Isaac — POV
After walking Maya to her classroom, I decided to take a stroll around the school grounds.
Everything looked the same.
The old buildings, the half-painted walls, the dead patches of grass where kids used to cut corners. The breeze still carried the faint scent of chalk and cafeteria oil. It was familiar.
But I wasn't.
Even though I haven't awakened yet… it doesn't mean I'm powerless.
There was something different in the way the world moved now — the air felt heavier, the space between people more charged. I could feel mana even if I couldn't use it yet. Threads of potential, running beneath skin and breath.
Awakening doesn't create power. It just unlocks it.
If there's nothing inside you, then nothing changes. But if you've already begun shaping your foundation… it shows you who you really are.
The academy buzzed with life, students rushing between classes, shouting, laughing. I walked through the hallways, surrounded by all of it — and felt none of it. Just noise.
I paused, lost in a sea of motion.
Slipping my phone from my pocket, I checked the note with my classroom number again — the screen cracked, the text barely visible. A teacher walked past and I stepped forward quickly.
"Excuse me, could you—?"
"Late for a briefing," he said over his shoulder, already halfway down the stairs.
Of course you are.
I frowned and looked around, frustration bubbling in my chest. A dead end. Just like everything else lately.
That's when I heard her.
"You lost or something?"
I turned my head — and the world stilled for a breath.
There was a girl standing just a few feet away. Dark eyes. Soft tone. Ordinary.
But the moment I looked at her…
I felt it.
Something inside her responded to me — or maybe against me. A ripple of unstable mana surged just beneath her skin. It wasn't hers, not really. It didn't feel like it belonged.
It was cursed.
Wild. Untamed. And for some reason… it wanted me dead.
There's no way she even knows.
Whatever's in her… it's not personal. But it's violent. Instinctive.
It was almost laughable.
A small laugh escaped before I could stop it — the kind that slips out when something ridiculous brushes too close to dangerous.
That something so small would dare bare its fangs at me.
Then I saw her face — the way her expression twisted in fear.
Too late.
I softened my stance immediately. "Sorry," I said, voice low. "I've just been walking in circles. Can't seem to find my classroom."
She didn't reply right away, but the fear eased slightly.
"Happens a lot," she said finally. "These halls are confusing."
I explained my situation, and she offered to walk me to the room herself.
To my surprise, we were in the same class.
But the moment I stepped through the door…
I froze.
The mana flow inside the classroom felt off. Not overwhelming — not even particularly strong — but unnatural.
Too smooth. Too forced.
It felt… filtered. Like someone had layered a veil over the space. I narrowed my eyes and scanned the room, tracking threads of mana the others couldn't even sense.
I was tempted to push out a bit of my own. To test the air. To see how the space would respond to me.
But something in my chest tightened.
Not yet. Someone's watching.
I slid into a seat by the window, letting the light fall across my face, hiding the tension in my jaw. I kept my expression calm. But inside, my thoughts were sharp, focused.
I have one goal: awaken.
Fast. Before the dungeon opens.
Three weeks.
That's all I had.
Three weeks until a dungeon gate opened in the eastern district — an unclaimed anomaly, the kind that drew monsters, power, and death in equal measure. The kind guilds fought over in the shadows before it ever reached the public news.
I needed to be first.
And to survive it, I needed power.
This academy might be corrupt — broken behind its polished walls — but it still had tools. Sealed texts. Mana pools. Forgotten relics. And most importantly, people with knowledge I could dig out or break apart if I had to.
I'll take everything useful from this place before I walk through that gate.
And once I do… it won't matter what I leave behind.
Across the room, the girl who had walked with me sat in silence.
At least, that's what I thought.
Until I noticed her gaze hadn't moved since I sat down.
She stared, not at me — but through me. Her lips barely moved.
"Is that him… Master?" she murmured.
"The boy you said has the same smell as you?"
A soft vibration pulsed from the bracelet on her wrist, hidden beneath her sleeve.
It blinked once.
Red.
Confirmed.
She looked down again, the gentle tone from before gone.
Her smile was gone, too.
In its place was something darker.
Recognition.