The Registration Center stood in the Inner Ring like a monument to bureaucracy.
Kai had been here once before, three years ago, when he'd first awakened his E-rank Shard. Back then, the building had seemed imposing, made of steel and glass with clean white walls. Now, after everything he'd seen in the Wilds, it just looked plain and empty.
He walked through the main entrance, past the security checkpoint where guards scanned his temporary medical clearance badge.
The lobby was packed with people, mostly young, mostly nervous. Newly Awakened, waiting for their first official scan.
Kai found the queue for re-scanning and joined the line.
"First time?" the guy in front of him asked. He was maybe nineteen, with acne scars and hands that wouldn't stop shaking.
"Second," Kai said. "Got a new Shard."
The guy's eyes widened. "Seriously? That's rare. What rank?"
"Don't know yet. That's why I'm here."
"I'm hoping for D-rank," the guy said. "My dad was D-rank, so maybe... you know. Genetics."
Kai nodded, only half-listening. His attention was on the scanning stations ahead, where technicians in white coats were processing people one by one.
Most scans took less than a minute. The person would place their hand on a flat black pad, the machine would hum, and a number would appear on the display.
F-rank. E-rank. Occasionally a D-rank, which drew murmurs from the crowd.
"Next!"
The line shuffled forward. Kai watched a girl, maybe sixteen, step up to a scanner. She placed her trembling hand on the pad, and after a moment, the display flickered: [F-RANK - MINOR RESONANCE].
She looked crushed. The technician gave her a sympathetic smile and handed her a grey plastic card: the standard F-rank Resonance Card. It was barely worth carrying.
"Next!"
Kai moved up. Two people ahead now. His chest felt tight, and the black Shard pulsed beneath his shirt. He could feel it reacting to something in the air here, like it recognised the machinery.
"Next!"
One person ahead.
The guy in front of him, the nervous one, stepped up to the scanner. He placed his hand on the pad, took a deep breath, and waited.
The machine hummed. The display flickered: [D-RANK - MODERATE RESONANCE].
The guy nearly collapsed with relief. "Oh thank god. Thank god."
The technician smiled and handed him a green card. "Congratulations. Report to the Reclaimer Guild if you're interested in contract work."
"Next!"
Kai stepped forward.
The technician was a middle-aged woman with grey hair pulled back in a tight bun. She looked tired and bored, like she'd done this a thousand times today already. She gestured to the scanner without looking up from her tablet.
"Hand on the pad, please."
Kai placed his hand on the black surface.
The machine hummed, louder than it had for anyone else.
The technician frowned. "Give it a moment. Sometimes the calibration needs…"
The display flickered.
[E-RANK...]
Then it changed.
[D-RANK...]
The technician looked up. "Wait, that's not…"
[C-RANK...]
The humming got louder. People in line behind Kai were starting to notice, whispering to each other.
[B-RANK...]
"What the hell?" the technician muttered, tapping her tablet. "This thing's glitching."
[A-RANK...]
The display flashed bright white.
[SSS-RANK...]
Then the entire screen went dark.
The humming stopped. The building's overhead lights flickered once, then again. Somewhere in the back of the room, another scanner rebooted with a sharp electronic whine.
The technician stared at the dead screen, then at Kai, then back at the screen. "What... what did you do?"
"Nothing," Kai said honestly. "I just put my hand on it."
"The system crashed." She was tapping frantically on her tablet now, trying to reboot the scanner. "It's never done that before. Not once in five years."
The scanner came back online, but the display just showed: [ERROR - UNABLE TO CLASSIFY].
The technician stood up. "Wait here. Don't move."
She walked quickly toward the back offices, leaving Kai standing awkwardly by the scanner. People in line were staring at him now, some with curiosity, others with suspicion.
Kai looked down at his hand. It had a soft golden glow along the veins. He closed his hand into a fist, and the glow faded.
Two minutes later, the technician returned with a supervisor: a tall man in his fifties with sharp eyes and a no-nonsense expression. He was carrying a handheld device that looked like a tablet fused with a medical scanner.
"Mr. Arren?" the supervisor said.
"Yeah."
"I'm Director Chen. I understand we're having some... technical difficulties with your scan."
"Wasn't my fault," Kai said.
"I'm sure it wasn't." Director Chen gestured to a side room. "Please, follow me. We'll use the manual scanner."
