A few weeks into his new, wonderfully boring life, a major event shook the academy out of its normal routine: the Artifact Syncing Ceremony.
This was a big deal. It was the day when all the first-year students would officially bond with their first real artifacts. The whole academy was buzzing.
For Alex, it was just another workday. A very specific, slightly more annoying workday.
His job for the evening was a mix of cleanup and IT grunt work. He spent the first hour taping down thick black network cables that snaked across the floor of the grand auditorium.
The last thing the academy wanted was for some VIP or a star student to trip over a cable on their way to the stage.
It was a simple, mind-numbing task, and Alex loved every second of it. He was a ghost in the background, a silent gray shape ensuring the fancy, important event went smoothly for the fancy, important people.
The auditorium was packed. Students sat in tiered rows, their faces filled with anticipation and excitement.
Teachers and academy officials stood along the walls, looking proud and important. The air itself felt charged, like the moment before a thunderstorm.
Alex, having finished his taping duties, was now on standby with a waste receptacle; a fancy term for a high-tech trash can in a shadowed corner near the stage.
From his hiding spot, he had a perfect view of everything.
The headmaster, a man with a kind face and a voice that commanded attention, stepped up to the podium.
He gave a long speech about tradition, power, and the great responsibility that came with being a Striker.
Alex mentally translated the speech into simpler terms: "Here's your new super-powered toy. Try not to break the school with it."
One by one, students were called to the stage. They would place their hands on their new artifact, a wave of energy would pulse through the room, and the bond would be sealed.
There were fiery swords, shimmering shields, and boots that crackled with lightning.
Each one caused a stir in the crowd. Alex watched with mild interest. Using his [Debugger] ability, he could see the "handshake" of data as each student connected to their artifact's code.
Most were clean connections. Some were a bit messy, like a bad phone signal, but nothing serious.
Then, the headmaster's voice boomed with extra importance. "And now, for a student whose potential shines as brightly as any we have ever seen. Representing the esteemed Kwon family, please welcome Yuna Kwon!"
A hush fell over the crowd. Every eye turned as a girl with long, dark hair and an unnervingly calm expression walked onto the stage.
She moved with a grace that was almost unnatural, her back perfectly straight, her face a mask of cool concentration.
The whispers in the crowd confirmed what Alex had already heard through campus gossip: this was Yuna Kwon, the prodigy of their year, the so-called "Ice Princess."
Alex leaned against the wall, observing her. She was the polar opposite of him. She practically radiated importance. She was born for the spotlight. He was born to avoid it.
Two instructors carefully carried a velvet cushion to the center of the stage. On it rested an artifact that made all the others look like cheap toys.
It was a crystal sphere, about the size of a soccer ball, that seemed to have a miniature, swirling snowstorm trapped inside. This was the [Glacial Core], a legendary S-Rank artifact passed down through her family for generations.
"An S-Rank artifact," Alex thought to himself, genuinely impressed despite his best efforts. "The operating system on that thing must be a masterpiece."
Yuna approached the [Glacial Core]. She took a deep breath, her calm expression never changing, and placed her hands on its surface.
The effect was instantaneous and dramatic.
A wave of intense cold washed over the entire auditorium. It wasn't just a drop in temperature; it was a physical pressure, a heavy, chilling presence that made the air feel thick and hard to breathe.
The moisture in the air flash-froze, creating a fine mist of shimmering ice crystals that danced in the spotlights.
The students in the front rows shivered, pulling their uniforms tighter. It was a stunning display of raw, untamed power. Everyone was in awe.
Everyone except Alex.
He felt the cold, sure, but his curiosity got the better of him. He wanted to see the code behind this incredible power. He subtly activated [The Debugger].
The world melted away into lines of flowing data. He saw the students, the stage, the building, all as complex but stable programs.
He looked at Yuna. Her personal energy, her life force, was a stream of brilliant, pure blue data, strong and steady.
Then he looked at the [Glacial Core]. It was breathtaking. It wasn't just a program; it was an entire digital ecosystem, a swirling universe of white and pale blue code, immensely powerful and complex.
He watched as Yuna's blue energy stream reached out and touched the artifact's code.
The handshake began. But as the two systems connected, Alex saw something that made his blood run colder than the air in the room.
There was a flaw.
It was a tiny, almost invisible error deep within the [Glacial Core]'s fundamental code.
A single, corrupted line that looked like a crack in a perfect sheet of glass. And through that crack, something was leaking.
As the artifact's immense power flowed into Yuna, a thin, ugly trickle of crimson-red data, corrupted, chaotic, and dangerous was bleeding back into her. It was a "data bleed."
The artifact was so powerful that it couldn't contain all of its own energy. It was like a nuclear reactor with faulty shielding, leaking a slow, steady stream of poison.
Alex watched in horror as the red, corrupted code entered Yuna's pure blue energy stream. It wasn't a flood. It was a slow, insidious contamination.
A drop of poison in a glass of water. She was syncing with the artifact, yes, but the artifact was also syncing with her, feeding her a tiny dose of its own internal corruption.
The ceremony ended. The connection was sealed. The intense cold receded, leaving only a lingering chill in the air.
Yuna removed her hands from the core. She looked paler than before, but she stood tall, her expression unchanged.
The auditorium erupted into thunderous applause. They were cheering for the birth of a new, powerful Striker. A future hero.
Alex saw something different. He saw a slow-motion tragedy unfolding. He realized, with a sinking feeling in his gut, that every single time she used that incredible power, she would be poisoning herself, little by little.
The data bleed would continue, the corruption would build within her, until one day, her own system would crash.
It might take years, but it was a certainty. Her greatest asset was a ticking time bomb, and she was the only one who couldn't see it.
The crowd was on its feet. The headmaster was beaming. Yuna Kwon was the pride of Aegis Academy.
Alex stood motionless in his shadowed corner, the forgotten janitor with the high-tech trash can.
His simple, quiet world had just been shattered by a terrible secret. He was the only one on the entire island, maybe in the entire world, who could see the flaw in the Ice Princess.
He was the only one who knew that the celebrated prodigy was on a slow march toward her own self-destruction.
He clenched his fists. This was exactly what he had tried to escape. This was a problem. A big, complicated, S-Rank problem.
"Not my problem," he whispered to himself, trying to believe it. "Just stick to the plan. Stay invisible."
But as he watched Yuna walk off the stage, surrounded by admirers, he couldn't shake the image of that ugly red code seeping into her soul.
For the first time since he'd arrived, Alex Vance felt a twinge of his old life, a life where he couldn't just stand by and watch things break. And it was the most annoying feeling in the world.