EX Rank

The seer stood with a book in his withered hand in a vast, lavish library with rows of bookshelves stretching as far as the eye could see.

His mind was in a daze; his eyes were not on the book; he was flipping through the pages absentmindedly.

'Something isn't quite right.'

His thoughts drifted to the boy he had brought from Midden a month ago.

The boy's appearance matched exactly with his vision, but something felt off about his behavior.

His vision hadn't been detailed enough to grasp the youth's personality, but it didn't match his upbringing environment or his initial impression of a wild beast, even though his sudden blindness turned out to be a temporary thing.

Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that something had gone wrong.

He had been closely monitoring the boy throughout the past thirty days, aware of the high chance that his prediction may have been incorrect.

Although his ability was usually mostly accurate, he couldn't entirely exclude the possibility of error.

He could no longer see the boy's future, but his intuition signaled that things were spiraling out of his control.

- Knock! Knock!

A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts.

Setting the book aside, he settled onto the sofa, putting on his usual gentle facade. He said, "Come in."

The attendant opened the door for Ryan, helping him to the seat closest to the seer as if helping a disabled person.

Refreshments and tea were arranged on the table soon after, and the servants exited in less than a minute, leaving Ryan and the seer some privacy.

"Good morning," the seer said.

"Good morning," Ryan stuttered as he bit his tongue.

Although he has made progress in learning to speak since the first time he came to this world, he can only spell one word at a time.

'It's quite fortunate it's the same as my hometown language.'

The fact he didn't need to learn an entirely new language left him at ease, even though he had to pretend he couldn't write.

"Sorry, my dear grandson, I couldn't visit you earlier; Grandpa was busy with work," the seer explained.

"Grand... pa?" Ryan feigned confusion.

"Yes, you can call me Grandpa." The seer smiled, ruffling Ryan's hair.

Ryan nodded dully; his response sounded inhuman: "Yes, Grandpa."

With a warm smile, the seer continued, "How about Grandpa send you to school? You must be bored and lonely here without any of your peers around."

Suppressing the urge to shake his head, Ryan dully replied, "Yes, Grandpa."

"Give me your hand," he gently requested, as if coaxing a child, and added a reassuring explanation.

"I need to assess your qualifications and determine if you can attend the academy."

Ryan extended his hand, watching the seer take out a card seemingly out of thin air.

Placing the card on his forehead, Ryan felt a slight pain as the card sucked away some of his energy.

As he held the card, the seer muttered, "It's not the same; even the name isn't the same. Was my vision wrong?"

*****

Appraisal:

Name: Ryan Cassier

Age: 16 years old.

Rank: F+

Power: Enhancement

Description: The user becomes stronger, faster, and more durable. The user can also enhance their powers or a specific trait of themselves or others, reaching levels beyond the norm.

Side effect: The user will experience temporary weakness, depending on the user's current rank.

Power State: Semi-active

Potential: SS-Rank

[Error: The target is unconscious.]

***

Tap! Tap! Tap!

'Should I eliminate him?' Tapping his fingers on the armrest on the seer, he pondered.

"It's not worth the risk for the time being," he mumbled and shook his head, dismissing that thought.

He could no longer throw away his lifespan to foresee the future. He had exhausted his chances; after all, it wasn't an ability without a price.

"How funny," the seer smirked, his eyes gleaming dangerously.

The irony of leaving his fate to uncertain probabilities wasn't his style at all.

However, if he doesn't get the mana stone that Ryan would find, his lifespan will likely dwindle in a few years.

His eyes darkened at that thought, and a feeling of unwillingness rose, making him feel like Destiny was playing a dirty joke on him.

He stood up, whispering in Ryan's ear, "Why don't you do something else for Grandpa?"

Ryan's monotonous response came in no less than a second: "Yes, Grandpa."

---

"We're back, young master," The maid who took care of him during the past month whispered gently and stood still until she saw him disappear behind the door.

Ryan walked unhurriedly to the bathroom, massaging his aching throat with no monitoring cards existing.

"Burggg--!"

He threw up.

That suction of energy back in the office made him dizzy and nauseous.

He had noticed the energy flowing from the seer's mouth, triggering a sense of déjà vu.

He remembered what day it was looking at the calendar; today was the academy's entrance ceremony that the seer didn't bother sending him to, unlike in the original timeline.

Ryan's few weeks in this world were hard pressed by tutors and teachers trying to teach him common sense and how to speak in this world, to the point that he almost forgot about the date.

Also, the date of his and Hiro's brainwashing wasn't the same; it must have been due to him acting weirdly, causing the seer to hesitate.

Ryan heaved a sigh; it seemed like WC kept his promise. The anti-brainwashing ability came into play at the right time.

Looking in the mirror, he noticed a parasitic, shapeless entity in his head, enveloped by the purple aura.

As big as a child's fist, the aura surrounding him encompassed the parasite, consuming it until only a small part was left enough so that the seer wouldn't notice the brainwashing was off.

It was neither fast nor slow as he watched his slowly die down with satisfaction.

With a thought, the parasite left his body and rested in his palm.

"Haa..." He sighed.

Dealing with the aura was much easier than controlling radiation.

