The lobby that had once roared with cheers and chatter now felt hollow, the silence broken only by the rhythmic tapping of the receptionist's fingers on her keyboard. The great spectacle of the day had already passed in the eyes of most cadets… Raijin's true rise and his stopping at the forty-ninth level.
Eleanor's name, however, remained on the board, stubbornly ticking upward at its own unhurried pace. One level. Then another. Each update arriving after nearly the full ten minutes had drained away.
To the impatient, it looked pathetic. To the keen-eyed, it spoke of endurance beyond reason.
