Everyone awakened a powerful Mage Eye in Guavar. It made normal humans into mages with supernatural abilities that made them resemble gods from myth. But there were a few people who were born without such a Mage Eye—called the Mage Blind.
Ruan Magnum was one such Mage Blind.
As usual, he was a bullied brat who stopped going to school because he became afraid of his bullies. A kid with no hope for life.
And yesterday, he died due to a sudden heart attack. It was caused by a particularly terrifying dream in which he was stripped naked and made to walk across his school.
But what had killed the mind had not killed the body of the boy. Right after the boy died—a soul from another world took over his body.
And Ruan opened his eyes.
'Is that who I am now, Ruan?'
He was just a normal high schooler back on Earth. And now, he had transmigrated!
Just as Ruan was sorting his thoughts and contemplating, an old woman walked into his room without knocking. She had a few papers in her hands.
While reading them, she did not look away, but said: "Ruan, can I absorb your mana?"
Ruan stood up from his bed and looked at her, his head throbbing.
She was a girl with blue hair and blue eyes. Her eyes especially stood out with two blue stars shimmering around inside her pupils. She was a two star Mage.
"You want to absorb my mana today too?"
"You don't have any use of it anyway, right?"
Ruan closed his mouth. She was Mirin, a neighbourhood childhood friend of his. The previous Ruan had always had a crush on her but never dared utter a word of it.
[Superhero Harem System awakened]
Ruan's eyes widened.
[You have come in contact with a potential candidate. Kiss them within the next five seconds to establish Superhero bonding with her.]
Mirin didn't wait for an answer. She took a step closer, the scent of cold night air and something vaguely electric clinging to her clothes. The stars in her eyes seemed to brighten, a silent command. Ruan's thoughts, a chaotic mess of transmigration and system messages, screeched to a halt. Five seconds. The words were a death sentence to the quiet life he was already planning.
His body, still sluggish and foreign, felt like a marionette with its strings cut. Yet, a current—not mana, something else, something born from the system's impossible demand—snaked through his limbs. The bullies, the naked dream, the heart attack—all of it dissolved into a singular, horrifying, electrifying instruction. Kiss her.
Four seconds.
Mirin had already closed the distance, her hand raised, her fingers splayed. It wasn't an act of malice, Ruan realized. She just saw it as normal. She placed her hand around his face and planted her forehead against his.
He felt his mana leave his body, he felt her lips lay a few inches away from him. She was so close. That was all the incentive he needed.
In one swift movement, he closed the distance. He tilted his head and captured her lips.
She was startled. Her eyes opened wide and she tried to pull away, but he held her there. He had no mana, no strength, but he had a system's command thrumming in his soul. He poured every ounce of borrowed will into the contact. For a single, crystalline moment, the world was the texture of her lips, the startled gasp she made against his mouth, and the desperate countdown echoing in the silence of his mind.
[Bonding successful. Candidate: Mirin. Superhero alias assigned: Waterwillow.]
[First Bond Established. System Tutorial Commencing.]
The pull of mana ceased. Mirin shoved him hard, stumbling back into the wall. Her face was a storm of confusion and a flicker of something else—outrage?
"Ruan! What was that?"
He opened his mouth, but no words came. The new knowledge flooded him, a tidal wave of information. Waterwillow. The name fit her. She was a water mage after all.
She placed her hand on her lips, glaring at him. He hesitated but then looked straight at her.
"I couldn't resist it anymore!"
"What?"
"You are so beautiful. Like a moon in the night sky. How can I resist it when you keep doing this over and over?"
She became flustered.
He took the chance to move close and plant his forehead against hers. "Here, didn't you come for my mana?"
She hesitated. "Ruan… no!"
"We've known each other for all our lives. Just one more kiss won't hurt anyone. Look, you didn't hate it either, right?"
She didn't push him off, so he went in for the kill.
He didn't wait for her to form a response. He closed the gap, a deliberate act this time, not a system-fueled impulse. Her initial resistance was token, a half-hearted push against his chest that faltered as he deepened the kiss. He could feel her surprise give way to something else, a curious yielding. The system was silent, but the world felt different, sharper.
