Aaryan stepped back into Room 304, the door clicking softly behind him. The murmur of the hallway faded as he tossed his bag beside the study table and sank into the chair. For the first time in a long while, his mind wasn't hazy. It was sharp. Focused. Electric.
Manish, halfway through assembling a plastic model drone, looked up. "You good?" he asked, brow raised. "You've been zoning out lately like you're coding with your third eye."
Aaryan didn't answer immediately. The translucent panel shimmered faintly in front of his eyes—visible only to him. Letters flowed silently across the floating display.
> **\[Main System Task Activated:
> "Rank First in Upcoming Semester Assessment"]**
> *Time Remaining: 13 Days, 11 Hours*
> *Reward: ₹10,00,000 System Currency (Withdrawable)*
> *Bonus: Learning Module – Tier II Activated*
He blinked.
> **\[Daily Sign-In Successful]**
> *Reward: Focus Stimulus Routine (24-hour boost to cognitive retention)*
A warm tingle settled at the base of his skull. He didn't know if it was placebo or tech magic—but already, his thoughts felt quicker.
Manish had gone back to his drone, muttering about propeller misalignment. Aaryan reached for his laptop—not to browse, but to pull up digital textbooks, video lectures, and PDFs from the institute portal. As the documents opened, the translucent System Interface expanded across his vision, splitting into clear tabs: "Syllabus Weakness Analysis," "Retention Boosting," "Mock Patterns," and "Concept Focus Queue."
He selected "Syllabus Weakness."
> **Scanning...**
> *Detected: Gaps in Linear Systems, EM Theory, and Semiconductor Devices.*
> *Suggested Focus Window: 3 Hours/Day per Subject. Optimal Order Calculated.*
Aaryan smirked faintly. "Not bad," he whispered.
---
The next few days blurred into a rhythm of precision. Morning lectures. Afternoons in the lab. Evenings in the library. Nights lit by screen glow and system overlays. The AI's passive feedback system would highlight unclear sentences, auto-summarize notes, and—most helpfully—pause recorded lectures right at conceptual gaps, offering him three-second digestible clarifications in soft, emotionless text.
He barely spoke to anyone outside of class.
His professors noticed his alertness. A few students took second glances—especially at how fast he solved circuits or debugged code. But Aaryan remained understated. Quietly burning.
---
One late afternoon, during a control systems lab session, Aaryan was setting up a simulation circuit when Ishika walked in, accompanied by her friend Priya. Her eyes briefly scanned the room—and paused as they fell on him.
He was adjusting the dials on an oscilloscope with one hand, and coding a waveform model on his laptop with the other. His movements were methodical, quick. Efficient in a way that wasn't showy—but unmistakable.
"Is that... real-time plotting?" Ishika murmured.
Priya blinked. "From a first-year? That's overkill."
Ishika didn't reply. She walked past Aaryan's station quietly, not interrupting—but she glanced once more over her shoulder. He hadn't noticed.
Or maybe he had, but didn't care.
---
That night, back in the dorm, Aaryan's System chimed again.
> **\[System Feature Unlocked: Mock Assessment Simulation]**
> *This test is designed to mimic the format and complexity of the upcoming evaluation.*
> *Estimated Completion Time: 90 Minutes*
> *Minimum Pass Benchmark: 60%*
> *Score Report and Feedback Generated Instantly.*
He accepted.
The interface dimmed the rest of the room's distractions. Time ticked away in the corner of his vision. The questions weren't just difficult—they were layered. Conceptual traps. Unspoken assumptions.
He worked fast. Focused.
When the timer hit zero, the screen flashed:
> **Result: 87% – High Proficiency**
> *Weak Points: Time-Domain Transformation, Boolean Optimization.*
> *System recommends reinforcement drills. Adding to Learning Queue...*
He sighed, leaning back in the chair. Not bad. Not perfect.
Yet.
---
The following morning, the campus library had barely opened when Aaryan was already there, seated in the far corner. Books spread out. Headphones on. A faint system overlay tagging lines and drawing marginal notes only he could see.
Jay Deshmukh passed by, holding an espresso from the cafeteria. He paused for just a moment, glancing sideways at the intensity in Aaryan's eyes and the flicker of code across the screen.
There was something strange about this guy.
He didn't look like he was cramming. He looked like he was building something.
---
By the fifth day, murmurs started moving across the campus like early wind.
"Some first-year kid's solving second-year assignments for fun."
"He coded a working power management loop in lab last week."
"He doesn't talk much... weird, but scary smart."
The whispers didn't reach Aaryan. Or if they did, he didn't flinch. The System was now a part of his breathing rhythm—whispering lessons, highlighting flashbacks of errors he'd made, pushing him closer to mastery.
---
On the sixth night, as the warm breeze stirred the neem trees around the institute, Aaryan sat beneath the old campus fig tree, eyes closed.
The System panel glowed faintly before him.
> **Progress: 27% Completion toward Ranking #1**
> *Momentum: High*
> *Predicted Rank: Top 5 (Based on Peer Data Simulation)*
> *Next Milestone: Completion of Recommended Reading List (Due in 2 Days)*
He opened his eyes. A moth fluttered past the panel, phasing harmlessly through its translucent screen.
It felt surreal.
This wasn't just about proving something to them anymore—not to Rohit, not to Ishika, not to the seniors who mocked him.
This was personal. Quietly, dangerously personal.
He wasn't climbing to be seen.
He was climbing to *arrive*.