CHAPTER 551: YOU CAN’T DO THAT!

"Ghk—!"

The strangled noise escaped from more than one person in the crowd.

Because frankly, they didn’t know how to react.

Who do you call in a situation like this? Who’s in charge? The examiners? The Emperor? A priest?

Was it even legal to witness this? Were they supposed to look away? Clap? Cry?

No one knew. But what Master Mechanic Allan knew—deep in his bones—was that he’d nearly choked on his own saliva after he accidentally looked up.

He hadn’t meant to.

He had sat down determined not to watch this farce. Not a single second of it. He wouldn’t give this circus the honor of his attention. He had better things to do. Like pretending to read mecha calibration charts while ignoring the ridiculous cheers echoing around him.

His plan was simple: tune everything out, zone back in at the end, and report back to House Zorath with a single line summary like: "Yes, it happened."

But then...

Silence.

At first, he didn’t notice.

He assumed it was a natural progression of tuning things out. A sign of his superior focus. Or maybe early-onset tinnitus—either was acceptable.

But then a strange prickling sensation crawled up the back of his neck. The kind of sixth sense honed by decades of mechanical near-deaths and professional grudges.

He frowned. And looked up.

And that was when he saw it.

An ancient.

An actual fossil of a man. One of the master mechanics who had once fallen asleep during a bomb test and lived.

That man, normally slouched and shorter than most stools, was standing.

Feet flat. Back straight. Eyes glassy.

Like he’d just seen his goddess descend from the skies wearing nothing but resonance frequencies.

"???"

For a moment, Master Allan feared the old man had died on the spot. Passed on. Ascended.

But no. The ancient trembled. His mouth opened slowly. Hands lifted—shaking—as if praising the divine.

And then.

The bony finger pointed.

Forward.

To the front of the auditorium.

Master Allan’s stomach dropped. He followed the gesture.

And he saw that.

That scaffolding. That storm of spiritual energy. That—that child. Surrounded by tendrils of light like a cosmic octopus with a blueprint addiction.

Allan’s eyes widened.

His jaw clicked.

His brain screamed.

But nothing came out except—

"!!!"

Sheer insanity.

It was as if he’d been electrocuted.

Jolted.

Because even if that boy was sealed behind reinforced shielding in the testing area, there was no amount of shielding in the universe that could hide that.

That... spectacle.

How does one even describe it?

Master Allan stared, slack-jawed. He’d seen people flaring their spiritual energies like an orchestrated lightning show choreographed by some bird using it for a mating call.

But this?

This was deliberate.

Precise.

Controlled.

And somehow excessive.

Yes, yes, mechanics were a special breed. They trained their spiritual energy to shape, stabilize, and assemble. That was normal. Advanced, even.

But this wasn’t spiritual shaping.

This was spiritual micromanagement.

This kid—this child—was using his spiritual energy like a dozen highly-trained hands, all simultaneously moving scaffolding, sorting components, and arranging tools by type, color, and usage sequence.

Master Allan’s brain sputtered.

Because he was a master mechanic.

And even he—in all his years, in all his painstaking efforts—could not claim that his spiritual energy could do what his fingers could. At least not like this.

And yet here was this sprout, treating spiritual threads like extra hands, very long and durable extra hands.

He watched as Luca calmly did all that and heaven-knows-what else, all while turning to barely glance at the crowd absentmindedly like he hadn’t just casually committed high-level spiritual multitasking in public.

Allan’s mouth moved wordlessly.

Was this kid showing off?!

Was he planning to burn through his entire spiritual pool just to hold a damn wrench?!

Where was the proctor?! The instructor?! Any reasonable adult?! Shouldn’t someone stop him?!

But no. No one called out. No one sounded the alarm. They were just letting him do this.

Master Allan’s entire soul itched.

This—this might have been the most magnificent use of spiritual energy he’d seen in decades.

Possibly in his entire life.

And he hated it.

He hated how much he respected it.

He shook his head. No. No, he could not be allowed to fall stupid with awe. He had to stay sharp. Stay professional. Someone needed to tell that reckless gremlin to stop trying to evolve into a forklift.

And there could only be one culprit behind this irresponsible madness.

Quinn.

That godforsaken, sandal-wearing fossil.

Of course.

Of course, he could be the only one to encourage this.

Allan turned, jaw already primed to deliver a legendary lecture about spiritual endurance limits and cranial overconfidence.

Only...

Only Quinn didn’t look surprised.

