Maddy was now next in line, though a heavy brass railing kept her standing a bit far from the actual counter. She glanced around the massive hall and realized her mistake—it wasn’t just one line. There were dozens of rows filled with hundreds of applicants, all stretching toward the back of the building.
"It looks like the entire nation of Prothia is here today," the young man muttered, scanning the restless crowd. "The rumors about the Demon Lord awakening seem to have made everyone else wake up too. Every soul in the country wants a piece of that bounty."
The words "Demon Lord" hit Maddy. Suddenly, she saw that sheer, bone chilling terror on Erwin’s face. She heard his voice trembling as he called her that cursed title.
"Demon lord... what is the aning of that... why he called that..."
Her worry and confusion were cut short by a sudden, violent flash of heat and light. A wave of energy tore through the air,. Directly in front of her, the adventurer who had just reached the counter slamd his hand onto a large, ornate stone bowl.
The bowl was filled with ancient wood. Upon his touch, the wood ignited instantly, sending a pillar of fla roaring. The heat was intense, making the air ripple and the crowd gasp.The receptionist squinted at the height and color of the fla, her quill scratching quickly against a heavy ledger.
"Fla Intensity: Level 5. Color of the Fla: Deep Red," she called out, her voice cutting through the crackle of the wood. "Registration confird. You are ranked as a B Rank adventurer."
A collective gasp rippled through the hall.
"Did you see that?" one man whispered to his companion. "Most beginners barely produce a flicker of fire, but he hit Level 5 on his first try!"
"I heard that’s rare...to start at B Rank? That guy shows promise."
The man threw his head back and laughed, punching the air in triumph as he turned toward the receptionist.
"Did you hear that? B Rank! I knew I had the spark!"
Maddy watched him as the receptionist began preparing sothing. She stayed silent, her eyes fixed on the glowing embers left in the bowl, watching the intensity of the fire slowly fade back into gray ash.
[Response: Maddy, this is the core of their evaluation system. The Adventurer’s Guild uses these ’Prothean Bowls’ to asure the internal spark of every candidate. To this nation, everything is represented by fla.]
"Fla?"
[Response: Correct. In their lore, Protheus gave them this fla not just for warmth, but as the source of their very souls. By channeling the fla within their bodies, they manifest magic, skills, and physical might. The scale of the fla they ignite determines their standing in society.]
"So, the ’aura’ I see through my Divine Eyes... to them, it is fire. But it is really just their magic and might being converted into heat."
[Response: Precisely. They have built an entire civilization on the asurent of this combustion. The larger the fla, the higher the rank, and the more ’acceptable’ they are considered in this nation.]
"Yeah..." Maddy sighed, her gaze lingering on the hierarchy of embers. "Every world really does find its way to discriminate against people."
Maddy looked down at her own pale hand, her fingers twitching slightly. Despite all the screens, the Divine Eyes, and the voices in her head, there was one glaring hole in her data: herself. She could see the "fire" in everyone else, but she remained a blind spot in her own vision.
A deep, hungry interest stirred within her. It was a terrifying curiosity.
"I wonder what my own flas are..." she thought. "I’ve tried to use Appraisal on myself, but I can’t. The skill only works on others, never on ."
"Next!" the receptionist shouted, her bored eyes finally landing on Maddy. "You there. Step forward."
The young man behind Maddy leaned in, his voice a curious whisper.
"Don’t be nervous, mystery girl. Even a small fla is enough to get you in the door. Just rember... IGNITE YOUR HEART!"
Maddy didn’t respond to the young man’s encouragent. She stepped forward, up close, the bowl looked like a hungry mouth, still warm from the previous applicant’s Red Fla.
As she stood there, she watched the other lines. A woman to her far left sparked a sickly green fla—low power, but high toxicity. Another man further down produced a steady, common orange. Every color represented a different path, a different life. But Maddy? She was an enigma even to herself.
"Should I let it all out?" she wondered. "If I let my magic and might all out, I’ll know exactly what I’m capable of. I’ll know if I can actually protect Sephiran, Arach, Dyralfa, Frovian, Soltis and Noctis... when the world inevitably cos for us."
But the risk was massive. To "see" her own power might an destroying her cover and the building before she even gathered the intel she needed.
From the crowd behind her, the hushed whispers started to crawl up her spine.
"Look at her clothes. She looks like she crawled out of so gutter in a backwater village. Probably from that goblin infested hole they just cleared out."
"I bet she can’t even get a spark. She’ll probably just stand there until the receptionist kicks her out for wasting ti. You need a soul to start a fire, and she looks like she’s barely holding on to hers."
The young man behind her growled at the hecklers, but Maddy ignored them. Their words were just noise. She focused on the ancient wood inside the bowl. She reached out, her pale fingers hovering just inches above the charred surface. The air between her palm and the wood began to vibrate, a low hum that only she could feel.
"Greetings. This is the first step to becoming an adventurer, known as the Trial by Fire," the receptionist groaned, tapping her quill impatiently, not even looking at Maddy. "You’ve probably seen how it works from the person before you. You just have to touch it."
Maddy took one last deep breath, her purple eyes flashing with a hidden, dangerous light. She decided to give them a spark but even a "spark" from a mother was a gamble.
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