The anonymous message was a ghost in the system, a single, cryptic packet of data.
They are watching you. Be careful where you step.
Darius had parsed the lines a hundred times. It could be a prank, a level one intimidation debuff. Or, it could be a warning from an ally he didn't know he had.
Whatever its origin, it confirmed the cold dread that had been stacking in his gut: the lab lockout wasn't a random server error. It was a targeted attack.
Without access to the Advanced Mana Research Facility, his project was permanently stalled.
He was a master craftsman whose forge had been shut down. The administration was an NPC with an unbreakable dialogue loop. So he was forced to pivot. If they wouldn't let him access future tech, he would mine the data of the past.
This led him to the Jooshin Historical Archives, a high-level zone so quiet you could hear the dust motes losing sanity points.
The archives were the complete opposite of the clean, simple labs. The archives were a grand, ornate contrast to the minimalist labs. The large, high-ceilinged room with its tall, dark wooden shelves smelled of old books, leather, and wealth.
It was a place designed not for students, but for portraits of stern-faced founders to cast [Aura of Judgment] on you from the walls.
For some time, Darius had been working in a corner of the huge room. He sat at a heavy oak table, isolated by the small circle of light from a green lamp in the vast darkness.
He was hunting for forgotten theories on energy transference, a desperate attempt to build a new skill tree for his research from scratch.
[Skill: Deep Focus] activated. Environmental distractions minimized.
While he was engrossed in a leather-bound book, the silence was broken by the sound of expensive heels clicking on the marble floor.
Darius didn't look up. He didn't have to. It was the sound of a high-Ranker, someone who had never had to be careful where they stepped.
He focused on a dense paragraph about the "luminiferous aether," his body tensing. He just wanted to be invisible, to activate a [Stealth] skill he didn't possess.
The clicking stopped right beside his table.
"I didn't think anyone else knew this instance existed," a voice said, tinged with a faint, weary amusement.
Darius finally looked up, his [Deep Focus] shattering. It was her. Alina Veyra. The A-Ranker from the black vehicle, the probable source of his access denial debuff.
She looked great in a simple dark sweater and pants. With her hair pulled back, she held a slim, old book. She was alone.
His default protocol, economical and direct, kicked in. "It's quiet," he said flatly to discourage conversation.
She smiled at her own expense and said, "My friends think rooms with more books than people are boring."
She gestured with her grimoire. "You're in the pre-electromagnetic theory section. A bit archaic for a quantum physics prodigy, isn't it?"
The words hung in the air. Quantum physics prodigy. She knew his class. Of course she did. The "statistical anomaly" had been properly scanned.
"My lab is undergoing 'resource reallocation'," he said with dry sarcasm.
He noticed a brief change in her eyes. Guilt? It vanished before he could be sure.
Her apology sounded genuine for a moment.
"It's the Jooshin system," he replied, his gaze dropping back to his book, a clear signal to end the interaction.
But she didn't leave. Instead, She leaned against the table and asked in a softer voice, "What are you looking for? Maybe I can help."
I'm taking a history elective. 'Foundations of Modern Science.' It's my secret side-quest."
Darius raised an eyebrow. "Rebelling by taking an extra class? I thought rebellion for your tier involved racing mana-yachts in a hurricane."
A genuine laugh escaped her, a surprising, melodic sound.
"You have us all figured out, don't you? No, my rebellion is much nerdier. My father thinks history is sentimental nonsense. He says, 'Why look backward when you own the future?'" She said the last part with a perfect imitation of a pompous, patriarchal guild leader.
For the first time, Darius felt his own mental defenses crack. He saw a hidden part of her, a glimpse of someone trapped by their wealth.
He found himself pointing to a diagram in his book. "I'm trying to find early references to non-particulate energy transfer.
This author, Eldridge, he hints at a 'resonant sympathy' between objects, but his work is mostly flavor text. No hard stats."
As Alina leaned closer, he noticed her clean and complex scent, which reminded him of a rare alchemical ingredient.
"With surprising authority, she said, "Eldridge was a mystic, not a researcher."
[Skill Check: Lore (History) - Success!]
"He was booted from the Royal Society for being 'intellectually unsound.' If you want the real science he was borrowing from, you don't want his book.
You need to find Julian Croft's monograph, The Sympathetic Medium. Croft tried to quantify the phenomenon. His math was brilliant."
Darius stared at her. He'd been running database searches for Croft for two days with no results. "How do you know that?"
"It was a footnote in one of my required readings," she said with a shrug. "I get curious. I follow the quest markers. It's… what I do."
In that moment, the vast chasm of their Ranks seemed to vanish. He saw not an A-Ranker, but a sharp, inquisitive mind. She saw not an F-Rank, but an intellect that challenged her own. It was an unexpected connection, a nascent [Mutual Respect] buff forged in the quiet heart of the archives.
The moment was, of course, a temporary buff about to expire.
"Well, well. Look what we have here."
The voice was a sneering drawl he recognized. It was the blazer-clad C-Ranker from the collision. Spencer. He was strolling towards them, a smirk on his face.
"Alina, darling," he said, completely ignoring Darius's presence. "Victor was asking. Are you running a tutoring quest for the F-Ranks?"
The spell was broken. The invisible walls of the social hierarchy slammed back into place.
Alina's posture changed instantly. The warm, curious scholar vanished, replaced by the cool, poised heiress. Her [Social Mask] skill was back online.
"I was just leaving, Spencer," she said, her tone suddenly dropping to [Glacial]. "Tell Victor I'll meet him at The Club shortly."
She hesitated before leaving, her eyes meeting his with a hint of apology. She started to speak but then stopped, realizing words were useless.
She walked away decisively, and after giving Darius a final look of contempt, Spencer followed.
Darius was left alone in the deafening silence, feeling a familiar, bitter disappointment. For a moment, he'd forgotten he was invisible.
Turning back to his book, he saw a small, new red leather-bound book on the table. He reached for it and traced the faded gold letters on its cover.
[Item Acquired: "The Sympathetic Medium" by Julian Croft (Rare First Edition)]
[Item Quality: Excellent]
[Item Description: A groundbreaking, albeit dismissed, treatise on the principles of resonant energy transfer. Contains numerous handwritten annotations.]
He opened it carefully. The pages contained complex equations with faint pencil notes in the margins, full of insights and questions.
He knew exactly who had left the book.
It was a silent gesture. Not charity. A shared secret. A piece of invaluable loot left on his table by an A-Ranker who was supposed to believe he was nothing more than a statistical anomaly.
He looked up, but she was gone. The book felt less like an object and more like a key. Staring at the door she had disappeared through, he realized something had changed. His mission had just taken an unexpected turn.