Kaelen didn't sleep much that night.
He lay in the still of his dorm, the silence of his room coursing greatly in his head. The message still hovered in front of him, the blue holo-screen displaying the texts.
He'd read it five times already, hoping it would disappear or at least make sense.
It didn't.
His thoughts flickered between disbelief and frustration. The system wasn't supposed to assign quests like this all of a sudden and randomly at that.
"At least, the daily quest was expected." He thought. But this one came from nowhere, unprompted, with no context.
He muttered, "Break through the latent level… how, exactly?"
The system didn't respond. It simply stayed still, coldly patient.
He stared at the ceiling until exhaustion pulled him under.
[New Quest Assigned: Break through the latent level in one week.]
Reward: 100 XP | 5 Stat Points | 1 Random Skill Upgrade.
Penalty: (–1) Base Level | (–10) Random Stat Points.
The message flickered once and stayed. He waited for it to vanish... maybe it was some, some bug in the system, he thought. But that was far from it. It didn't fade.
Kaelen sat up slowly. The room was dim, shadows stretching across the desk. Outside, faint light from slipped through the blinds.
He stared at the countdown pulsing faintly in the corner of the display: 7 days. 00:00:00.
He whispered into the silence, "You've got to be kidding me."
The System, predictably, didn't answer.
...
Morning came too soon.
He woke early, though he hadn't really slept. His wristband still glowed faintly as he dressed. He splashed cold water on his face until the reflection in the mirror looked awake enough to pretend he understood what was happening.
He went on to complete his daily quest, sluggish but successful.
[Daily quest: Complete]
Breakfast at the academy's canteen was quiet that hour. The hall was a cavern of white glass and polished steel, sunlight bleeding through panels that glowed with soft aether light.
Students drifted between tables, some chatting, others scrolling through data-slates. Kaelen sat with a cup of dark tea, trying not to glance at the wristband every few seconds.
"Morning doesn't suit you," Sera said, sliding into the seat opposite him with a tray.
He blinked, caught off guard. "I'm well aware i look half-dead."
"Exactly." She smirked, sipping her drink. "Stayed up late?"
"What gave that away?"
"You look haunted." She gestured at him.
After a silent moment, Kaelen shrugged, forcing a laugh. "Couldn't sleep."
Sera raised an eyebrow. "You stayed up all night?"
"Something like that."
"Is something bothering you?" She asked.
"Yeah."
"..."
She gave him a look that said she didn't buy it but didn't press. Around them, the academy hummed awake. Drones floated between tables collecting trays, and the low chatter rose with the light.
When the bell chimed across the courtyard, Kaelen felt both relief and dread. Whatever the system wanted, he'd deal with it later. Right now, there was Professor Nyra.
...
The academy was already alive when he stepped out... streams of students crossing the skybridges, drones humming low with trays of breakfast and supplies. Lights illuminated the walkways like liquid glass.
Kaelen rubbed his eyes and followed the glowing guide on his wristband toward the Hall V–1 of Aethericic Fundamentals.
His schedule read: 09:00 – Aetheric Fundamentals.
He was going to have a class with the same Professor Nyra who had spoken like she could read minds the previous day. His stomach tightened.
By the time he entered the hall, it was already half-full. The seats curved around a broad, circular platform. In the air above it floated a pale blue sphere, rotating slowly, threads of light rippling through it like veins.
...
Hall V–1 was bathed in white light, the wide ceiling shimmering with faint energy currents. Professor Nyra stood at the front, the light tracing the delicate outline cat-like ears as they twitched in rhythm with the hum of the room.
She wore a pale gray robe, the kind that made her presence feel still and immense at once. Her hair was drawn back tightly, violet streaks glinting under the light.
"Good morning," she said. The word carried quiet command. "You all had an assignment: a brief reflection on what control means to you. I trust you've brought them?"
Dozens of wrists flickered blue as students uploaded their entries. Kaelen followed suit, sending his to the main archive. A soft ping confirmed receipt.
Her tail flicked once as the last students filed in. The quiet murmur of movement filled the air as glowing lines of text streamed upward toward her console.
