The Greatsburg Empire – Harmony Public High #5 – Awakening Square
6th of Frostweave, 2026 GEC (Greatsburg Empire Calendar) – Morning
Class 8 – Final Awakening Session
The air in the square tasted of ozone and teenage sweat. Jack Milstrom stood in line with forty-nine other seventeen-year-olds, all awaiting the moment that would determine the rest of their lives. Before them, floating three meters above the stone platform, the Awakening Crystal hummed with contained power—a relic of the Thousand-Year War, refined over millennia, now used to assign children their permanent place in Imperial society.
Jack's glasses were slightly fogged from the morning humidity. He adjusted them, his fingers trembling not from cold but from the weight of history pressing down on this moment. This ritual was older than the Empire itself, dating back to the United Front against the Demonkin four thousand years ago. Back then, it had been a desperate measure to quickly sort soldiers from support staff. Now it was the foundation of a caste system that would determine everything: career, housing, marriage prospects, even where you could live in the tri-level city.
"Class 8, Student #1… Talent Awakening… E-Rank – Pistol Mastery… Next!"
A boy stumbled off the platform, clutching his right hand as if it were now a foreign object. E-Rank. Not failure, but close. He'd be a soldier, probably frontline fodder, but at least he'd eat.
Jack's own memories surfaced—not of another world, but of a childhood in the Under-City. His mother, Alice Milstrom, working late in her small lab, coming home smelling of ozone and old paper. Her disappearance when he was twelve, officially a "lab accident," but the ATB agents who came asking questions afterward hadn't looked like accident investigators. Eight years of Empire stipends keeping him fed, clothed, and educated. Today, that ended. Today, he either became an asset or a burden.
"Class 8, Student #2… Talent Awakening Failure… Next."
The sob that followed was a familiar sound in awakening squares across the Empire. Failure meant no talent detected. You joined the 60% of the population who were Unranked—confined to manual labor, service jobs, or, if you were pretty or connected enough, maybe clerical work. Your life was statistics in Imperial ledgers.
Jack breathed slowly, the way his mother had taught him during her more lucid moments. "Reality has patterns, Jack. Even in chaos, there's structure." He hadn't understood then. He was starting to now.
"Class 8, Student #7… Emily Watson… Talent Awakening: A-Rank 'Ice Mastery'!"
A wave of cold washed over the square. Frost patterns bloomed on the stone platform. Emily, their class monitor—responsible, sharp-eyed, the daughter of mid-level bureaucrats—stood with her hand on the crystal, her blue hair seeming to glow with inner light. The representatives from the corporate boxes leaned forward. A-Rank. Officer material. Maybe, with connections, low-level management in a corporation like Veridian or Polles.
"The Empire thanks you for your service," the Formation Master said, his voice warmer than it had been for the E-Ranks. The script was millennia old, from when every awakener went straight to the front lines.
Emily bowed, her expression carefully neutral, but Jack saw the relief in her eyes. She'd secured her family's status for another generation.
The line shuffled forward. Jack caught snippets of conversation around him—hopes, fears, the desperate calculations of teenagers who knew today determined their worth as human beings.
"Class 8, Student #12… Alfred Arnez… Talent Awakening: B-Rank 'Steel Defense'!"
Alfred's body shimmered, skin taking on a metallic sheen. He grinned, flexing arms that now looked like sculpted steel. B-Rank. Solid. Not exceptional, but with his family's connections to Veridian Steelworks, he'd do well. He caught Jack's eye as he stepped down, smirked, and mouthed: "Your turn soon, Four-Eyes."
Jack looked away. Alfred's bullying had been a constant of his school years, but today it felt different—less personal, more systemic. Alfred was just playing his assigned role in the hierarchy, reinforcing the structure that privileged him.
"Class 8, Student #15… Katie Marqueues… Talent Awakening…"
The crystal glowed red. Then gold. Then white.
"...S-Rank: 'Phoenix Transformation'!"
Heat washed over the square. Katie's hair burst into flames that didn't burn her, swirling around her body, forming the shape of a magnificent phoenix that circled the platform once before dissolving into embers. For a moment, everyone felt healthier, warmer, better—a side effect of the phoenix's life-affirming aura.
The corporate representatives stood. Polles BioTech's agent was already speaking into a comm device. S-Rank. One percent of awakeners. Automatic placement in elite tracks, corporate sponsorship, probably a Sky-City apartment by year's end.
