A suffocating silence settled over the living room. Jax and Kira exchanged panicked, awkward glances, completely unsure of how to navigate the sudden tragic revelation.
They scrambled to find a respectful way to change the subject, afraid of upsetting the grieving parents.
Marco simply scraped the last bit of ice cream from his bowl and leaned over the coffee table. "There really are not many pictures of Solomon in here," he pointed out bluntly, ignoring the heavy atmosphere entirely. "I cannot even differentiate if this is Jacob or Solomon. Can you show us the pictures that actually have Solomon in them?"
Kira subtly kicked Marco’s shin under the table, while Jax shot him a lethal glare, silently begging him to shut his mouth and be mindful. Marco rely shrugged, completely unbothered by their reprimands.
To their surprise, Elara let out a gentle laugh, the sound easily breaking the lingering tension. She leaned over the table and flipped past a few thick pages, pointing a slender finger at a handful of scattered photographs.
"Here are a few of our Solomon," Elara smiled, though the overall number of pictures was still drastically lower than Jacob’s.
"Solomon hated having his picture taken," Johan explained, tapping a blurry photo where a small boy was actively sprinting out of the fra. "Whenever he saw us pull out a cara, he would imdiately turn around and run away into the fields. Getting him to stand still for a family portrait was a complete nightmare."
The students leaned closer to inspect the elusive photos. One particular picture imdiately caught their collective eye. A six-year-old Solomon stood in the center of the fra, scowling intensely at the cara while wearing a flashy, oversized golden crown on his head.
Johan noticed them staring at it and chuckled. "That was taken during a sumr festival back in our old village. Solomon saw that crown at a vendor’s stall and threw an absolute tantrum until we finally bought it for him. He refused to take it off for the entire afternoon, but he managed to lose it sowhere in the woods just an hour after we took this picture."
"He definitely looks like a handful," Kira smiled, her stylus hovering over the tablet screen. "Just a few final administrative questions before we wrap up. Does Solomon have any severe dietary allergies or dical conditions the academy infirmary should keep on file?"
"No allergies at all," Elara confird, shaking her head. "He has an iron stomach and rarely ever gets sick."
"And is there a secondary ergency contact we should list, aside from this household?" Jax asked, swiping to the final digital page of the registry.
"Just us," Johan replied firmly, resting a hand on his wife’s shoulder. "We handle all of our family matters directly."
Jax tapped the final confirmation rune on his screen and slipped the tablet back onto his utility belt. Marco set his empty bowl down on the tray.
"That covers everything we need," Jax said, standing up from the couch. "Thank you both so much for your ti, the stories, and your wonderful hospitality. We will be leaving now."
As the three students stood up to leave, Elara rose from her armchair. She nervously wrung her hands together, a sudden wave of maternal anxiety crossing her features.
"Before you go," Elara asked, her voice trembling slightly. "Where exactly is Solomon currently? Is there any way we can get in touch with him?"
Kira stepped forward and offered her most reassuring, professional smile. "Please do not worry, ma’am. Solomon is currently out on an official academy training mission, which is why he cannot contact you at this exact mont. The wilderness zones block most communication signals. However, I assure you he will reach out to you as soon as he returns to the main campus."
The explanation seed to soothe Elara’s nerves. She nodded gratefully, her shoulders relaxing. Johan walked the trio down the hall to the front door. The students thanked the parents one final ti before stepping off the porch and heading back out onto the quiet suburban street.
Jax, Kira, and Marco walked back down the paved garden path and piled into the armored tactical rover. Jax settled into the driver’s seat and imdiately started the engine.
He pulled away from the curb, leaving the quiet suburban neighborhood behind as they headed back toward the main highway.
"That was an awfully normal family. I felt so calm and welcoming there."
Kira pulled out her tablet and finalized the digital report. She attached all the collected background data, the peculiar childhood anecdotes, and the official family registry information into a secure file. With a final tap of her stylus, she encrypted the docunt and transmitted it directly to the Grandmaster’s private administrative network.
A sharp, synchronized chi echoed from all three of their wrist devices.
Jax glanced down at his glowing screen. A green notification flashed across the interface, signaling that the top-priority intelligence mission was officially marked as completed. The academy system imdiately deposited ten thousand points into each of their student accounts.
A mont later, the three chanical broadcast owls perched on the overhead grab handles suddenly whirred back to life. Their dark cara lenses glowed a vibrant, active blue, indicating that their connection to the public live-stream network had been fully restored.
Marco kicked his boots back onto the dashboard, staring thoughtfully out the passenger window. He completely ignored the active drones hovering above him.
"I am genuinely curious now," Marco muttered, running a hand through his peachy pink hair. "Who exactly is this Solomon? First-year students are practically invisible to the administration. What could he have possibly done to make the Grandmaster himself take a personal interest in his family background?"
"I was wondering the exact sa thing," Jax admitted, keeping his eyes on the road. "Especially since his family seems completely normal. They are just ordinary civilians running a small diner. Unless Solomon secretly awakened an S-rank talent, or maybe even a higher-tier mythical ability, the academy would never bend the rules like this. He must have done sothing absolutely amazing."
Marco scoffed and crossed his arms. "If he did sothing amazing, we would have seen it by now. The first-year students have not even started their live-stream broadcasts yet. Whatever he did to get the Grandmaster’s attention, he managed to do it entirely off-cara."
Little did they know what Solomon had done and achieved. And it was all because a lazy professor didn’t bother to stop him from leaving the class when he was supposed to.
If professor Balzac had stopped Solomon and forced him to read the rules, nothing would have happened.
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