While Heat and Chi Mels were still discussing. Alice was wondering what they were doing inside. "Late into the evening, a man and a woman inside a room alone for so long..." Her thoughts began to wander and she noticed that she felt a trace of anger.

Before Alice could think of why she would feel angry, the doors opened. Out walked Heat with Chi Mels following closely behind.

"Alice, go ask my father for where he keeps his neutral crystals and fetch a couple for sir Lest." Chi Mels instructed as she walked out.

"Yes Mistress Mels." Alice replied with her head lowered and sped away quickly.

"Please enjoy the party while you wait for Alice sir Lest." Chi Mels slightly bowed and left to mingle with the other nobles back in the lobby.

Heat didn't wait for long before Alice came back. In her hands held two grey crystals, about 1 inch long each.

"Here are the neutral crystals that Mistress Mels requested for you to receive sir Lest." Alice said as she politely handed them to Heat.

"You can just call me Heat, no need for the formalities." Heat took the crystals and placed them into his black storage ring.

"Yes, sir Heat." With a slight smile, Alice got closer and whispered into Heat's ear. "Thank you for 'taking care' of the jade dragon incident." She pecked Heat's cheek with a soft kiss and scurried away hastily while a red hue extending from her cheeks all the way down her neck.

Before Heat could react, Alice was already out of sight. Rubbing his right cheek that still had a slight trace of saliva, Heat couldn't help himself from grinning.

. . . .

When Heat finally got back to Pebble inn, he was exhausted.

"I've gained 200 gold coins, a blue storage ring, and two neutral crystals. Going to that social gathering sure gave me a lot." Heat whispered to himself as he looked at the items on his bed.

He then took off his damaged bracelet and traced over the cracks with his thumb. "This is a wind type defensive energy equipment that can only be used once... If I use the neutral crystals and my energy core is not of the wind element, then I would have wasted 5 gold coins." Heat sighed as he shook his head.

Who knew that he would receive 200 gold coins from Marquess Bryant Mels just for showing up to his party. If he knew that earlier, he wouldn't have bothered taking his chances with this damaged bracelet!

"Oh well, what's done is done. Let's just hope that I am of the wind affinity."

Heat took one neutral crystal in his hand as he closed his eyes and directed the energy from his energy core into the neutral crystal.

Opening his eyes in anticipation, Heat looked at the neutral crystal in his hands to find... Nothing!

There was no light or change in color, the crystal looked the exact same as before. If Heat didn't know better, he would've thought that this was just a grey rock!

"What's goin-" Interrupting Heat's thoughts, the neutral crystal in his hand began to dissolve into dust.

"What? Chi Mels said that a neutral crystal would shine a color indicating the elemental affinity and then turn into dust, why did it turn into dust without shining any color?!"

Even while confused, Heat already had a possibility in his mind. It was that perhaps he was a part of the very rare group of people with no elemental affinity.

But even though Heat knew that it was very likely to be the case given what just happened, he refused to believe it. People with no elemental affinity have next to no combat potential!

"No! That crystal must have been defective!"

Taking the other neutral crystal, Heat repeated the procedure this time with his eyes wide open the entire time.

Unfortunately, the result was the same. No shine, no color, just dissolving into dust after a brief moment with no other changes to the neutral crystal.

"No wonder the red ruler in my black storage ring had no changes when I put in my energy, it probably has its own elemental energy requirement." With a bitter expression, Heat had to accept the fact that his energy core must have no elemental affinity.

"With no rings or discs around my energy core, that means I'm a level 1 Mortal Warrior. A level 1 Mortal Warrior that's unable to use any energy equipment or skill that has an elemental requirement is about as good as a regular human" Heat sighed.

Heat knew that this means he must forfeit the upcoming Mercenary Guild D Rank test. He only wanted to take it to earn a living in the city, now that he knows it'll be very difficult this year and he has no combat potential, he might as well find a job doing something else.

Heat didn't want to forfeit the test if he could help it because already took Marquess Bryant Mels' money and promised that he would help Chi Mels during the test.

"Ahh, what a headache!"

Trying to take his mind off his bad situation, Heat picked up the blue storage ring that Viscount Leo Nard gave him. Inserting his energy, Heat was able to sense the space inside the ring. It was about the size of a 3x3x3 meter cube.

"What the heck! Why is it so small?!"

Heat's black storage ring had the space of about 1000x1000x1000 meter cube and yet this blue storage ring doesn't even have 1% of that space!

"Didn't Chi Mels say that this was supposed to be worth a few hundred gold coins? Did she mean a few hundred copper coins?!" With an exasperated expression, Heat began to wonder if he was just given some garbage that Viscount Leo Nard picked up off the street.

Ignoring the trash storage ring, Heat went to sleep. He decided that even though he had next to no combat potential, he would still go to the alchemy store that Chi Mels spoke of and see if they had anything else that could test his elemental affinity.

Heat has no idea what alchemy is, so taking a look tomorrow would give him more knowledge on the subject and might even help him get a job now that passing the D Rank test should be impossible.