The ceremony proceeded in order.
Each trainee stepped onto the central dais, placed their palm against the Life Source, and waited. Golden light would envelop them, and then, projected into the air above their heads, their class would appear—burning in characters visible to all.
"Liu Yang, Warrior, F-rank. Assigned to Logistics Support."
"Zhao Ting, Mage, D-rank. Assigned to Defense Corps Reserve."
"Wang Hao, Paladin, C-rank. Assigned to Patrol Corps."
Cheers and applause. Silence and averted gazes. Some walked off the dais to welcoming arms; others descended alone, heads bowed, shoulders slumped.
F-rank was the lowest. Below that was nothing.
Chen Xiaobei was called in the second row. He took a deep breath, walked up, and pressed his palm to the Life Source.
Golden light surged.
[Awakening complete.]
[Class: Guardian]
[Rank: B]
[Description: A Paladin variant. Grants enhanced defense and ally protection abilities. Suitable for front-line support roles.]
"B-rank! And a variant class!" The Awakening Priest's voice carried genuine surprise. "Excellent potential."
Chen Xiaobei stood frozen for a moment, staring at the golden characters above his head. Then his face split into a huge grin, and he turned to Shen Ye, pumping his fist excitedly.
Shen Ye smiled slightly and gave him a thumbs-up.
But the smile didn't reach his eyes.
Because Lin Wantang was next.
She walked onto the dais with graceful steps, her white robe fluttering. When her palm met the Life Source, the hall fell silent. Everyone knew the Lin family's legacy; everyone wanted to see what this favored daughter would become.
The golden light didn't just envelop her. It exploded.
Radiance flooded the entire hall, so bright that people shielded their eyes. When it faded, the characters floating above her head burned with a purple-gold light that no one had seen before.
[Awakening complete.]
[Class: Prophet of Heaven's Mandate]
[Rank: S]
[Description: A legendary class. Grants the ability to glimpse fragments of fate. Can issue prophecies that alter probability itself. Current limit: 1 prophecy per month.]
A collective gasp.
S-rank. A legendary class.
The Awakening Priest's hand trembled as he raised his staff. "An S-rank legendary class! This… this has not appeared in Dragon City Spire for sixty years!"
The hall erupted.
People rose from their seats, clapping, cheering, craning their necks to see the young woman who had just become the most valuable asset in the spire. On the viewing platforms, Lin Wantang's parents were weeping with joy. Officials from the Spire Council were already whispering among themselves, calculating how to leverage this resource.
Lin Wantang stood on the dais, bathed in golden light, accepting the adulation with a composed smile.
Then she turned and looked at Shen Ye.
Her smile broadened. She mouthed: Your turn.
Shen Ye's throat tightened.
He watched her walk off the dais, surrounded by congratulating trainees. She didn't go back to her spot. She walked to the front row—the row reserved for those who had already awakened—and stood there, looking back at him with those confident eyes.
The Awakening Priest's voice cut through the noise. "Next: Shen Ye."
The hall quieted again.
The name Shen carried weight. The Soul Binder's bloodline. The Third Defense Corps Commander's son. The fiancé of the newly awakened S-rank Prophet.
Every eye in the hall turned to the young man in the third row.
Shen Ye took a breath.
He stepped forward. The crowd parted before him, a corridor of stares. Some were expectant. Some were curious. Some—especially those from rival families—were calculating.
He climbed the dais steps. Each footfall echoed in his ears like a drumbeat.
The Life Source pulsed before him, warm and vast, humming with a resonance that vibrated in his chest.
He raised his right hand.
Remember what Father said. Clear your mind. Let the system read your soul without interference. Whatever class you get, it's already determined.
He pressed his palm to the orb.
The surface was warm, almost hot, like touching living skin. Golden light immediately surged up his arm, flooding his vision, drowning the hall, drowning everything.
And then—
He saw something.
For a fraction of a second, the golden light turned black. Not darkness—black light, if such a thing could exist. It pulsed once, twice, and in that pulse, words appeared in his vision. But not above his head. Inside his mind. A private message, visible to no one else:
[Class detected. Awakening in progress…]
[Warning: This class is currently suppressed by system protocol. Display?]
[Yes] / [No]
Shen Ye's heart stopped.
Suppressed? What does that mean?
But there was no time to think. The hall was watching. Wantang was watching. The Awakening Priest was watching, his ancient eyes narrowed.