Katie stepped down, her expression transformed. The nervous girl Jack had dated for six months—another orphan, someone who understood scraping by—was gone. In her place was someone already looking past their classmates, toward the floating estates visible through the smog.
She caught his eye as she passed. There was no smile, no recognition. Just assessment. Then she was gone, joining Emily in the "successful" section, though the distance between A and S was a chasm she'd already crossed.
Jack's stomach tightened. He'd known this might happen. Had prepared for it. But seeing it—
"Class 8, Student #49… Rick Samson… Talent Awakening: B-Rank 'Golem Summoning'!"
Rick, his only friend, the muscle-headed son of a dock foreman and a nurse, grinned as a two-and-a-half-meter earth golem materialized beside him. The Formation Master scowled at the unauthorized summon but didn't stop it. B-Rank summoners were valuable—could control drones, handle hazardous materials, support engineering teams.
"Jack! Did you see?" Rick called, dissipating the golem with obvious effort.
Jack gave a thumbs-up. Rick would be okay. B-Rank with a useful talent meant steady work, maybe even a promotion track if he played it right.
Then it was his turn.
"Class 8, Student #50… Jack Milstrom."
The walk to the platform felt longer than the eighteen years that preceded it. Jack climbed the three stone steps—worn smooth by ten thousand feet before his—and faced the Formation Master, an old man with eyes that had seen ten thousand awakenings and found most of them disappointing.
"Place your right hand on the crystal. Clear your mind. The system will assess your potential."
The system. Not magic. Not cultivation. The System—the Imperial Talent Assessment and Allocation Framework, built on Precursor scanning technology, refined during the Thousand-Year War, updated constantly by ATB bureaucrats. It didn't measure what you could become. It measured what you were worth to the Empire.
Jack placed his hand on the crystal.
It was warm. Not from the sun or the previous awakenings, but from something deeper—a resonance that vibrated up his arm, into his chest, settling behind his sternum like something waking up.
The crystal glowed blue. Standard. Then white. Then—
—a color he had no name for.
The crystal vibrated. A hum became a whine became a scream of stressed reality. Cracks—fine as hair—spidered across its surface.
"Containment breach!" the Formation Master shouted, hands already moving in warding patterns.
But there was no explosion. Instead, space around the platform seemed to... thicken. Light bent oddly. The air tasted of ozone and something else—something old, like opening a tomb sealed for millennia.
In Jack's mind, words formed. Not heard. Understood.
[ANCHOR PROTOCOLS DETECTED]
[HOST COMPATIBILITY: 0.001%]
[SYSTEM OVERRIDE: IMPERIAL FRAMEWORK SUBVERTED]
[ASSESSMENT RESULT: F-RANK - CRAFTING AFFINITY]
[SUPPLEMENTAL ANALYSIS: ANOMALY DETECTED - PATTERN-BREAKER PROTOCOLS INITIATED]
The crystal went dark. The weird thickness in the air vanished. On the display screen, plain text appeared:
STUDENT #50: JACK MILSTROM
TALENT: F-RANK - CRAFTING AFFINITY
STATUS: AWAKE
ALLOCATION: STANDARD LABOR POOL
For three heartbeats, there was silence.
Then laughter.
Alfred's, first. "Crafting Affinity! At F-Rank! What are you going to craft, Four-Eyes? Mud pies?"
Others joined in. Crafting Affinity was common—D-Rank and above could become licensed artificers, make decent livings. But F-Rank? The lowest measurable percentile? You might as well be Unranked. Worse, actually—you had just enough talent to be disappointed, not enough to be useful.
The Formation Master looked from the cracked crystal to Jack, his expression unreadable. "Step down."
Jack did. His legs worked. That was something.
As he reached the bottom step, the Formation Master added, low enough that only Jack heard: "Report to ATB Office 7 for secondary assessment. Tomorrow, 09:00."
Not a request. An order.
Jack rejoined the others. Rick clapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, you awakened! That's something!"
Emily gave him a sympathetic look. "Crafting has good advancement paths if you get additional certifications."
Katie didn't look at him at all.
The principal dismissed them. The corporate representatives were already clustering around Katie, offering sponsorship deals. Emily had a smaller group. Alfred was preening for Veridian recruiters.
Jack was alone.
* * *
Outside the Awakening Square – 11:47 AM
Rick tried. "Come on, let's get lunch. My treat!"
