The air inside Room 00X shimmered with something… unnatural.
Not hostile.
Not divine.
Something deeper.
Riven sat cross-legged in the center of the room, eyes focused on the glowing sigil beneath him. The symbol rotated slowly, breathing with the rhythm of ancient time.
And then she appeared.
A soft pulse of light formed into the shape of a girl — translucent, floating inches off the ground, long hair flowing as if underwater. Her robes were from another era: elegant, enchanted, and unmistakably elven in design.
Her eyes widened.
"You really did return…"
Riven froze. Not because she startled him — but because… he recognized her.
No… not her face. Her presence.
She hovered closer, fingers ghosting the edge of his cloak.
"I kept waiting… in every loop… even when everything reset, I remembered fragments. Just enough to know that you had existed once."
"What… are you?" Riven asked, voice low.
"I am Lysha," she said. "A spirit bound to this room — once the seat of the Anomaly Class. Long erased from records. Long forbidden."
"You're not a relic," he said. "You're a remnant."
She smiled sadly. "More than that… I was your classmate. Once. Before fate rewound."
Memories sparked like lightning in Riven's mind — flashes of a girl with the same voice, the same smile, reaching out to him before the fire consumed her.
His hand trembled.
He had failed her… in a previous life. No wonder she had clung to this place. No wonder Room 00X called only to him.
"You should've forgotten me by now," she said.
"I did," Riven whispered. "But this room… woke it back up."
"Then that's enough," she whispered. "Because I waited."
Her form flickered — unstable.
"My soul's nearly gone," she confessed. "But I can still help. I am this room's final core. My knowledge… my memory… my fate… I offer it to you."
"Why?" Riven asked.
"Because you're the only one who never feared Fate… You defied it."
Her light touched his hand — warm, almost real.
"Let me give you what no class can teach…"
And with that, arcane scripts poured from her form into the air. Circles. Symbols. Syllables not spoken in this timeline.
[Anomaly Core Activated]
[Skill Acquired: ☽ Lunar Archive – Memory of Forgotten Magic]
[Bonus Trait: Echo of the Lost – 15% resistance to time-based magic]
Riven stood.
He wasn't just playing the academy's game anymore.
He was about to rewrite the rules.
Behind him, Lysha's light faded into the walls of Room 00X — a soft smile her final gift.
But she wasn't gone.
She would become his first secret companion — a memory tied to his soul. A spirit the world had tried to erase, but one he would never abandon again.