Kai followed him into a smaller, quieter room. The walls were lined with old scanning equipment, most of it covered in dust. Director Chen set the handheld device on a table and powered it on.
"This is a Resonance Reader," Chen explained. "Older model, but more reliable than the automated systems. It can't be fooled by interference or glitches." He held it up. "Left hand, please."
Kai extended his hand.
Chen pressed the device against Kai's palm. It beeped once, and a small screen on the side lit up with scrolling data.
Chen's eyes widened. "That's... unusual."
"What is?"
"Your Resonance signature. It's..." He tilted the device, frowning. "It's oscillating. I've never seen that before."
"Oscillating?"
"Most Shards have a stable frequency. Yours is shifting constantly, like it's... adapting." Chen looked up at Kai. "What kind of Shard did you integrate?"
"I don't know," Kai admitted. "It was in a Fracture Site. Black crystal."
Chen's expression darkened. "Fracture Shards are unpredictable. Some of them are corrupted by dimensional instability." He looked back at the device. "But the rank reading is clear. You're A-rank. APEX class."
Kai felt the world tilt slightly. "A-rank? That's not possible. I was E-rank two days ago."
"Well, you're not E-rank now." Chen set the device down and pulled out a small case from his pocket. Inside was an orange crystal card, roughly the size of a credit card. It shimmered faintly in the light, and Kai could see tiny filaments of energy running through it like circuitry.
Kai watched as he slid the card in the machine that had just scanned him, then pulled it out
"This is your Resonance Card," Chen said, handing it to Kai. "A-rank classification. It's registered to your biometric signature, so don't lose it. You'll need it for contracts, Guild access, restricted zones, everything."
Kai took the card carefully. It felt warm in his hand, almost alive.
"There's something else," Chen's tone shifted. "A-ranks are required to register with the Reclaimer Guild headquarters. It's not optional. You'll need to report there tomorrow for official induction and assignment."
"Assignment?"
"A-ranks are valuable, Mr. Arren. The Guild doesn't let them freelance. You'll be given a team, a handler, and high-priority contracts." Chen's expression was unreadable. "It's good pay. But it's also dangerous."
Kai thought about Chen, his squad leader, not the Director, dead on the floor with an Echo's arm through his chest. "More dangerous than what I just survived?"
"Different kind of dangerous," Chen said. "The Guild plays politics. You'll be a valuable asset, which means people will use you. Just... be careful who you trust."
"Thanks for the warning."
Chen stood, opening the door. "You're free to go. Welcome to the A-rank, Mr. Arren. Try not to break any more of our scanners."
---
Kai left the Registration Center in a daze, the orange card feeling heavy in his pocket.
A-rank. APEX class.
Two days ago, he'd been E-rank support. Now he was one of the most powerful registered Hunters in the colony?
Nahhh… even saying it to himself didn't feel real.
He walked through the Inner Ring, passing shops and cafes that he could never afford on his old salary. The streets here were clean, well-lit, and maintained. Nothing like the Outer Ring, where he lived.
But as he walked, something strange started happening.
The streetlights flickered.
At first, Kai thought it was just a coincidence. One light sputtering out as he passed beneath it. But then it happened again. And again.
Every streetlight he walked under dimmed slightly, just for a second, before returning to full brightness.
Kai stopped, looking up at the nearest light. It was fine… steady, bright. He took a step forward.
The light dimmed.
He stepped back.
The light brightened.
"What the hell?"
A woman walking past him gave him a strange look and hurried away.
Kai kept walking, watching the lights. Every single one dimmed as he passed, like he was draining something from them. Not enough to be obvious, but enough that he could see it happening.
He pulled out the orange Resonance Card and stared at it. The filaments of energy inside were pulsing faintly, in sync with his heartbeat.
In sync with the black Shard in his chest.
"Balance," Kai muttered. "You're balancing the energy. Taking a little from everything around me."
The System didn't respond, but he knew he was right.
The Reckoner System wasn't just powerful. It was constantly active, constantly working to maintain equilibrium. Even now, walking down the street, it was drawing tiny amounts of energy from the environment.
From the lights, from the air… from reality itself.
Kai reached the edge of the Inner Ring, where the clean streets gave way to the cracked pavement and graffiti-covered walls of the Outer Ring. He looked back at the glowing towers behind him, then down at the dimming streetlight above his head.
"Eight years," he whispered.
The light flickered once more, then went dark entirely.
Kai walked home in the shadows.