As the misunderstandings born from his overwhelming charisma and the False Monarch Trait piled higher and higher, Ashok remained blissfully unaware of the tangled thoughts gathering in everyone else's heads.
Ignoring the wary glances of disbelief, he simply drank his protein shake.
He stood there, bottle in hand, tilting it back as if it were the most natural thing to do while his classmates used their Aura to knit back their strength back together.
Ashok had no such luxury. He couldn't feel Mana, so the point of channeling inside himself was just a comforting dream, for now.
Instead, he drew in slow, deep breaths and simply waited for his body to recover the old-fashioned way—sip by sip, breath by breath—letting his natural resilience do its work.
Around the field, silence lay heavy except for the ragged gasps of students still dragging their feet across the final stretch.
