The Archive District wasn't designed for attention.
Its marble streets were meant to mute footsteps. Its fountains whispered instead of gushed. Its lamplight never flared—just glowed with quiet dignity. Even the wind, enchanted by layers of passive warding, seemed to pass more gently through its arches than anywhere else in the capital.
But today, silence had weight.
It wasn't a stillness you embraced. It was the kind that wrapped around your throat and waited.
A shimmering golden dome hovered over the Royal Archive. Thin as mist, yet no one had broken it. Clerics in white, hooded robes knelt before it. Scribes had set up camp just meters away, sketching the rune pulses every minute, trying to map the anomaly's breath. A contingent of guards had been posted too—though no one knew if they were protecting the archive, or the people from it.
Then Lio arrived.
They noticed him before he turned the corner.
Black and gold. A sleeveless duelist's coat folded clean around his frame. White-gold hair sharp as cut obsidian. A longsword strapped behind his back—not ceremonial, not enchanted, just deadly and well-kept. He didn't walk with arrogance.
He walked like the world had never taught him to doubt.
The crowd didn't move. They just parted.
One of the scribes lowered his pen.
"Is that…"
"Lio von Argent," someone whispered. "The Chancellor's son."
"Didn't he duel a firebinder on a fountain rail last year?"
"Won in three moves. Never drew his blade."
Lio didn't acknowledge the whispers. He didn't slow.
He walked straight to the barrier—where the shimmer bent the air like heat over glass. Up close, the golden magic wasn't still. It rippled like water, flickering in layered threads of glyphs that no school of magic had ever documented.
And it was beautiful.
But not to Lio.
He looked at it like a scholar would look at an imperfect proof.
Then—he raised one gloved hand.
The crowd leaned forward as his fingers touched the surface.
And the barrier responded.
It didn't open. It unfolded.
The dome did not crack, didn't hiss, didn't resist. Instead, the barrier's magic peeled—a circular corridor sliding apart like golden petals, rotating counterclockwise, glyphs flickering in and out of phase like some living, breathing vault.
A tunnel of light stretched inward.
Inside it: nothing but silence.
Lio's hand remained against the edge of the gate as if listening for confirmation.
Then a whisper—too faint for the crowd to hear.
[System Barrier Detected: High-Pride Signature – Compatible Soul Type.][Opening: Temporary Corridor – Student Slot Unavailable.]
The words weren't said aloud. They were delivered like instinct, pressed against the back of his eyes.
Lio exhaled slowly.
It recognized me.
It knew me.
That sensation—the rare flicker of being measured and not rejected—sent a small thrill down his spine.
He didn't smile. But his left eye narrowed, ever so slightly.
Then, without another word, he stepped forward.
The golden corridor closed behind him like silk returning to form, the shimmer smoothing as if nothing had happened.
Outside, no one breathed.
"…It opened for him."
"Did it test him?"
"Did he pass?"
A cleric dropped to his knees. "Another chosen…"
"No," muttered one mage, staring hard at the place Lio had vanished. "That wasn't a blessing."
She scribbled furiously into her notes.
"That was a handshake."