Mark stood, sliding his notebook into his bag. Around him, people were still talking about him, about what he'd said. Sherry was actually looking at him.
At the front of the room, Miss Jed was stacking her markers with the practiced efficiency of someone already thinking three periods ahead. She glanced up once. Just once. Their eyes met across the emptying classroom and held for half a second longer than the situation required.
She looked away first. But she smiled doing it. The system pulsed quietly.
[FRONTIER AVAILABLE: Engage Miss Jed with light flirtation and transition into a date request]
Mark stood there a moment with the notification floating in his vision. He was starting to understand something about the Frontiers that the system hadn't bothered explaining.
They didn't pay. Didn't reward. Didn't move the balance on his card by a single dollar. But Hugo Pabebuncano had spent seventy years accumulating wealth and precisely zero years being young. No flirting with girls. No girlfriends. No teacher looking at him like a question she hadn't decided to ask yet.
This wasn't a system reward. This was the life he'd missed entirely the first time around. He was beginning to think that was reward enough.
"Don't tell me you're leaving campus again," Sherry murmured beside him, her voice low and edged with a feeling still hard to describe.
Mark gave her a brief, distracted smile. "Let me come back to you."
If this body still belonged to the real Mark, this would've been enough. More than enough. He walked out before she could answer.
Miss Jed was in the corridor, heading toward the staff wing, heels measured against the tile. Mark adjusted his pace. Not rushing. Not hesitating. The exact speed of someone who knew where they were going and didn't need to announce it.
"Miss Jed."
She stopped and turned. Up close she looked sharper than the classroom allowed, intelligent eyes, and a body that her professional clothes couldn't quite hide. She didn't seem surprised to see him like she'd already run the calculation and was waiting to see if he'd surprise her.
"Mr. Lidorf." Her tone was even. Her eyes weren't.
Mark closed the distance to the edge of what was appropriate and stopped there precisely.
"I wanted to say something before I forgot."
"That sounds important," she said, shifting the folder against her arm.
"It is." He held her gaze. "What you said in there. About power. About changing minds without raising your voice. Most of them were in there arguing to win." He tilted his head slightly. "You were teaching them how to control a room."
Something shifted in her expression. The polite teacher attention became something more specific.
"That's a very particular takeaway," she said.
"I pay attention." Mark replied smoothly. "Especially when someone's worth paying attention to."
"I can see that."
The hallway had emptied around them. Just the distant echo of footsteps and the hum of the building settling into the mid-morning lull. Mark eased the tone slightly, letting the weight of it breathe.
"You should charge separately for that lesson," he added. "Whatever the school's paying you, it's not enough."
She laughed. Short and unguarded, the kind that escapes before you decide to allow it.
"Is that your version of flirting with a teacher?"
"No," Mark said. "That was honesty. I haven't started flirting yet."
The pause that followed was long enough to mean something.
"Careful, Mr. Lidorf," she said. The warning was real but the tone wasn't entirely.
"I'm being careful," he said. "That's why I'm still standing here and not somewhere I shouldn't be."
She looked at him the way people look at something they're trying to accurately measure.
She shifted her folder against her hip. "You're walking a dangerous line, Mark."
"I know exactly where the line is," he answered. "I'm just standing close enough to admire the view."
Her eyebrows rose, but she didn't look offended. If anything, she looked intrigued. Mark pressed forward, keeping it light but direct.
"Coffee," he said, like the thought had just arrived naturally. "Not here. Not as your student. Just a conversation. You showing me how that room-control thing actually works."
Her brows lifted a fraction. "You're eighteen?"
"Yes."
She was quiet for a few seconds, evaluating him, reassessing something. Eighteen-year-old student. Sudden confidence. The way he looked at her like a man, not a boy.
"You're either very confident," she said slowly, "or very reckless."
"Is there a difference?"
That almost became a smile.
"Hypothetically," she said, "if I said yes. When would this conversation happen?"
"Anytime after tonight." Mark kept it easy. "I'm a little busy becoming rich."
A real laugh this time. Quiet, genuine, mixed with something that might have been curiosity about whether he was joking.
He held out his phone. Not pushing. Just offering. She looked at it for a moment. Then took it, typed, and handed it back with the particular composure of someone who had made a decision and intended to own it.
"This doesn't leave this hallway," she said quietly, voice carrying a hint of warning and excitement.
"Of course."
She stepped past him, heels clicking again, slower now. Mark watched her turn the corner and disappear. Then he looked down at his phone. Contact saved. The system pulsed.
[FRONTIER COMPLETE: 100%]
He slipped the phone into his pocket, a small satisfied smile on his face, and turned toward the exit.
The Viw Auction was waiting.