The instructors ordered everyone out after the altar split, but the guild recruiters did not move.
Power had a smell. Kai learned that from dungeon markets where desperate hunters sold monster bone for rent money. It smelled like clean leather, cold metal, and people who never queued.
A woman in a silver coat stepped over the broken line in the floor.
"Kai Ren," she said. "Your record says no sponsor, no awakened relatives, no confirmed talent."
"That sounds complete."
"It is incomplete now." She offered him a card with no guild crest, only a number pressed into black foil. "Report before midnight. Come alone."
The status window flickered at the edge of his sight.
FIRST RULE: Survive one offer you should not accept.
Kai closed his fist around the card and smiled like he had a choice.