Ash already knew what the number would tell them before anyone in the hall spoke.
He had spent enough time in the library to learn everything about the Affinity Quotient system. He understood its intricacies and meanings.
He knew that it wasn't just a measurement. It wasn't just a score. It was a ceiling - a fixed point in time. An absolute truth that remained constant regardless of everything you did either before or after reaching it.
AaThere were people who possessed some sort of natural link between their soul and the powers of the world.
This link was called an affinity, and at the age of five, when the link is fully formed, the Tethrys measured this affinity and gave it a number.
It was all there in the number.
Classes were also mentioned.
Higher classes opened doors. Raiders' qualifications.
Academy acceptance.
Possibilities available only to those whose capabilities met certain requirements.
Lower classes sealed off those doors from their reach forever.
Common Class. 3.2.
He knew exactly what that number meant. He had read the classification table so many times that its ranges remained engraved into his memory.
He had seen it with his own eyes. The number sealed off half of his possible futures. It meant that the only way for him to use magic now would be as a normal Mage.
It didn't grant him the status of a Raider. And that was the one thing that he'd wanted for three whole years.
He came into this life with some expectations. Not with the expectation of meeting an overpowered system or having six affinities or an incredible power hidden from everyone until the right moment.
He knew better than that. He had once stood alone in an empty library with a small fire blazing in his hands and promised himself that his life wouldn't be such a story.
But he had still been expecting enough.
Enough to make him a Raider. Enough to make him explore Fractures. Enough to move freely through this world the way he had dreamt about it, going further, discovering more and more things that he hadn't been told before.
3.2.
The number cut him off completely.
------------------------
His palms were still pressed to the cool surface of the Tethrys, feeling its faint warmth under his touch. The orange light kept blazing.
The number hung in the air above the device, completely indifferent to its effects on the plans he had been making during the last three years.
The whispers grew.
He heard them becoming louder. Individual voices emerging from the background as people couldn't hide their reactions anymore.
"A disappointment, indeed." That voice came from his right side. Low, but not low enough. "I've come to see the birth of a genius. But he is nothing special at all."
"His brothers have a greater quotient," Someone said.
"Talentless genius," another voice commented. Almost amused.
Each word landed on him.
He didn't flinch. He didn't turn around. He stood in front of the Tethrys with his hands touching the crystal and his face forward, taking all those comments in without showing a single reaction.
He had learnt that much over five years - how to keep the outer shell untouched despite all the changes happening inside of it.
But things were happening.
He knew this was a possibility. He had been preparing himself for this possibility. Being prepared for something and experiencing it firsthand were two completely different states, especially when the experience exceeded his expectations.
He searched the room with his eyes.
And found Flamir.
His six-year-old brother stood near the gathering of guests, his smile bright and satisfied as hell. It was not the polite smile that the evening required from everybody.
This was the type of smile that a person gets from seeing one of their predictions come true precisely the way they had expected it.
Flamir's eyes stared at him from the opposite side of the hall, his smile never changing in any way.
Ash looked back.
But didn't take his eyes off the boy immediately. They stared at each other for a couple of seconds in silence, and then somebody called his name from the left side.
"Ash."
Draco was standing in the exact spot that he used to stand in. His eyes were wide, filled with an emotion that couldn't be identified.
Everything else on his face was empty - past all expressions, as if his mind had gone somewhere else entirely.
"Go to your room," Draco said.
His voice was calm. Even. As if he was speaking in a deliberate manner, counting his words.
Ash studied his father's face for a couple of seconds.
He wanted to reply. To say something that could explain the situation. But there was nothing. Nothing was able to cover up what had just happened or make it sound less important. He could say only one thing.
"Yes, father."
It was barely a whisper that escaped from his lips, carrying some sort of weight that couldn't really be taken off of it despite his best intentions.
He moved away from the Tethrys and began to walk toward the staircase.
His path through the guests was cleared automatically as he walked, just as it had been done previously.
Except for the fact that the feeling was completely different now. He kept his head straight, his eyes forward and his walk even - as if nothing had happened.
But it had.
And then he saw his mother.
Rose was standing near the gathering of guests with the most helpless look in the whole room.
Her eyes were looking at him as if they wanted to speak out all her emotions, to express them. She wasn't crying, but everything in her face suggested that she was doing her best to suppress her sobs.
Ash glanced at her just for a second.
Then he returned his gaze forward.
He reached the staircase and climbed the first stairs, leaving the rest of the noise behind with each step upwards.
By the time he reached the top, the sound of the party faded almost to nothing.
But he kept moving.