Nyra nodded. "Good. Now, before we proceed, I'll hear a few of them. Control is not a definition you memorize. It is a mirror you polish."
"Control," she said, "is the first lie every practitioner tells themselves. You don't control the Aether. You negotiate with it."
Her amber eyes scanned the room. "Let's hear a few. Volunteers?"
A boy near the front... Taren Dame, if Kaelen remembered right... raised his hand confidently. "Control is focus. The ability to impose will through discipline."
Nyra tilted her head slightly. "A safe answer. You've read the textbooks."
Another student, a pale girl with blue hair tied in tight knots, added, "Control is balance. Between emotion and thought."
Nyra's tail swayed slowly. "Better. But balance assumes two sides. The aether has a thousand."
A girl in the front stood. "Control," she began, "is precision of will over energy. It means knowing the limits of your own aether and never letting emotion distort it."
Nyra tilted her head. "Recited well. But tell me, Ms. Lin... if emotion must be excluded, why does resonance require intent?"
The girl hesitated. "Because… intent guides it?"
"Exactly. Intent is an emotional construct. So you see, the two are not enemies."
She gestured for her to sit.
Kaelen mustered his courage and rose to answer. "My reflection said…" He paused. "Control isn't the absence of chaos. It's the point where chaos agrees to listen. My resonance isn't strength or speed. It's the pause between moments... the stillness before a choice."
Nyra studied him for moment, she didn't comment right away. The pause stretched long enough for Kaelen's pulse to climb. Then she looked up, expression unreadable but eyes sharper somehow.
"That," she said finally, "is closer than most understand their entire first year."
"You speak of stillness, yet stillness is the illusion before movement. But…" she nodded faintly, "you understand the nature of balance. Sit."
A few students turned to glance at him. Kaelen stared at his desk, heat rising in his ears.
Nyra's gaze swept the room again. "And you, Ms. Flynn?"
Sera blinked, caught off guard, but stood gracefully. "Control," she said after a brief pause, "is knowing when not to use power. People think control means dominance... bending the aether until it obeys. But I think it's restraint. The ability to stop yourself when every instinct says 'push harder.'"
Her tone carried that light dryness that made even serious words sound effortless.
Nyra's lips curved slightly. "Restraint. A word many of your generation forget. Well said."
Sera sat again, whispering under her breath, "Guess that's a pass."
Kaelen smirked. "Gold star for philosophy."
...
Nyra continued, pacing slowly before the class. "Your definitions matter because they shape how you touch the aether. Every thought you have... every emotion creates resonance. You are both source and filter."
She raised a hand. A faint glow formed above her palm, swirling like liquid light.
"This," she said, "is controlled aether in its most stable state. What you see are resonant currents maintained at a steady vibrational frequency."
"The aether exists everywhere... within air, within matter, within you. But your access is limited by stages. Three major ones for first initiates: Latent, Bound, and Channel."
She stepped closer. "Every practitioner progresses through these points within an energy level stage."
Her voice deepened slightly, carrying the rhythm of a practiced ritual.
"At the Latent stage, the Aether in your body sleeps. It responds unconsciously, flaring only in stress or instinct. Your task..." her gaze flicked to Kaelen briefly "...is to wake it without shattering it."
She let the glow in her hand expand, forming a small orb of gold light. "Breaking through Latent means understanding your own resonance. It is the first point."
With a soft breath, the orb split into three threads of light that curved back into her fingers.
"At Bound stage, you learn to contain what you wake. To guide it, channel it through circuits, tools, or will. That's your second point."
The light vanished. Nyra's expression softened slightly. "Finally, Channel. The aether becomes extension... not summoned, not contained. Simply, you become one with the level."
"The reason many fail to breakthrough specific levels is this. If you can't pass the channel stage of each levels, you will get stuck at that level."
She clasped her hands behind her back. "Most get hung on that sadly."
Silence hung in the air... reverent and heavy.
The system's quest burned in his mind.
Kaelen sat very still. Break through the latent level in a week. He has to get to the Initiate Basic Control level passing the three points.
"Most of you," she continued, "have already awakened your latent cores. You know what it feels like to call your aether."
