help but repeat it in a low voice.
The voice wasn't loud, but in this excessively quiet classroom, it was jarringly clear.
Immediately after, like a drop of water falling into boiling oil.
“Could the testing method be wrong?”
“You don't even need to cast a spell for the affinity crystal, you just put your hand on it... how could it be wrong?”
“But she's from the White Garden.”
“Yeah...”
“How could someone from the White Garden only have this level of element affinity?”
The whispers spread bit by bit.
The Azure Garden students, who had just been thoroughly roasted by Grom earlier, now forgot their own miserable states. One by one, they craned their necks, their expressions even more dramatic than when they were listening to the dwarf jokes.
Some were surprised, some were confused, and others showed a subtle pleasure at finally catching a glimpse of “so the White Garden is nothing special after all.”
After all, humans are somewhat petty creatures.
When an unreachable genius hangs high in the sky, everyone envies and respects them.
But once they find out that the star doesn't seem as bright as they imagined—
Their first reaction is usually not to look for excuses for it, but to suddenly think:
‘Huh?’
‘Does that mean I can do it too?’
...
Standing before the crystal, Irene hadn't spoken a word from beginning to end. She just stared blankly at the few lights resting at the very bottom.
The trace of anticipation she had managed to gather on her face deflated bit by bit, like a bubble gently pricked by a needle.
Of course, she knew what “one mark” meant.
No matter how ignorant she was of magic theory, after being utterly crushed by the Deadly Four-Part Exam yesterday, she wouldn't fail to recognize even the most basic affinity level.
Three marks was what was considered a normal mage.
Yet she... almost all her basic elements hovered around one mark.
Forget about being a mage... she probably couldn't even compare to an ordinary person on the street.
‘...As expected.’
A very, very faint thought rose from the bottom of the girl's heart.
I'm really... still no good at this.
Irene subconsciously pursed her lips tightly, her small hand that had been pressed against the crystal curling up anxiously.
But right at this moment, those lowered blue eyes suddenly trembled slightly.
【Eyes of Insight】.
Even though Irene didn't actively channel it at this moment, the sharpness that had already integrated into her bodily instincts still captured the gazes coming from all directions.
One. Two. Ten...
More and more.
Like fine needles, they silently fell upon her across the air.
Some gazes carried surprise, some confusion, and some were simply pure curiosity.
But besides that... there were also some very light, very subtle things that were more jarring than any sound.
Doubt, scrutiny.
And hidden deep within the crowd, a few sneers that hadn't been retracted in time.
Irene Durandal hated such gazes.
When she used to take commissions at the Adventurers' Association, she had once visited a lord's collection.
The obese man laughed heartily and suddenly pulled off the cover, proudly showing it to the surrounding guests.
It was an iron cage covered in runes, with heavy shackles binding a dying magical beast.
They roared, wanting to break out of the cage, but their futile struggles only added to their pain, turning them into a laughingstock for the guests.
‘Look at their movements... how comical they are?’
‘How pathetic...’
What gathered from all directions was undisguised malice and mockery.
Completely devoid of empathy, it was simply taken for granted—
The scrutiny of an [outcast].
She pursed her lips unwillingly, her light purple pupils losing focus for a moment.
In a daze, she felt as if she had become that trapped beast in the cage, that...
An 'outcast' blending into the academy.
Rate on N.U.
