Amidst the sweltering heat and the cacophony of traffic, the impatient honks of drivers reverberated through the air. Inside a crimson car, Justina manned the wheel while Archie occupied the passenger seat.

Two days had passed since the revelation of Archie’s Ethereal.

Justina was in the process of chauffeuring Archie back to his shop.

“The weather is sure hot, isn’t it?” Justina ventured, attempting to engage Archie in conversation. However, he remained silent, his gaze fixed on the world outside the car window.

For the past two days, Justina had made numerous attempts to converse with Archie, but he had remained unresponsive. He had neither eaten during the journey nor expressed any desire to return home. Their journey was marked by silence.

After several hours, they arrived at 'Troy’s Family Noodles.' Archie exited the car without uttering a single word or sparing a backward glance.

“BEEP!” “BEEP!”

The sound of Justina’s car horn caused Archie to turn around. With a hint of anxiety in her voice, Justina reassured him, “Don’t worry, everything is going to be okay. You have my number, right? Call me if you need anything.”

Without responding to Justina, Archie turned back around and began to walk towards his shop. In his mind, he reassured himself, ‘Yes, everything is going to be alright. Now, I know what to do next.’

Justina drove away, her thoughts echoing her spoken words, ‘I wish he would be true to himself.’

Archie approached his shop. While other stores bustled with customers, his shop stood alone and deserted, bypassed by the throng of people.

As Archie stood before the shop, some passersby raised their eyebrows and whispered among themselves, questioning the quality of the shop. However, none ventured inside.

‘In the eyes of these people, my life, my family, and my shop are all failures, aren’t they?’

Archie opened the door of the shop to find his father, Aimee, and his uncle seated on chairs directly facing the entrance, their eyes fixed on the front door.

It was clear to Archie that they had been waiting for him.

“Archie! You idiot,” Aimee berated Archie, her voice filled with anger. “Why did you leave without telling us? You even left your phone here. We called you a thousand times over the past four days. If the examiner named Max hadn’t told us that you were coming today, we would have been worried sick.”

“You didn’t even look back at me when I called out your name when you were climbing the ladder.”

“You caused an uproar among the students. You know that.”

Aimee continued to chastise Archie, while Elbert and Grayson watched Archie with stern expressions and apprehension in their hearts. They knew Archie had changed since his mother’s death. He had become distant and had started to isolate himself. They understood that reprimanding Archie would only push him further away.

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Grayson placed a calming hand on Aimee’s shoulder and asked Archie, “Mr. Max told us that you received your Ethereal. He didn’t tell us what it was. He wanted us to hear it from you.”

“Nothing much,” Archie replied nonchalantly, before turning to leave.

Archie’s behavior shocked those present, filling them with a mix of anger and various other uncontrollable emotions.

“Stop!” Aimee sprang up and rushed towards Archie, positioning herself in his path. However, Archie simply brushed past her, leaving Aimee stunned.

“THUD!” In a fit of anger, Archie’s father, Elbert, slammed his foot on the floor and yelled, “Archie, where are your manners? If you continue to behave this way, I won’t send you to the academy for higher studies.”

Archie turned to face them, a gentle smile on his face masking the slight pain in his voice, “I’m not planning to attend anyway. I received an ‘F’ Non-graded Ethereal. I will work in our shop from now on.”

Archie’s words left everyone speechless and unable to react.

Archie retreated to his room, the unpleasant news about his ‘F’ Non-Graded Ethereal weighing heavily on his mind.

---Two days earlier,

“Are you sure this is true?” Justina was visibly shaken after seeing Archie’s Ethereal result on Max’s screen. It displayed:

[Specimen: Archie][Blood Type: O+][Age: 15][Type: Non-Graded Ethereal][Non-Graded Rank: F][Nature Encounter: Unknown? Ethereal]

Archie found it hard to believe what he was seeing, but the ones most shocked were Justina and Max. They had been expecting at least an ‘S’ Graded Ethereal from Archie. The ‘F’ Non-Graded result left them grappling with questions.

“Are you sure this result is accurate?” Justina stammered, to which Max hesitated before responding, “Yes, the results can never be wrong.”

While Justina and Max were trying to make sense of Archie’s result, a faint smile crossed Archie’s face and his thoughts became clear. He finally accepted the reality - he was average, no, below average.

Archie had always thought that as a Rift Rider, he would be just a dot in a huge circle, but he now realized that his life was never meant to be inside the circle in the first place.

“SNAP!” Justina flicked her fingers, a sudden idea coming to her mind. She knelt before Archie and suggested, stuttering, “There might be an error in the system. Can you touch below your right eye to open the E-Screen to check your Ethereal? You should be able to access it by now.”

Archie’s hands trembled. He might have said he accepted his fate, but he lacked the courage to do what was next. ‘Don’t give me hope.’Archie’s mind was a whirlpool of darkness filled with desperation, despair, and pain, but in the darkness, he clung to a small light called hope. Archie didn’t want everything to end here.

Summoning his courage one last time, Archie brought his right hand up and pressed below his right eye and above his cheek.

“NOTHING!” Nothing happened, leaving only Justina and Max’s dumbfounded faces and Archie’s speechless state to fill the room.

“This can’t be, even after the Ethereal Screening Test, nothing happened. This must be a glitch or maybe the procedure failed.” Justina tried to convince herself that what she had witnessed wasn’t really true. Her usual cool and authoritative tone was gone. She resembled a child who had studied hard for her exams only to fail miserably, trying to console herself that the teacher was at fault.

Max remained silent. He had somewhat expected this result after going through Archie’s family history.

Archie stood up, a faint smile on his face, and said, “It’s alright. I expected these results anyway. Shall we leave?”

Justina was devastated, but she hid her shock behind her hands and simply nodded at Archie's words. She respected Archie's bravery after everything she had seen.Justina showed Archie the way out, while Max was left standing there, dissatisfaction etched on his face.

---

Presently, Archie was lying on his bed, his face covered with his hands, succumbing to feelings of hopelessness and desolation.

Unconsciously, tears began to stream down Archie’s face. Archie wiped away his tears with his hands and reassured himself.

“It is alright. I’m just an average noodle shop owner’s son now then.”