Nyra's tone shifted. "We begin practice. Everyone will form the initial flow pattern."
She gestured, and holographic diagrams appeared above each desk: spirals of faint light representing the motion of energy through the chest and wrists.
"Channel breath into your core," she instructed, moving between rows. "Do not force it. The aether does not obey demands."
Students began closing their eyes, breathing in rhythm. The air filled with faint hums... low, pulsing, like a dozen quiet heartbeats syncing together.
Kaelen followed, unsure. His hands trembled slightly as he tried to mimic the spiral diagram. The energy resisted, slippery as smoke.
"Relax," Nyra said quietly from behind him. He hadn't heard her approach. "You are trying to hold it. That's not how it works."
"How does it work?" he whispered back.
Her ears twitched, amused. "You listen to it first."
She stepped away, and Kaelen exhaled. He let go of the pattern, just breathing. The hum within his chest changed... less static, more rhythm.
Then, faintly, light gathered at his fingertips. Barely visible, a soft pulse of blue. It flickered out as quickly as it appeared, but it had been there.
When the exercise ended, several students compared notes. Kaelen flexed his fingers, still feeling the ghost of warmth.
Nyra spoke again, calm and precise. "Remember what you felt, not what you failed to see. The aether always answers honesty."
Her gaze lingered on Kaelen one more time before turning to the rest. "Class dismissed."
...
The corridors outside shimmered with midday light. Kaelen walked beside Sera again, both quiet for a moment. The hum of the crowd filled the background.
"You looked like you were about to pass out," Sera said finally.
"I nearly did."
"First channeling's rough." She stretched, hands behind her head. "My unconstrained energy burned through the table the first time. "
"That's reassuring." He chuckled.
He blinked. "How early did you start, the cultivation that is?"
She grinned. "Since birth, so I had it really early." She paused. "The Flynn family," She whispered. "My family train children from young ages."
"All influential family does. That, I'm aware of."
They passed the fountain courtyard, water arching through air laced with faint sparks of aether. The air smelled faintly like candy.
Kaelen hesitated, glancing at his quest display. The countdown still ticked away silently.
Sera noticed the look. "Something bothering you?"
He considered lying, then smiled faintly. "Just tired."
"Then you're normal."
They split at the cross-path leading to different lecture halls. His next class... Energy Measurement Principles, was tucked deep in the west wing, a maze of labs and transparent walls.
Professor Han Derrick lectured in a monotone that could sedate an explosion. The class focused on calibrating resonators and measuring microflux density... whatever that meant. Kaelen tried to follow, but the system timer hovered at the edge of his vision no matter how many times he blinked it away.
When the final bell sounded, he practically ran for air.
...
By the time he reached his dorm, dusk had turned the academy into a prism of shifting colors. The barrier shimmered faintly at the horizon, and the towers pulsed with quiet energy.
Kaelen sat at his desk, his system projecting a soft blue light across his face. The countdown on his holo-screen read: 6 Days, 11 Hours, 14 Minutes.
He replayed Nyra's words in his head. Wake it without shattering it. 11 stages. Three points of breakthrough. For now, his was two points of breakthrough.
He opened his assignment again... the reflection he'd written the night before. The line glowed faintly: The pause between moments… the stillness before a choice.
Maybe that was the key.
He closed his eyes and tried again, just breathing. The hum inside his chest was there, quieter now, but steady. He didn't reach for it; he waited. The silence thickened, then softened.
For a heartbeat, the air around him shimmered... the faintest distortion, like heat above stone. Then it passed.
No system message. No triumphant sound. Just the quiet pulse of something waking, deep beneath thought.
Kaelen opened his eyes slowly. "Alright," he murmured. "We'll do this your way."
The clock in the corner ticked down another minute.
Outside, the academy lights flickered in rhythm with the evening wind, steady as a living heartbeat.
Tomorrow, there would be more annoying lectures. But tonight, in the calm hum of his room, Kaelen understood one thing with sudden, grounding clarity:
The System wasn't his enemy. It was his reflection.
He exhaled, the tension easing for the first time since the quest appeared.