"The merchant burst into tears the moment he saw the broken pieces," Celia explained, her voice softening. "He told the investigators that around six months ago, a terrible storm had swept through the slums and completely destroyed his cart. He lost all his merchandise. He was starving in the dirty street, begging for copper coins just to buy a piece of bread."
Celia looked around the table, making sure every girl was listening. "Then, he said a nobleman-looking Adventurer suddenly approached him. The Adventurer didn't just give him a coin. He looked at the completely ruined, cracked crystals in the mud and bought all the broken junk for an absurdly high price. That single purchase saved the merchant's life and allowed him to rebuild his entire business."
Elen's eyes widened so fast they almost popped out of her head. She slammed both hands flat on the table. "Wait a minute. Six months ago? That was the exact day the scary branch manager gave him the promotion exam notice!"
"Yes," Celia nodded, a bright smile on her face. "The Association investigators connected the dots instantly. When they brought the report back to the Association Branch, the Imperial Branch Manager completely lost his mind."
Brielle leaned so far forward she was almost lying on the table. "What did they think happened?"
"They concluded that Kian is a tactical genius," Celia said simply. "The Association believed that the very second the exam was announced, Kian instantly calculated the exact atmospheric density of the Whispering Canyon in his head. They thought he intentionally spent days searching the lower slums to find that specific starving merchant because he needed cracked crystals with those exact microscopic flaws to trigger the spatial vacuum."
"And he overpaid the poor man on purpose," the Archer whispered in sheer awe. "He used a life-or-death exam as an excuse to secretly give a starving man a big amount of money without hurting his pride."
"Exactly," Celia agreed. "He disguised his charity as a simple business transaction. The Association realized that his six months of 'hiding' wasn't cowardice at all. He was carefully putting together an impossibly complex magical trap using garbage, all while saving the poor."
Aria sat back in her chair, completely overwhelmed. A single tear slipped down her cheek, but she didn't bother to wipe it away. She pressed her hand firmly against the silver pendant resting on her chest.
He really hasn't changed at all, Aria thought, her heart swelling with an absolute, unshakable loyalty. He cured my mother and saved my village, then walked away without asking for a single thank you. Now, he saves a starving merchant and single-handedly erases a hundred Spatial Gates, and he still tries to pretend he just took a nap and failed. He is a true saint.
Celia smiled, leaning back in her chair. "Further investigation revealed those items were the final remnants of an extinct line of magical tools. Not a single craftsman alive today knows who originally made them. They were completely obsolete. By modern standards, they were just useless garbage without a single practical use. But for that one specific quest? They worked perfectly. They were exactly what Kian needed."
"So what happened next?" Brielle asked excitedly, completely abandoning her previous doubts. "Did they give him the Level 7 badge?"
"No," Celia shook her head. "The Branch Manager was summoned to the headquarters of the Adventurer's Association and they held an emergency meeting. They decided that handing a simple Level 7 badge to a man with this level of tactical genius, spatial magic mastery, and boundless compassion was a big insult."
Celia paused for dramatic effect. "They bypassed Level 7 entirely. They forcefully promoted him directly to Level 8. It was the very first double-promotion in the entire history of the world."
The four girls gasped. A double-promotion was unheard of. The Association's rules were incredibly strict, but Kian Astor had completely shattered them using a broken mirror and a cracked rock.
"Because Level 7s and Level 8s are considered the peak of each country, they get massive, public awarding ceremonies," Celia explained, her long ears twitching happily as she remembered the day. "The Association rented out the grand plaza in the center of the capital. Thousands of people showed up. There were giant banners and loud trumpets. Since the imperial knights refused to attend, the Association lined the stage with hundreds of scarred, veteran Adventurers raising their weapons in absolute respect."
"Were you there?" Elen asked eagerly.
"Of course," Celia smiled warmly. "I was in the very front row with the rest of Feeble Soul. We were crying tears of absolute joy. We had actually just returned to the capital that very morning, barely making it in time for the ceremony."
"Wait," Brielle interrupted. "Returned from where?"