When he finally pulled back, Mirin was breathless. The stars in her eyes were spinning. She looked at him, truly looked at him, for the first time not as the Mage Blind boy next door, but as something… else.
"You… you're different," she whispered, her voice unsteady.
"You have no idea," he said, a slow smile spreading across his face. The Mage Blind boy was gone.
She pushed him off, walked away without a word, but just before leaving, turned to look at him with a flushed face one last time.
[Waterwillow affection rate: 60%]
[She has always loved you but never dared to reveal it. She thinks her father would never allow a marriage with a MageBlind, so she is very confused and afraid of her own feelings.]
[Reach 100% affection to make her awaken her Superpower]
[You can also awaken the superpowers of your bonded super heroins!]
The blue text faded, but it burned behind Ruan's eyes. The room felt too small, the air too thick with Mirin's lingering scent and the impossible truth of his new reality.
Superhero. The word was a fantasy, a comic book concept. Now it was a blueprint, a path laid out before him. A path with Mirin as its first, crucial stone.
'And I really do like Mirin, she is so cute.'
A slow grin stretched across Ruan's face.
'I have to catch upto her.'
Without waiting, he entered his bathroom and took a quick bath. Then dressed himself up before looking at his mirror.
What he saw wasn't the Ruan Magnum from a day ago.
He was still the same height, the same build. But the eyes... the Mage Blind, defeated gaze was gone. In its place was a sharp focus. The boy who had died of shame in a dream was a stranger to him.
He didn't know how, but he knew he had to grow stronger. And he knew, with a certainty that felt as real as the water still cooling Mirin's lips, that this system was his key. His key to everything.
He left the house. The morning air felt crisp on his skin, charged with a new kind of energy. He headed towards the city center, towards the tower where Mirin usually hid when she felt confused. He had to find her.
Once he reached the top, he saw her dreamy figure leaning against the wall and day dreaming. "Mirin."
She turned at the sound of her name, her expression a battle between annoyance and relief. "Ruan. What are you doing here?"
"I came to see you," he said, his tone even. He didn't approach, giving her space. "To apologize. I… I don't know what came over me." The lie was smooth, a necessary tool.
She studied him, the stars in her eyes dim, clouded with thought. "You were never like that. Bold. Or… forceful."
"People change," he said. "Maybe dying of a heart attack gives you a new perspective." He let the truth hang there, wrapped in the guise of a dark joke.
A flicker of pain crossed her face. "Don't joke about such a thing."
"I'm not," Ruan said, stepping closer now. The system was a silent hum at the back of his mind, but this part was all him. The drive to connect, to understand the girl whose soul was now inexplicably linked to his. "It was terrifying. I almost died yesterday night and when I woke up, and you were there… it felt like the only real thing in the world. I was scared. And I'm sorry if I scared you."
That was mostly true.
Mostly.
"Don't scare me…"
"Okay."
"And no more surprises."
"Okay to that too. But I have a request."
"Re…request?"
"Can I kiss you here, one more time?"
"…"
"Can I?"
"Yeah for God sake!" And she closed the distance herself.
It wasn't like before. This was slow, hesitant. Her lips were soft, tasting of uncertainty and a long-held, secret fondness. He let her lead, his hands resting gently on her waist. The kiss was a conversation, a silent exchange of fears and nascent hopes.
[Waterwillow affection rate: 75%]
The blue text surfaced in the periphery of his vision, a glowing confirmation. He ignored it, focusing on the real girl in his arms. When they parted, her cheeks were flushed, but the confusion in her eyes had been replaced by a bright, fragile wonder.
"Ruan… this is… my father will never accept this."
"Let's not talk about your father," he whispered, brushing a stray strand of hair from her cheek. "Let's just talk about us. For now."
She nodded, a small, almost imperceptible motion. "Okay. Now."
They stood there for a long time, atop the city, the world of mages and Mage Blinds, of superpowers and secret systems, seeming a million miles away.
"One mor—"
She kissed him again.
And again. And again.
"We will convince old uncle somehow, okay?"
Mirin nodded, leaning against his chest. "You better."
[Affection: 100%!]