From Null Rank To Overall

EXPOSITION The world operates on the Thread System, a divine network that ranks every living being from F to SSS. At sixteen, every person undergoes Awakening. Most receive a Class and baseline Skills. A rare few receive nothing labeled Null, stripped of legal protections, barred from guilds and cities. They are society's discard pile. Kael Dross, seventeen, one year late to Awakening, is forcibly enrolled in Veyrath Academy under a government "second-chance" program that everyone knows is a pipeline to body-count statistics. He arrives with no money, a dead mother's locket, and the clothes on his back. Veyrath runs on a brutal internal hierarchy. Your Rank Crystal determines your dorm, your meals, your safety. The lowest-ranked student each semester is designated Null of the Season and the Culling gives every other student three days to hunt them for bonus Rank Crystal rewards. Kael's name goes on the board on Day One.