The days following the unexpected confrontation passed slowly. Ronan settled back into his quiet routine, attending lectures, keeping his head low, and making sure no one ever suspected anything unusual about him. He was the invisible thread in the bustling fabric of the university—always present but never truly seen. His roommates had accepted his reserved nature, and his lecturers barely remembered his name. Just how he liked it.
But inside, a storm brewed.
Every night, when the dorm was quiet, Ronan sat on his mattress, his hands open before him, watching the faint glow of blue energy pulse through his veins. He was slowly learning to control it—how to call it forth, how to suppress it. But the power within him was strange, volatile, and... alive.
He had tried using it just once since that night—an experimental moment in the campus forest, where he blasted a rotting log into fine splinters. It felt good. Too good.
"Keep calm," he muttered to himself, trying to ground the excitement that bubbled inside. "It's not time yet."
The system hadn't spoken again since its last update, and it was both a relief and a concern. It meant no one had triggered anything, but it also meant he was growing without any clear instruction. For now, that was fine. He'd wait.
One rainy Tuesday morning, something changed. As Ronan made his way to his favorite reading spot behind the campus library, he noticed someone already there. A girl. She sat on the bench, hair drenched, ignoring the drizzle, sketching something furiously in a notebook.
He hesitated, then approached slowly.
She looked up. Her eyes were sharp, curious. "You always come here," she said simply.
"…Yeah," Ronan replied, surprised. "Didn't know anyone noticed."
"I do." She shut her book and tilted her head. "You're quiet. Mysterious. But you look like you're always thinking too hard."
Ronan forced a smile. "And you're…?"
"Layla. Architecture major. You?"
"Physics," he said, sitting carefully at the edge of the bench.
There was a strange silence. Not awkward, just... calm. Ronan didn't know what it was, but something about her made him drop his guard just a little.
"You don't talk to people much," Layla said after a while.
"People don't talk to me."
"Maybe they're afraid to."
Ronan raised an eyebrow. "Why would they be?"
"Because people fear what they can't understand." She turned and looked at him—really looked at him, and he felt the weight of it.
He looked away, heart beating faster. Could she know?
No. She couldn't.
But something about her words lingered in his mind all day.
That night, the system returned.
*[System Update Complete.]*
*[New Passive Unlocked: Concealment Aura - Your presence becomes less detectable to sensing abilities and magical tracking.]*
Ronan blinked. "That's… convenient," he whispered.
And unsettling. Why now?
The answer came faster than expected.
Two days later, a rumor began spreading: a few students were caught experimenting with strange powers near the engineering block at midnight. One even claimed a voice in his head called it a "System."
Ronan froze when he heard it. That word—*System*—wasn't something ordinary people should know.
Someone else had it.
Someone dangerous.
He had to stay invisible now more than ever.
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