The next few days at the academy settled into a new, deceptive kind of normalcy. To the general student body, the incident in the Whispering Fen became a thrilling piece of campus gossip that burned brightly for a day before fading into the background noise of lectures and training drills. The official story, meticulously crafted by Professor Finch's report, was a simple one: a rare monster, drawn out of its usual territory by unknown ecological factors, had ambushed his research team. Miss Vance had been injured, but the quick thinking and bravery of all involved had prevented a tragedy. The Porter, Ashe, had sustained minor injuries while assisting. It was a neat, tidy narrative that raised no difficult questions.
But for the three people involved, the incident had created powerful, unseen ripples.
Professor Finch, once a forgettable academic, was now a minor celebrity on campus. His upcoming paper on the "sympathetic detonation of *Agaricus silvanus*" was the talk of the faculty lounge. He treated Zero with a newfound respect that bordered on reverence, often pulling him aside to discuss complex theories, completely forgetting he was talking to a supposed F-Rank commoner. Zero played his part beautifully, offering just enough insightful (and seemingly lucky) guesses to fuel the professor's belief in his "untapped natural talent" while keeping the true source of his knowledge—the Cartographer's Journal—a closely guarded secret.
Elara Vance became a ghost. She recovered from her injuries with astonishing speed, thanks to the infirmary's best potions and her own formidable constitution. But she no longer attended the general lectures. She retreated into the depths of the Artificer's workshop, a place of humming machinery and the smell of ozone, burying herself in her work. Her encounter in the woods had not broken her; it had ignited a fire. She had come face-to-face with a phenomenon—and a person—that her textbooks could not explain. Her insatiable curiosity, the very flaw Zero had identified in his Ledger, was now completely and utterly fixated on him.
She didn't approach him directly. She was too proud, too intelligent for that. Instead, she began to observe. Zero would catch glimpses of her across the campus quad, her sharp grey eyes watching him from a distance before she would melt back into the crowd. He once found a small, almost invisible runic sensor discreetly placed on the frame of his dorm room door, designed to log his comings and goings. It was a novice-level tracking charm, but the craftsmanship was exquisite. He disabled it with a simple trick from his past life—smearing a minute amount of goblin earwax, a substance known to disrupt low-level enchantments, into the rune's central groove—and left it in place. The message was clear: *I see you watching me. And you are an amateur at this game.*
Zero himself became a creature of disciplined routine, his life a study in duality. By day, he was Ashe, the diligent, unremarkable research assistant. He attended his classes, took copious notes, and spent his afternoons in the library or the lab with Professor Finch, helping to catalog samples and cross-reference obscure texts. He was quiet, polite, and utterly forgettable.
But when night fell, he was Zero.
He would lock his door and open the Cartographer's Journal. His real studies would begin. He devoured the book, memorizing maps, monster attack patterns, and the locations of hidden resources. His mind, already sharp from his past life, became a veritable encyclopedia of the continent's secrets. This academic rigor was the foundation of his future power. Brute force could be defeated, but superior information, properly applied, was an insurmountable advantage.
His nights were also for training. He wouldn't use the academy's brightly lit, always-occupied training grounds. Instead, he would slip out to the same secluded corner of the campus where he performed his morning exercises. Here, under the pale light of the twin moons, he practiced. He didn't practice flashy sword moves or grand spells. He practiced the brutal, efficient economy of motion that had kept him alive for ten years. He practiced with his knife, the simple skinning blade from Pike, moving through a series of silent, deadly katas designed for close-quarters assassination. He practiced his footwork, his balance, his ability to blend with the shadows.
And he tested his new skills.
His `[Abyssal Carapace]` was growing stronger. He found that by consciously focusing his will, he could draw stamina at an accelerated rate to speed up its regenerative properties. To test its durability, he would systematically punch a large oak tree. The first few times, his knuckles had bled and his bones had ached. Now, after a week of this brutal regimen, a thin, almost invisible layer of dark, chitinous material would form over his knuckles before impact, allowing him to strike the wood with a solid, resounding *thud* without feeling any pain. His hands were becoming living weapons.
His `[Nerve-Wrack Sting]` was more difficult to practice. It required a living target. He found one in the form of the giant sewer rats that infested the academy's catacombs. He would sneak down into the dark, damp tunnels and hunt them. A single touch from his palm would send the creatures into violent, spasming convulsions, their nervous systems completely overloaded. It was a cruel, silent, and incredibly effective way to hone his control over the skill.
One evening, while returning from his subterranean training session, he found a small, sealed package outside his dorm room door. There was no note. He took it inside, his senses on high alert for traps. He examined it, finding no magical auras, no hidden mechanisms. It was simply a small, cloth-wrapped bundle.
He carefully unwrapped it. Inside was a single, masterfully crafted throwing knife. The blade was forged from a dark, non-reflective metal, perfectly balanced, with a small, intricate rune etched near the hilt. Beside it lay a small vial containing a thick, amber-colored liquid.
His System immediately provided an analysis.
`[Item: Shadowsteel Throwing Knife. Quality: Rare. Enchantment: Rune of Returning (Latent). Upon activation with a user's mana signature, the blade will return to the user's hand after being thrown.]`
`[Item: Vial of Concentrated Anti-Toxin. Quality: High. Potion created by a C-Rank or higher Alchemist. Capable of neutralizing most common biological neurotoxins, including Fen Lurker venom.]`
Zero stared at the items. There was only one person on campus with the skill to craft the knife and the resources to acquire the potion. Elara.
This wasn't a gift. It was a message. The anti-toxin was the settling of a debt. It was her way of saying, *You saved my life, and now we are even.* The knife, however, was something else entirely. It was a question. The Rune of Returning was an incredibly complex enchantment, far beyond the standard curriculum. By showing it to him, she was revealing a fraction of her true, unorthodox talent. She was testing him, trying to provoke a reaction, to see if he understood the significance of what he was holding.
She was inviting him to play the game on her level.
Zero allowed himself a small, cold smile. He took the knife, its weight a perfect, deadly comfort in his palm. He pricked his finger on the sharp tip and let a single drop of his blood fall onto the rune.
`[Binding Mana Signature to Rune of Returning... ERROR!]`
`[User's mana is incompatible with standard runic matrices.]`
`[Attempting to force-bind via System Corruption...]`
The rune on the hilt flared with a violent, purple light, the intricate silver lines briefly turning a chaotic, glitching black before settling back to normal.
`[Binding successful. Rune has been Corrupted.]`
`[New Skill Acquired: 'Blink Dagger (Active, Lvl 1)': Throw the dagger. At any point during its flight, you may expend a significant amount of stamina to instantly teleport to its location. One use per 10 minutes.]`
Zero's breath hitched. This… this was a game-changer. An F-Rank Porter with a personal, short-range teleportation ability. It was an impossible, paradigm-shifting skill that would elevate his combat and infiltration capabilities to a whole new level. Elara had tried to give him a clever tool. His System had turned it into a piece of god-tier equipment.
He now had two choices. He could keep this power a secret, his ultimate trump card. Or… he could show it to her. He could answer her question with an even bigger one. He could reveal a fraction of his own impossible nature, cementing her obsession with him and binding her even more tightly to his future plans.
The path of caution versus the path of calculated risk. For the man he was now, there was no choice at all.
He walked over to his desk and pulled out a fresh sheet of parchment. He wrote a single, simple message, then wrapped it around the empty anti-toxin vial. He slipped out of his room and made his way through the darkened, silent corridors of the academy towards the Artificer's workshop.
He left the package on the workbench he knew was hers, right beside a half-finished, impossibly complex clockwork bird.
His note contained only three words:
*Not sharp enough.*