On instinct, Shen Ye made a choice.
He chose No.
The black light vanished. The golden light flared one last time, then faded. Shen Ye pulled his hand back from the Life Source, his palm tingling.
The characters appeared above his head.
They flickered once, uncertain, as if even the system was hesitant to display them.
Then they settled:
[Awakening complete.]
[Class: None]
[Rank: Null]
[Description: No class detected. No abilities. No system access. No survival value. Status: Null.]
Silence.
Absolute, dead silence.
Shen Ye stared at the words above his head. Null. No class. No abilities. No system access.
No survival value.
The words didn't make sense. They couldn't make sense. He was the great-grandson of the Soul Binder. He had trained for eight years. His evaluation scores had never been exceptional, but they had never been zero. Never. How could the Life Source find nothing?
He heard a sharp gasp. Then a murmur. Then a whisper that grew and grew, like wind through dry grass.
"Null…"
"He's a Null…"
"The Shen family's son is a Null…"
He turned. The hall was a sea of faces, all wearing expressions he had never seen directed at him before.
Pity. Contempt. Relief. Disgust.
On the viewing platform, his mother had gone pale, her hand pressed to her mouth. His father wasn't there—duty at the Defense Corps—but someone was already speaking into a communicator, delivering the news.
And Lin Wantang—
She stood in the front row, still bathed in the residual glow of her own S-rank awakening. But her smile was gone. Her face was blank, unreadable.
Her hand moved to her chest.
To the Vow Ring.
Shen Ye felt it before he saw it—a sharp, cold pain around his own finger. He looked down.
The engagement ring, a slim band of silver that had been on his left ring finger for three years, was cracking.
Fine lines spiderwebbed across its surface. The enchantment that bound it to Wantang's matching ring was unraveling. He could feel the link between them—the link that had once pulsed with warmth—turning brittle, then cold, then—
Crack.
The ring shattered.
Pieces of silver fell to the dais floor, ringing like distant bells. The shards dissolved into motes of pale light as the enchantment died. The contract was broken.
The system sent a notification, visible only to him:
[Vow of Union has been terminated by the other party.]
[Effect: All shared benefits revoked. Soul-link severed.]
He looked up.
Lin Wantang stood with her hand still pressed to her chest, where her own ring had just dissolved. Her face had changed. The blankness was gone, replaced by something that looked almost like—
Relief.
She didn't say a word. She didn't need to. The message was clear: A Null is not worthy of a Prophet.
The Awakening Priest cleared his throat. His voice, when it came, was gentler than Shen Ye expected. But the words were no less brutal.
"Shen Ye. Null-class. No abilities detected. According to Spire Protocol Article 17, Nulls are to be… reassigned to non-combatant status, pending evaluation for survival contribution."
Reassigned. That was the polite word. The reality was simpler: Nulls were given the worst jobs, the smallest rations, the lowest priority for medical care. They lived in the spire's lower levels, where light barely reached and the walls were thinnest against the beasts outside.
Some Nulls lasted years. Most didn't.
Shen Ye's hands hung at his sides. The shattered ring had left a faint red mark on his finger.
He looked at Wantang one more time. She had turned away. She was already accepting congratulations from the trainees around her, her smile restored, her radiance undimmed.
It was as if he had never existed.
Chen Xiaobei pushed through the crowd, reaching the edge of the dais. His face was pale, his eyes wide. "Shen Ye—"
But before he could say anything else, a new voice cut through the noise. Cold. Official.
"Null Shen Ye. Please descend from the dais. You are blocking the ceremony."
An attendant had appeared at the foot of the steps, expressionless, clipboard in hand. Behind him, the next trainee was waiting—a young man with a poorly hidden smirk.
Shen Ye looked at the attendant. Then at the waiting trainee. Then at the hall, filled with a thousand faces that had already written him off.
He stepped down.
His legs felt strange. Not weak. Just… distant. As if they belonged to someone else. He walked past the attendant, past the smirking trainee, past the rows of young men and women who parted around him like water around a stone.
No one met his eyes.
He reached the edge of the hall. The great bronze doors loomed before him, leading to the spire's transit corridor. Beyond them: the lower levels. His new home.
He paused.
Behind him, the Awakening Priest called the next name. Golden light flared again. Cheers rose. Life went on.