The silence in the National Administration hall was suffocating. The word [ NULL ] didn't just sit on the screen; it mocked the entire Vancroft lineage.
"NULL?" Duke Dris's voice was like grinding stones. His hand gripped Dion's shoulder so hard the boy winced, his small face scrunching in pain.
The Chairman scrambled toward the Resonance Pillar, his fingers dancing over the diagnostic runes. "My Lord... I... I have never seen this. The machine overloaded before it crashed. There are only two possibilities." He looked at the three-year-old boy, then back at the Duke with a mix of pity and hesitation. "Either the boy possesses a Divine Restriction (DRR) so absolute that his mana cannot be categorized... or his potential is simply non-existent. Given he is only three, the system likely defaulted to 'Null' because it found no potential Skill to latch onto."
Dion looked at the screen, his bottom lip trembling slightly. He didn't understand "Divine Restriction" or "Calculus." He only knew that his father's hand felt cold, and the people in the room were looking at him like he was a broken toy.
"A Vancroft with a Divine Restriction?" Dris spat, his face reddening. "You're saying my son is a brute? A mana-cripple who can only use his muscles?"
"It is a mere suggestion of the system, My Lord!" the Chairman bowed low. "But without an Innate Skill, he is... for all intents and purposes... powerless in the eyes of the law."
The ride back to the estate was different from the one coming. Dion sat huddled in the corner of the velvet seat. Claire tried to catch his eye, her expression worried, but Duke Dris stared out the window, his jaw locked. He didn't say a word to Dion. Not one.
As soon as they crossed the threshold of the manor, Dris turned to his head butler. "Hire a tutor. Find someone with a Divine Restriction. If the boy is to be a common warrior, he will start now. I will not have a weakling carrying my name."
Dion was escorted to his room by a silent maid. As the door clicked shut, he slumped onto his bed, tears finally pricking his golden eyes. "I'm not a zero..." he whispered into the pillow. "I'm not."
"You are correct, Young Lord."
Dion bolted upright. Yudris was there, standing by the window. She looked as she always did—composed, ethereal, and impossibly calm.
"You saw it too, right?" Dion asked, his voice cracking. "The machine broke. They said I'm a Null. That I don't have a skill."
Yudris walked toward him, her footsteps making no sound. She knelt by the bed, placing a hand near his, though he felt only a faint hum of energy rather than solid skin. "The machine did not see a Zero, Master. It saw a symbol it was never programmed to translate."
Dion wiped his eyes with his sleeve. "What symbol?"
"A loop," she whispered. "A line with no beginning and no end. In the realms beyond this one, it is called Infinity. But here, they call it Null because they cannot count that high."
Dion blinked, his childish wonder briefly overcoming his sadness. "Infinity? Like... a lot?"
"More than a lot," Yudris smiled. "And as for your skill... the Chairman is wrong. You do not lack one. You simply have the only one that matters."
Dion leaned in, his heart racing. "What is it?"
"Your skill, Young Lord... is anything you Imagine. Whatever you can see clearly in your mind, the world must make real. But you must be careful. Without a 'Restriction' to guide you, your thoughts are dangerous."
Dion stared at his small hands. "Anything?"
"Anything," she confirmed. "Would you like to try?"
Dion scrambled off the bed, his sadness forgotten. He led her out through the balcony, slipping past the guards with a child's natural stealth, until they reached the far edge of the Vancroft woods, hidden by the shadows of the ancient oaks.
"Okay," Dion panted, bracing his feet in the dirt. "Imagine..."
He thought about the candles in the hallway. He closed his eyes and pictured a tiny, flickering flame sitting in his palm. Just a little one. A spark.
A warmth blossomed in his chest—a raw, surging heat he'd felt in the garden. It rushed down his arm like a flood.
Pop.
A spark appeared. But it didn't stay a spark. Within seconds, the tiny flame began to howl. It sucked the air out of Dion's lungs, growing into a roaring, spinning sphere of white-hot fire. The grass beneath his feet turned to black ash instantly. The heat was so intense it began to liquefy the pebbles on the ground.
