What you hear is part of the truth. What you don't—it decides who gets to stay.
——
Athena Review Hall · Project Debrief Presentation
After three days of fieldwork, participants were required to submit final reports and deliver presentations.
The review panel included Professor James from Athena, along with several foundation delegates and specialists in behavioral economics.
When Elric stepped onto the stage and handed over his file, the room fell quiet.
His presentation was brief, precise.
The data layout—clean.
His tone—not flat, yet never reaching for effect.
But what made people pause—
Was this:
Before stating any judgment,
he always analyzed the behavioral paths of others first.
Not just his own observations.
James' eyes narrowed slightly.
"You didn't lead with conclusions."
"You reconstructed context first."
"Most students don't do that."
Elric responded softly:
"Because I can't be sure what I saw was the whole picture."
A pause. Then—
"I just arranged the visible lines—"
"So others could decide where they lead."
The panel remained silent.
One of them circled his feedback form.
Twice.
—
Observation Deck · Quiet Dialogue
One of the visiting faculty—Professor A—leaned toward James.
"He's not warm, but his thinking is… commercial."
"Not templated. Adaptive."
James gave a slow nod.
"He's not an idealist—"
"But he understands what idealism looks like."
"He may not trust you—"
"But he'll still hand you the job if it needs doing."
—
Audience Rows · The Other Side of Idris Vale
While the core review wrapped up, the external delegation segment started.
Some open-invite students were allowed to be seated.
Idris Vale sat in the back row, spinning a pen lazily between his fingers.
After the session ended, he turned to the girl sitting next to him with a quiet smile.
"Did you follow that?"
"Their group's performance was pretty solid."
The girl—Marissa—was an exchange visitor from a South African partner school.
Slightly younger, good Mandarin, visibly shy.
"A bit," she admitted.
"But that report format… it kind of gave me a headache."
Idris chuckled.
"If you're thinking of applying for Phase Two later—"
"You might want to get familiar with how they structure these."
"Want me to send you our version later tonight?"
Marissa blinked.
"For real?"
"Of course. Friends, right?"
His voice was light, gesture casual.
But as he turned away—
his eyes flicked, barely noticeably,
to the corner of the room where the system's observation dashboard displayed—
interaction frequency, key word stats, social distribution graphs.
"Emotional engagement + isolation + curiosity + demand of data = unstable node."
He did the observation silently.
Then walked out with a faint smile:
"Too easy."
—
Faculty Backroom · System Tag Update
Back inside the staff portal, James logged into the internal review system.
Under Candidate Monitoring, he selected:
Elric Zane
A prompt appeared:
[Flag as: 'Ongoing Tracking / Non-standard Sample / High Path Divergence'?]
He hovered for a second—
Then checked "Yes."
And typed a single note:
"Projection result: nonlinear.
Exhibits leap-pattern inference.
Recommendation: Do not interfere too early."
——
[Chapter Closing Epigraph]
You told the truth—
But only half of it.
And it's the half you left out—
That decides whether you're just another student, or already part of the game.
——
[Next Chapter Preview]
Chapter 28 · The System Lets You Choose a Role—
But Reality Forces You to play your Role the Whole Script.
It's never about who you trust.
It's about who decides, who you're forced to resemble.
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