Noah's breath caught sharply right in his throat as his mother's desperate question echoed through the quiet room, and he instantly felt an even deeper, heavier wave of guilt for lying to her in the first place.
The intricate web of deception he had just finished spinning about the mysterious wandering teacher suddenly felt completely hollow and unnecessary.
Looking into her tear-filled, hopeful eyes, the realization of his own dishonesty struck him like a physical blow. He had scrambled to invent a fake identity to protect her, completely unaware that the foundation of his true power was something she had already been anticipating for over a decade.
If she had indeed been explicitly told about the existence of the system by his father all those years ago, then he had just been a completely ignorant fool for trying so hard to hide it from her now that it had suddenly borne its magnificent fruits.
