A few hours later, Kiara couldn't sit still.
She paced back and forth across the wooden floor, her footsteps echoing in a steady rhythm that matched the restlessness building inside her chest. Every few minutes, she would pull out her pocket watch, flip it open, stare at the unmoving hands for a second, then snap it shut and slip it back into her pocket. Barely a minute later, she would do it all over again.
"The cooldown should've ended by now," she muttered under her breath. "What's taking so long?"
For nearly two hours, she had been stuck in this strange mix of anxiety and excitement.
During those four weeks, so much had happened. Battles fought. Enemies slain. Allies gained. And through all of it, the one constant voice that had always guided her had been silent.
When the clock finally struck half past six in the evening, a familiar chime rang inside her mind.
[Ding!]
[The system upgrade is completed. All functions will resume as they should.]