"From the South East," Celia explained, her eyes filled with deep reverence. "Remember the training mission Kian gave us six months prior? He sent us four thousand kilometers away to find a specific, unnamed salt. It turns out, a terrible plague had just broken out in the south-eastern lands. The 'salt' he sent us to find was actually a mythical mineral buried deep in a forgotten dungeon, and it was the exact cure the south-eastern kingdom needed. He sent us there right when the people needed us most. The Adventurer's Association was baffled by our perfect timing. They launched a massive investigation into how Kian could possibly know about a south-eastern plague before it even started, and how he knew that specific legendary salt was the exact chemical cure."
"No way," Brielle asked in shock. "How did he know?"
"He read the mundane trade reports," Celia said softly. "Six months prior, he noticed a microscopic anomaly in the south-eastern merchant manifests—a slight discoloration in their exported grain. He deduced the exact biological incubation period of the disease. He also calculated that if we ran on foot, we would arrive four months too early, long before the forgotten dungeon holding the salt even unsealed itself. That is exactly why he strictly forbade us from running and forced us to use a slow horse carriage. He calculated our travel speed down to the very hour. We arrived in the South East on the exact week the plague reached its deadly peak and the dungeon unsealed itself. We saved an entire nation, brought the cure back, and returned to the Imperial Capital on the exact day of his promotion ceremony. He calculated every single step of our six-month journey with absolute precision."
The four girls at the table sat in stunned, absolute silence. He hadn't just saved the capital; he had saved the South East without even leaving his chair.
"When he walked up onto that wide wooden stage to accept the Level 8 badge," Celia continued softly, "the crowd went completely wild. He looked so cool and mysterious. He didn't smile, he didn't wave. He just stood there, looking completely unfazed by the roaring crowd, like a true peerless legend."
The girls at the table sighed in admiration. They could picture it perfectly—the stoic, powerful hero standing above the masses, completely untouched by the fame and glory.
But what the girls at the table didn't know, and what Celia didn't know either, was the terrifying reality of what was actually happening inside Kian's head on that stage.
Up on that wooden platform three years ago, looking down at the cheering crowds, Kian Astor was not being stoic or mysterious. He was completely frozen in terror. He was having a big, silent panic attack.
While the Adventurer's Association pinned the heavy gold Level 8 badge to his shirt, Kian finally realized what had happened in the canyon.
Six months prior, he had been trying to take a nice, quiet nap in a dirty alleyway. But a ruined merchant kept crying loudly about his broken cart, completely ruining Kian's sleep. To get the guy to shut up and go away, Kian threw a bag of gold coins at him and took his broken garbage just to stop the crying.
Later, when Kian traveled to the Whispering Canyon and slept on that flat rock, the bag of junk must have fallen out of his pocket and rolled into the dirt.
Because I dropped a bag of literal garbage, Kian had screamed internally while the crowds cheered, a magical black hole swallowed a hundred gates! And those crazy kids actually found a mythical salt that I completely made up! I just wanted to take a nap, and now these insane people think I am a tactical genius!
Looking out at the roaring crowd, Kian's stomach had dropped into his boots. He knew exactly what a Level 8 badge meant.
The Association could now legally draft him. If an ancient Demon Lord woke up, or if a Calamity-class dragon attacked the Empire's territory, the Association and the Emperor himself would force Kian to the front lines to fight it.
He couldn't run away anymore. He was now trapped.
While Celia and the color-coded kids cried tears of pride in the front row, Kian had stood perfectly still on the stage, staring blankly ahead, entirely because his brain had shut down from pure fear.
Behind his cool, uncaring expression, he was desperately trying to mentally draft his own 'will' before the Association sent him to a terrifying, gruesome death.
Back in the present, inside the cozy clan house lounge, Celia finished her tea and gently set the porcelain cup down on the saucer.
"And that," Celia concluded, looking at Aria's starry-eyed expression and Brielle's stunned face, "is the story of how Kian Astor achieved the impossible, outsmarted the entire Adventurer's Association, and became a Level 8 legend."