Not even a little.

He looked like a lounging cat that had seen this display a hundred times.

"???"

What made it worse?

The entire section of House Kyros supporters looked normal.

Excited, sure. But not standing. Not gasping. Not even dramatically fainting like the rest of the auditorium.

They were calm. As if this was fine.

As if they’d seen worse.

Master Allan slowly turned back, trying to find sanity in the chaos.

Okay, okay, someone must still have sense left.

Ah. There. Marshal Julian.

On his feet.

Eyes glued forward.

Okay. Okay. Sanity had not fully left the building.

Just most of it.

He exhaled deeply. Fine. Then at least he wasn’t the only one losing it.

With renewed vigor, he leaned back to launch a proper tirade at the idiot responsible.

Only to pause.

Because Quinn was already looking at him.

Out of nowhere, the root-like creature spoke up.

"Don’t look here. Look there. And don’t blink. If you miss something, you’ll only have yourself to blame."

Master Allan’s nostrils flared. That smug tone. That cryptic phrasing. That arrogant sense of timing.

This man. This ridiculous man.

Who did he think he was?

Allan whipped his head around, ready to deliver a verbal slap. But then Quinn added something else.

"That dream. You still wish to see it come true, don’t you?"

Allan froze.

The words hit something deep and unpleasant. Like a drawer he hadn’t opened in years but still knew exactly what was inside.

His eyebrows drew together. Of all the people to speak about that. It had to be him?

"You—!" he started, voice sharp.

But Quinn didn’t wait.

"Just watch," he said. "Because I don’t know when you’ll see it again."

"!!!"

Allan seethed. His entire posture screamed defiance. He wanted to argue, to fight, to ignore the man’s voice completely.

But before he could pick another insult, the master seated beside him suddenly barked at his assistant to move aside because he couldn’t see clearly.

Allan blinked.

Curiosity clawed at him.

He gnashed his teeth in indignation as he turned his eyes to the front of the arena.

And what he saw nearly made his heart stop.

It was like getting slapped across the face with divine intervention.

Right there, visible for all to see, was a material he had not laid eyes on in a very, very long time.

He leaned forward so fast he nearly left his seat behind.

That was gravemaw chitin.

Not a fragment. Not a decorative sample. A full stack.

And not just a stack. It was layered, clean, neatly processed, and clearly ready to be installed into something real.

For a moment, his thoughts blanked out entirely.

He tried to speak. Tried to curse. Tried to pray.

All that came out was a guttural sound of betrayal.

The noise of a man who has just realized he spent his entire life thinking dragons were extinct, only to be proven wrong by a teenager with questionable posture.

The other masters had started losing their composure too.

One was clutching their chest.

Another was holding back something; hopefully, they were tears.

One of the truly ancient ones looked like the heavens had just blessed him. He was repeating a phrase over and over, something about spiritual refinement and the smell of miracles.

Even assistants, though unsure what they were seeing, began clapping instinctively, mostly because their mentors were now standing on chairs.

The entire panel of experts was unraveling like a loose circuit.

Allan stared.

And then he stared harder.

Why? That was the only question forming in his head.

Why would an unlicensed, fresh-faced, barely-legal brat be allowed to touch gravemaw chitin?

That material was practically a far-off dream.

The Empire hadn’t processed it in nearly two hundred years. Sure, it still existed, as the generational wealth of those elite families.

Families had gone to war just to secure a palm-sized scrap.

It had been used in the most legendary mechas, and even those had needed years to refine it.

And this child—this fresh-faced ball—was out here using it like it was plywood.

Allan’s vision blurred.

He looked at Quinn again, fully intending to scream at how the House of Kyros was letting such a child use all that?!

But Quinn was already staring back at him. Calm. Knowing. Infuriating.

Before Allan could say anything, Quinn turned back toward the arena.

And Allan, shaking with a fury that felt a little too close to reverence, followed his gaze again.

If only he knew.

If only they all knew.

That this sacred material, this pinnacle of spiritual alloy, was an accidental yield.

That it came from scrubbing a massive tortoise who just happened to be a guardian beast.

That Luca had only pulled a bit of it from storage because he thought it might match the new intended owner. After all, he couldn’t give something too common, right?

And that, technically, he hadn’t even meant to use it at first. He just didn’t want to use the materials that didn’t really exist in the empire.

If they knew all that, the masters wouldn’t be shouting.

They’d be rioting.

And Master Allan?

He’d already be halfway into cardiac arrest.