Late at night, the lab was almost silent except for the hum of mana conduits running along the walls. Holo-screens floated in the air, each filled with overlapping graphs, soul-thread scans, and comparative mana flow diagrams.
Dr. Kel sat hunched over his workstation, one hand clutching his glasses while the other rapidly sifted through scan data.
"No… this makes no sense," he muttered, eyes darting between two holographic panels. "Baseline tissue mana flux, normal. Neural conductivity, normal. Even his soul-thread integrity reads as human baseline. But three months ago…"
He flicked his hand sharply, pulling up an older file. A second set of scans hovered beside the current ones, red markers highlighting stark irregularities.
"Three months ago, everything screamed anomaly. Cross-linked mana signatures, irregular soul-thread density, even organ composition… none of this should just vanish."
He zoomed in on a scan of Riven's heart, muttering under his breath as if talking to himself would conjure an answer.
"Three scans, triple-checked, all consistent. You don't just erase anomalies like this. Even suppression would leave traces. But this, this is like the laws of reality were rewritten mid-sentence."
The door hissed softly as it slid open.
Elira stepped in, balancing a tray with two steaming cups of coffee.
"Doctor…" she said quietly, shaking her head. "You're at it again. It's past two in the morning."
Kel barely looked up. "I can't stop now."
She set the tray down on the nearest counter. "You never stop. At least get some sleep, just an hour."
His head snapped toward her, irritation flashing in his eyes.
"Sleep?" he repeated sharply. "Do you have any idea what this means, Elira?"
She hesitated but didn't answer.
Kel stood, pacing as he gestured wildly at the floating screens.
"Observation is the foundation of science. Of medicine. Of everything we know. And yet, the observations I made, the ones we all made, are gone. Voided. The system didn't hide anything; it rewrote what we thought was real."
He jabbed a finger at the scans, his voice rising with each word.
"If what I see can change overnight, if all my data can just cease to exist, then I can no longer trust my own eyes. And if I can't trust my eyes, then maybe, just maybe, everything humanity has dared to assume we know about reality is wrong."
His voice echoed off the sterile walls.
Elira flinched slightly but stepped closer, her expression softening. "Dr. Kel, you're exhausted. Please. Take a break. You'll think more clearly if you rest."
Kel's fists tightened at his sides, his jaw clenched.
"I can't," he muttered hoarsely. "Not until I find something. Anything that proves I'm not losing my mind."
His gaze returned to the screen, the glowing scans of Riven's perfectly human body taunting him like a cruel joke.
Kel rubbed his eyes and leaned forward again, refusing to accept what he was seeing. "No… no, this has to make sense. There's an answer here. There has to be."
He scrolled through scan after scan, trying every filter, every mana analysis tool at his disposal.
Behind him, Elira set down a fresh cup of coffee. "Doctor, if it's not there, there's nothing we can do. Maybe the changes caused by the mutation were only temporary."
Kel froze mid-motion.
"Temporary," he muttered, almost to himself. Then his head snapped up. "Temporary… Monsters capable of making temporary changes to their bodies… of course."
He spun toward Elira, eyes bright with manic realization. "Elira, you're a genius."
Elira frowned, unimpressed. "I am?"
But Kel was already rambling as he flicked through holo-windows, pulling up bestiary records.
"There are species like the Chameleospore Lurker, capable of altering its skin density and organ arrangement to survive extreme climates. Or the Mireback Leechfiend, which can grow new feeding tubes depending on its host's anatomy. The Stoneburrow Antlion Titan, its larvae develop temporary armor plating when threatened. And the Ashveil Serpent, which can reconfigure its venom sacs into heat organs to withstand volcanic terrain."
He slammed a hand on the console. "These creatures can reshape themselves for survival, some even creating entirely new organs. But no matter how far they adapt, no matter how much their appearance or body composition changes, their mana signature always remains tied to the original form."
Kel pulled up a comparison chart, showing multiple monster species' signatures in layered graphs. "Every living being, monster or human, has a unique mana signature frequency. Independent. Irreplicable. No two creatures can ever have identical mana signatures. It's like a fingerprint on the soul."
His breathing quickened as he loaded Riven's original anomalous scan beside his new, human result.
"If Subject Riven wanted to pass as human…" Kel muttered, fingers flying as he adjusted resonance peaks and harmonic values. "He'd just need to shift his frequency closer to a human baseline…"
Data shifted across the screen as Kel manually altered the original scan.
Finally, the two graphs overlapped.
Kel's eyes widened, his mouth parting slightly in disbelief.
The modified signature and Riven's current human reading were identical.
Kel slowly leaned back in his chair, staring at the result in stunned silence.
"He's not just mutating. He's rewriting himself."
Elira blinked at the screen, her brows furrowed. "Wait, but if that's true, then why doesn't his status window say anything about this? Shouldn't it still show signs of mutation or something?"
Kel let out a sharp laugh, the kind that came from both excitement and frustration. "Of course it doesn't. That's exactly what we'd expect."
Elira tilted her head, confused. "Expect?"
Kel pointed at the perfectly overlapping graphs, his eyes gleaming. "The system isn't a medical scanner, it's a reality interface. It doesn't show what was there. It shows what is there. If Riven's body successfully adapted its mana signature to perfectly mimic a human's, then the system will reflect that as his current truth."
He jabbed a finger at the status panel display. "The system isn't lying. It isn't hiding anything. It's telling us that he really is human, because right now, by every measurable standard that matters to the system, he IS human."
Elira's mouth opened slightly as the weight of that sank in. "So it just accepts whatever state he's in as fact?"
Kel nodded sharply. "Exactly. If he rewrites himself well enough, the system can't and won't contradict it. To the system, reality isn't what we think it should be. Reality is whatever is most true in the moment."
His hands trembled slightly as he stared at the final comparison, still unable to believe it.
"He isn't just hiding from us," Kel whispered. "He's hiding from the world itself."
Elira's brows furrowed as she crossed her arms. "So… are we going to report this to the Union?"
Kel slowly leaned back in his chair, a faint smirk tugging at his lips as he adjusted his glasses. The lenses caught the lab's bright light, briefly hiding his eyes behind a sharp glint.
"No," he said simply, his tone calm but laced with excitement.
Elira blinked. "No?"
Kel's smile widened slightly. "Let him roam around. I'm personally very curious to see how he plans to lead his life."
He tapped the side of the screen, still staring at the overlapping mana graphs. "Locking him up in a lab would be far less productive now. As a one-of-a-kind anomaly, the best way to study him isn't to confine him, it's to observe him."
His gaze drifted to the lab door, a strange anticipation flickering in his eyes.
"Riven Cael is rewriting the rules just by existing," Kel murmured. "And I want to see just how far he can go."