"I need to process," Jack said. And it was true. The words in his mind—Anchor protocols, system override—they weren't normal. They weren't part of the standard Imperial awakening experience.
"Okay. But tomorrow! We'll celebrate properly!"
Jack nodded, watching Rick head off with a group of other B and C-Ranks, already forming the networks that would define their careers.
"Jack."
Katie stood before him. She'd changed out of her school uniform into clothes that looked simple but probably cost more than his monthly stipend. New clothes. Bought in anticipation.
"Can we talk? Privately?"
They walked to a cafe across from the school. Not the one they used to go to—that was in the Under-City, served nutrient-bar coffee. This one had real beans, imported from Federation territories.
She didn't sit. "I'm being relocated. Polles has a dormitory for elite talents in the Mid-City. I'm moving there tonight."
"I see."
"It's not… I mean, you understand." She wouldn't meet his eyes. "S-Rank and F-Rank… the Empire doesn't even allow cross-rank marriage without special dispensation. Our paths…"
"Diverged today," Jack finished. He felt strangely calm. "I understand."
For a moment, the girl he knew surfaced. "Jack, I'm sorry—"
"Don't be." He meant it. "You have a chance now. Take it."
She left then, joining a Polles representative waiting in a magi-tech sedan that hummed slightly above the street.
Jack ordered coffee. Sat by the window. Watched the city move—the ground-level traffic of workers and delivery drones, the mid-level sky-rails carrying professionals, the occasional shimmer of a private skiff ascending to the floating estates.
The words returned.
[ANCHOR PROTOCOLS ACTIVE]
[CORE INTEGRITY: 0.001%]
[SYSTEM INTERFACE: LIMITED]
[WARNING: ATB ANOMALY SCAN SCHEDULED - 22 HOURS]
A blue interface appeared in his vision. Simple. Clinical.
```
CRAFTMASTER SYSTEM v0.01
USER: Jack Milstrom
RANK: F (Official), ??? (Actual)
AFFINITY: Crafting (Surface), Reality Negotiation (Deep)
CORE STATUS:
- Theta-3 Link: DETECTED (Inherited)
- Anchor Integration: 0.001%
- System Suppression: 87% (Imperial Framework Overlay)
IMMEDIATE OBJECTIVES:
1. Avoid ATB anomaly classification
2. Establish secure workshop
3. Repair core integrity to 0.01% (minimum operational threshold)
RESOURCES:
- Imperial Sigils: 317 (Last stipend payment)
- Materials: None
- Tools: Basic school kit
- Time: 3 months until mandatory dungeon exam
THREAT ASSESSMENT:
- Economic collapse: HIGH (stipend ended)
- ATB scrutiny: HIGH (anomaly detected)
- Social isolation: HIGH (F-Rank stigma)
```
Jack sipped his coffee. The bitter warmth grounded him.
His mother's voice came back to him, from one of her clearer moments: "The Empire sees reality as something to control, Jack. But that's not how it works. Reality is a conversation. You have to learn to listen before you can speak."
He hadn't understood then. Now, with these words in his mind, this system in his vision, he was starting to.
F-Rank. Lowest of the low.
But the crystal had cracked. Space had thickened. The system had said "override."
Jack finished his coffee. Left a tip—two sigils, a ridiculous extravagance. Walked out into the smog-choked afternoon.
He had twenty-two hours until ATB wanted to examine why an F-Rank awakening had cracked a Thousand-Year-War-era crystal.
He had three months until the mandatory dungeon exam that F-Ranks usually failed, often fatally.
He had three hundred seventeen sigils to his name.
And he had a system in his head that wasn't the Imperial one, that talked about Anchors and reality negotiation and his mother's work.
Jack adjusted his glasses, looked up at the floating estates where Katie was probably already heading, at the Mid-City where Emily would find respectable employment, at the sky-rails he couldn't afford to ride.
Then he turned toward the Warrens, toward his tiny apartment, toward the beginning of whatever came next.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: FIRST CRAFTING OBJECTIVE AVAILABLE]
[CREATE TOOL TO HIDE ANOMALY SIGNATURE]
[REWARD: CORE INTEGRITY INCREASE]
[TIME LIMIT: 21 HOURS, 43 MINUTES]
Jack smiled. It wasn't a happy smile. It was the smile of someone who has nothing left to lose and everything to understand.
He had work to do.
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