Chapter 49: Anomaly

Elsewhere, a day after Keane had closed the gate solo, someone entered the Eastern Mage Tower. Being a hooded figure wasn’t particularly that mysterious, especially when it wasn’t in a group of all hooded figures. Even worse, this figure wasn’t hooded.

The man was a mage in his early forties, dressed plainly enough that most people would have mistaken him for a researcher rather than a field practitioner. His robe carried no obvious insignia beyond the small silver emblem of the Eastern School.

The mage had requested access to several records from Keane’s examination some time earlier. The official reason was simple enough, he wanted to review an unusual case.

Keane’s lack of elemental affinity had already been documented, it was no secret, so to day. That alone was already interesting enough to any researcher, what wasn’t documented was what the mage had noticed while going through the old examination data, that there were inconsistencies. Strange ones he had noticed, which was why he was back.

He had spent the previous night comparing Keane’s readings with records of humans, magical beasts, artificial beings, transformed creatures, and several other rare cases... but none matched. So, early that morning, he prepared a private examination room, which was where he was headed.

He himself had worked under Archmage Delane for several years, but even then, that did not mean Delane knew what he was doing at that moment. Which of course, wasn’t out of the ordinary.

Having reached the room, he placed a small crystal sphere in the center of the room and activated the examination array beneath it.

The mage stared at the empty chair across from him.

"Interesting." He said.

Normally, that would be where the one being examined would be sat, but even in the absence of the physical being, the tests proved efficacious. Even that was fascinating.

The mage had obtained a small sample of residue from Keane’s previous examination, which was what he was using.

Normally, that would have been insufficient, but for Keane, however, the array reacted almost immediately.

The crystal remained clear for several seconds, then a thin line of light appeared inside it and was held like that.

The mage leaned forward.

"Elemental affinity..." he said to himself as he observed... Nothing.

He adjusted the array again, but the result was the same. ’It truly is as heard.’ He thought to himself.

The result was exactly the same as Delane’s original examination. The mage nodded. "Confirmed."

He wasn’t surprised, since that part was already known. Going forward, he started checking different things, swapping out crystals and changing the arrays, even drawing a few himself that were not registered in the room’s data already.

He went from mana circulation, to soul response, aura density, life force, magical composition, and a few more.

The first four readings appeared normally at first, but to his shock, they seemed to change after a while, as though unstable.

That alone brought a frown to his face.

He checked the array to make sure everything was functioning correctly, then ran the test again.

Once again, the same thing happened, exactly like the first time. After a few more tries, he was truly confused.

From his readings, Keane’s body registered as human, but then it didn’t.

The mage stared at the readings, perplexed. "That’s impossible." He said to himself.

He adjusted the array one more time to get a greater sensitivity, but that didn’t work either, instead, the results became worse. There was a normal human life-force signature, but it was accompanied by something the array couldn’t classify, and even the normal reading appeared unstable to truly classify as human.

It was similar with the other results, there was no recognizable structure to any of it. It simply didn’t conform to the normal pattern.

The mage activated another crystal, after spending about 15 minutes drawing a magic array. This one was designed to identify magical beings.

He activated it, but the crystal remained dark.

He tried again.

A faint glow appeared... then it disappeared.

"What? Not a magical being." He said, not quite sure exactly. "This doesn’t make any sense." He said to himself, staring down at the array, "just what are you?" He questioned.

Feeling like he was being pushed to it, he did something else, testing for Keane’s System signature.

It was a relatively new field of research, still poorly understood and mostly used by high-level institutions to identify abnormal magical phenomena.

The idea was simple and related to other types of test, this was just a newly discovered method that was still under research.

Every living being had a signature, Humans had one, Magical beasts had one, Summoned creatures had one despite being a form of Magical beasts sometimes, and even some artificial constructs produced identifiable signatures.

"Come on..." Even after using a more advanced and experimental method, the results were the same as everything else, maybe even a bit worse. He appeared as everything and at the same time as nothing... which didn’t make any sense at all, that was impossible.

With no forthcoming results, he shut down the array and pakced most of his things.

For several seconds, he said nothing, then he pulled a sheet of paper from his bag and began writing.

.

Subject: Keane

Elemental Affinity: None.

Magical Classification: Inconclusive.

Biological Classification: Human?

Aura: Non-elemental. Irregular.

System Signature: Unable to classify. Multiple overlapping patterns detected.

.

He stopped there. His pen hovered above the page for a while, then he added one final line.

.

Subject does not appear to be a conventional magical being. Subject does not fully register as an ordinary human. Nature unknown. Further observation recommended.

.

He looked at the report for a bit, then without taking anymore time, finished packing, then left. Before leaving, he had torn out the page where he wrote everything, sealed it in an envelope, then placed it separately, as though planning to send it to someone else.

As for who it was, only he knew.

...

As for Keane, he knew none of what had just happen. He had woken up eager to raid a dungeon and earn some money.

He had been thinking about different things he could bring from the modern earth as inventions into this new world, for the sake of making money, and while he had a lot of ideas, he had no inkling as to how to go about producing those things.

Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t living in some web novel or anime, where the main character just happen to know how soap is produced, or how to manufacture complex machines just because they remembered a little history.

With that said, he really had only his strength to rely on.

’Maybe I should try different ways to gain a skill despite not having a class?’

He was halfway through that consideration when someone approached him from behind.

"Keane." They said.

Haering the voice, he couldn’t but recognise it, though he wished it wasn’t what he was thinking.

Looking up, it was exactly who he thought it was, as he saw Elara standing there.

She wasn’t wearing the elaborate clothing she usually used when meeting nobles or conducting business. She wore something much simpler, though she still carried herself like someone who was accustomed to being of a higher class than a regular peasant.

Keane stared at her for a moment, not impressed by her presence. "What do you want?"