Ryu edged closer to the chamber, every step cautious, his shoes crunching faintly over the broken porcelain of his coffee mug. The violet lattice still pulsed inside the containment glass, its lines twitching like veins of light, shifting in patterns too deliberate to be random. The glow spilled across the clutter of his room, warping shadows into long, jittering shapes that danced across the walls.
His fingers trembled as he reached for the console. He could feel his pulse in his wrists, a violent rhythm trying to hammer through skin and bone.
He exhaled and, almost against his better judgment, deactivated Brainstorm.
The effect was immediate.
The violet lines collapsed like a dying star, folding in on themselves, fading into nothing. The hum of the machine softened back into its normal rhythm, a sterile buzz he knew too well. The pressure in the air—the subtle vibration in his ears, the faint metallic taste on his tongue—vanished.
Gone.
Ryu stared at the empty chamber. His face twisted, a sharp line of annoyance carving into his features. "Seriously?"
He jabbed at the controls, fingers dancing with the precision of a man who'd done this routine a thousand times. The chamber lights flicked, the gradients shifted. He repeated the exact inputs. Watched, waited.
Nothing.
Not a shimmer. Not a flicker. Just the machine doing what it had always done. A glorified science fair contraption.
His jaw tightened. He ran it again. Adjusted the gradient more carefully. Reset the pressure. Reset the filters.
Again. Nothing.
He tried a third time, a fourth. The console beeped obediently each run, mocking him with perfect normalcy.
The lattice did not return.
Ryu's breath grew ragged. He could feel the anger prickling along his skin, a heat under the surface. He slammed his palm against the console, the sound cracking through the room. "Come on!"
The machine hummed on, indifferent.
"Figures," he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. "A once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon decides to show up while I'm half awake with coffee in my hand."
He paced, weaving between the clutter on the floor—torn notes, spare wiring, tools scattered without order. His thoughts spun in circles, tangling tighter with every lap. Why had it appeared? Why then? Why not now?
He stopped, hands braced on the desk, leaning over the chamber like he could intimidate it into compliance.
Hours bled away. The sun outside shifted, casting long beams through the half-closed blinds. Dust floated in the light, lazy and mocking. His coffee had dried into a dark stain, spreading like ink across the floor.
Ryu's mind stayed fixed, looping, relentless. He replayed the experiment over and over in memory—every step, every variable. He compared each run, each detail. Everything was the same. Exactly the same.
Except one thing.
Brainstorm.
His eyes widened. He froze, the realization punching the air from his lungs.
He had been running Brainstorm during the first test. His time-based ability had fractured his perception, split his mind into multiple parallel thought streams. He hadn't just been testing the chamber; he'd been existing across time while he did it.
And the lattice had answered.
Ryu's pulse quickened.
It wasn't random. It wasn't a glitch. It was relational. The anomaly had responded to Brainstorm.
Matter. Magic. Time.
The words carved themselves into his mind with searing clarity. His lips moved before he realized, whispering them like a prayer. "Matter. Magic. Time."
He snatched a pen and scrap paper from the desk, scribbling the words with frantic speed. He circled them, once, twice, again and again, the ink cutting grooves into the page.
The M²T Bond.
A name worthy of the impossible.
His grin spread, wide and manic. This wasn't just a fluke. This wasn't luck. This was a revolution. The implications unraveled before his eyes: machines powered by fused laws, healing that spliced mana into DNA, weapons that could warp physics itself. Entire industries, nations, societies—rewritten.
And at the center of it, his name.
Patents. Awards. Redemption. Ryu, the Mind Who Bridged Magic and Matter.
He saw the lecture halls. The roaring applause. His reputation restored, brighter than ever.
For the first time in years, he let himself believe.
But then—like oil seeping through water—another thought spread.
Get your things stolen by Vexar again.
Ryu's breath hitched.
The whisper had his cadence, his venom. For a heartbeat, he thought it was someone else—some intruder whispering at his ear. But no. It was him. His own voice, warped by bitterness, sharpened by memory.
And the memory was sharp indeed.
Vexar's face flashed in his mind. Perfect suit, hair slicked back, lips twisted into that smug smile. He could see the man standing under spotlights, accepting medals, shaking hands. Ryu's inventions, Ryu's work—but stamped with another's name.
The applause thundered in his ears again. Deafening. The crowd chanting, praising, worshiping the thief.
While he, Ryu, screamed unheard in the shadows.
The taste of bile filled his mouth. His teeth ground together until his jaw ached. His nails bit into his palms.
"Not this time." The words came out low, ragged.
No, he wouldn't publish. He wouldn't write a word.
This discovery was his. His and no one else's.
Instead, he would build.
Something so incomprehensibly advanced, so devastatingly brilliant, that no thief—not even Vexar—could steal it. A device that could not be explained in papers or replicated in stolen labs. A device that screamed Ryu's name in every impossible function.
His grin returned, darker now. A grin edged with teeth.
But first—he had to understand it.
Ryu leaned back in his chair, chest heaving, the weight of possibility pressing down like a storm cloud. His hands trembled, not with fear but with raw exhilaration. The fire was back. The fire that had once carried him through sleepless nights, that had built his golden days.
The fire he thought had died.
The System's calm voice cut through the room.
[Conditions have been met.][Discovery Skill activated.]
Ryu froze.
He hadn't heard that tone in years. Not since the world still admired him. Not since his name still meant something. The Discovery skill—his rarest, his pride—had awakened again.
For a moment, it felt unreal. A hallucination conjured by his desperate mind. But the glowing text in his vision was undeniable.
His lips curled. "So you think this qualifies as a discovery, huh?" His voice was hoarse, but the grin in it was unmistakable. "Damn right it does."
He straightened, cracked his knuckles. The room seemed brighter, sharper, as if the world itself leaned in to watch.
He activated Brainstorm again.
The effect was immediate. His thoughts splintered outward, fracturing into dozens of streams. Each one ran in parallel, accelerating, colliding, weaving. Equations unfolded, possibilities expanded. He thought not just in lines, but in spirals, webs, storms.
His perception stretched thin, stretched wide. He could taste the edges of timelines brushing against his mind, faint and fragile.
The chamber hummed, waiting.
His grin widened.
"No more hesitation. No more wasted time."
The tests began.