Aware that he was still closely monitored and if he spent a lot of time inside the bathroom, someone would soon come looking for him, he retreated to his bed.

Ryan sat quietly in a meditative position, replicating the energy flow he had observed during the seer's appraisal.

After a month's worth of practice, he can manipulate and move the radiation much faster.

***** 

Appraisal:

Name: Ryan Cassier

Age: 16 years old.

Mental age: 28 years old

Rank: D

Power: Superpower Manipulation

Description: The ability to control and alter others' powers; steal, exchange, or create new abilities. Manipulate power effects by temporarily enhancing or diminishing others' abilities.

Side effects: inability to utilize mana as a natural source of energy; limited ability for theft or gifting; the user can only steal and give away power to another individual once.

Sub-power:

Energy Vision (D): Perceive energy sources and auras.

Power State: Active

Mental Resistance: immunity to mental attacks and brainwashing, regardless of rank.

Side effects: none

Power State: Passive

Potential: ex-class.

*****

Ryan looked at his status and pondered.

His eyes were first drawn to the mental age line.

He wasn't surprised that this status knew about his actual age, even though it was a replica of an ordinary ability card the seer used.

He could easily relate that to his power being granted by world consciousness.

"But how am I supposed to handle the villain's protagonist with this kind of ability?" He muttered as he collapsed onto his bed.

____ Chapter 9: Enrollment ___

Two weeks before Ryan and the seer's encounter,

In a different place,

The little happy girl had a contagious smile as she was practically dancing on her short little feet, urging, "Hurry up, big sister Lisa, hurry up," while holding an envelope in her hands.

The young girl, Lisa, smiled helplessly as she shook her head slightly and said, "He's probably snoozing off under his usual spots."

They approached a young man under the shade of a tree.

He was closing his eyes, his expression serene and peaceful.

However, as soon as they were close to him, he opened an eye and looked at them lazily, snapping Lisa out of her daze as she shyly broke off eye contact with reddened cheeks.

The oblivious little girl, Sarah, pounced on him, hugging him very tightly and giving him a smooch on the cheek.

Astin tore her off him and put her down.

The young girl didn't mind as she carefully handed him the envelope.

Astin looked at it and took it without opening it, closing his eyes back to sleep until Lisa said, "It's the response from the academy; it's supposed to arrive today. I've got mine as well."

She waved an envelope in her hand.

Astin tore it off uninterestedly, shocking the little girl Sarah and bringing tears to her eyes.

Her big, bad brother just tore off the pretty envelope.

Lisa laughed at the sight and shook her head helplessly.

She loved this orphanage very much and treated it like her home.

She preferred staying here and spending time with the lovely children rather than being with her parents.

Opening both envelopes, several small heads appeared from behind the bushes, looking curiously at the two letters in the two older siblings' hands.

*****

At the same time, in a different place,

In a luxurious mansion, inside a dining hall, a blonde-haired young man named Damion looked expressionlessly at his parents, who were looking at him with pride-filled eyes.

Damion scoffed inwardly.

How could he not have been able to attend the academy?

"You're a dad, and I are so proud of you." His mom couldn't contain her tears as she uncontrollably hugged her son.

Almost choked by his mom and dad, who joined the hug, Damion pondered why his parents felt the need to make such a big deal out of it.

As a matter of fact, it was a natural thing.

The hug lasted another minute before his parents handed him the acceptance letter, waiting for him to read it out loud.

*****

In yet another different place, people were walking around everywhere, wearing coats and holding canes and a bunch of papers in the continent's only existing tower of magic.

A man with brown hair and eyes looked at the young man beside him and said, "Here it is; what you wanted, I asked the seer for you."

Jacob took the envelope from him and said, "Thank you, godfather."

The man, Aiden, felt happy but still hesitated. He said, "Are you sure you want to enroll in the academy?"

"No doubts, this is what I want to do from now on," replied Jacob confidently.

"Why not go to a local academy instead? Erou is too far away," Aiden said. It would still be possible for him to convince Jacob to come back to the tower of magic if he were nearby.

Erou was way out of his area of influence, and he couldn't leave his work just to follow his godson.

"Nah," Jacob simply shrugged, unaware of his godfather's thoughts.

"You can do a better job as a magician. Why bother becoming a hero? Let me tell you, I did that when I was young, and I regret it so much."

Aiden said, "Being a magician who's stuck to paperwork and research would be a more respectable job just because of our existence. Being a hero is such an ungrateful job. It's worse off than being a governor when I was young_."

"Severely wounded by a villain, my mom saved your life, got killed by the villain in the process, the hostages in the bank ran away, my dad came to the rescue, gone insane after mom died, and those whom she saved only called all of you useless and week ass heroes," Jacob summarized the old man's story short, his eyes were fixed on the envelope.

He had heard his share of the man's story and had become numb to it.

"If only I had time to study," He mumbled in a low voice, which Aidan was able to hear but decided not to say anything and merely touched his nape.

Jacob opened the envelope.

---

Back to the present day,

Sitting in a bathtub, Ryan relished the feeling of being watched clean by a lot of servants who wouldn't let him lift a finger.

Since he couldn't fight against it, he decided to enjoy it.

"Young Master Ryan," His maid came inside as he was getting dressed and stated, "The Academy will start tomorrow."