"Young Lord, stop!" Yudris's voice cracked like a whip.
Dion snapped his eyes open and gasped, the image in his mind shattering. The fire vanished, leaving a scorched, smoking circle in the woods. Dion fell back onto his bottom, staring at his hand in pure shock. "It... it got so big. I only wanted a little bit!"
"That is the weight of your soul, Master," Yudris said, her eyes scanning the damage. "You must learn to control the output, or you will burn everything you love."
The Two-Year Grind
Two days later, Dion's new life began.
The tutor, a scarred veteran named Master Kaelen, was a man of the Divine Restriction. He was a B-Rank warrior who had reached the heights of physical power because he had no magic to rely on.
"The Duke says you're a Null," Kaelen grunted, looking down at the four-year-old Dion. "That means you don't get to be a pampered noble. You're going to run until you vomit. You're going to swing this wooden sword until your hands bleed. If you can't use mana, you'll use your bones."
Dion didn't complain. For the next two years, his life was a blur of grueling physical labor. He ran miles through the Vancroft estate; he lifted stones; he practiced stances under the blistering sun.
To Kaelen and the Duke, Dion looked like he was struggling. He breathed hard, his face turned red, and he collapsed at the end of every day.
But Dion knew the truth.
Every time he felt his muscles tearing, he would see Yudris standing in the shade, nodding. He would use his "raw" mana—the infinite pool the Chairman said was useless—and he would imagine his body as unbreakable iron. He would imagine his lungs as endless bellows.
He was holding back. He had to. If he ran at his true speed, he would leave the tutors in the dust. If he swung his sword with his full strength, the wooden blade would shatter the training dummies into splinters. He played the part of the struggling, "restricted" child, all while his body grew into something far more than human.
By the time Dion turned five, and Claire turned ten, the gap between the siblings seemed like an ocean.
The Awakening: Age Ten
The day of Claire's tenth birthday was a grand affair. The Vancroft estate was decked in banners of silver and blue. Nobles from across Wichville had gathered to witness the awakening of the "Prodigy of the West."
In the center of the Great Hall, a golden chalice sat upon a pedestal, containing the Potion of Awakening.
Claire stood before it, her silver hair shimmering under the chandeliers. At ten years old, she was already tall, her mana pool having reached a staggering 450 during her preliminary training. She was a Level C prodigy, and today, her fate would be sealed.
Dion stood in the corner, watched by Master Kaelen. He looked like a normal five-year-old boy, dressed in a simple noble tunic, his silver hair neatly combed. No one noticed the way his golden eyes tracked the mana flowing through the room—seeing the inefficiencies, the leaks, the way the Potion's energy was reacting to Claire's presence.
"Drink, my daughter," Duke Dris commanded, his voice filled with a hunger for glory. "Show them the strength of the Vancroft blood."
Claire took the chalice. She looked at Dion for a split second, a nervous smile on her face, and then she tilted her head back, draining the glowing liquid.
The effect was instantaneous.
A pillar of pure, translucent mana erupted from Claire's body, shattering the windows of the Great Hall. The nobles scrambled back as the floor tiles beneath her feet began to groan. The air turned heavy, thick with the scent of ozone.
Claire screamed, not in pain, but in sheer overwhelming power. Her mana pool didn't just activate; it surged.
600... 800... 1,200...
The numbers on the portable reading stones held by the officials climbed until they began to smoke.
Claire's hands began to glow. She reached out, and the air itself seemed to ripple. A stone pillar near her began to warp, turning from solid granite into liquid gold, then into a cloud of freezing mist, and finally into a jagged spear of obsidian.
The Chairman of the Administration, who had come specifically for this event, fell to his knees in awe. "Look at the resonance! Look at the control!"
The obsidian spear hovered in the air, vibrating with such intensity that it created a sonic hum that made the guests' ears bleed. Then, the light faded, leaving Claire standing in the center of a crater, gasping for air, her eyes glowing with a newfound authority.
The Chairman looked at his reading stone, his voice trembling with excitement as the final result solidified.
"Innate Skill Confirmed: Matter Manipulation."