Date: 20th July 2026
Location: Lecture Hall 102, London Metropolitan University
Time: 09:00 AM BST
Walking into a crowded lecture hall with 210.5 Spirit and the bank balance of a small, hostile nation, while still looking like I haven't slept since the Blitz, is the ultimate high-stakes performance.
My knees only clicked once as I climbed the tiered wooden stairs to the back row. A massive physical improvement.
["Mason, you're walking almost like a functional biped today."]
Eliza's voice purred directly into my earpiece. Her digital signature was currently threaded through the university's public Wi-Fi like a parasitic vine.
["If you keep this up, people might actually suspect you've discovered the concept of eating a vegetable."]
"It's the Elixir, Eliza. Tastes like battery acid and deep regret, but it keeps the engine running," I muttered under my breath, sliding heavily into a seat between Dexter and Ramona.
We were the ultimate 'Masked' trio.
Dexter just looked like a silent, terrifying bodyguard cleverly disguised as a mature student. His 'Error' status made him practically invisible to the world's underlying logic.
Ramona was aggressively tapping away on a battered laptop. Her 'TimeLink' glasses secretly reflected the neon-green glow of the global stock market.
To anyone else in the room, she was just a diligent student taking thorough notes. To me, I knew she was currently siphoning five grand out of a vulnerable Mayfair hedge fund.
"Settle down, everyone," a voice droned from the wooden podium at the front of the hall.
Enter Professor Nolan.
If Professor Vincy was a jagged, unpredictable mountain of intellectual danger, Nolan was a flat, aggressively boring plain of academic routine.
He was the exact kind of man who wore brown elbow patches without a trace of irony. He spoke in a flat, relentless monotone that could easily put a caffeinated squirrel into a deep coma.
He was the absolute perfect NPC. The exact kind of person the System actively ignored because he was simply too 'normal' to be a variable.
"I'm Professor Nolan," he said, tapping a piece of white chalk against the massive blackboard. The rhythm was almost hypnotic in its dullness.
"Welcome to 'Advanced Structural Analysis'. I expect you've all thoroughly read the syllabus. If not, I expect you will inevitably fail. Let's begin immediately with the stress-strain relationship in non-linear materials."
"Christ, he's boring," Ramona whispered, her fingers flying across her mechanical keys.
"Mason, the dark-web pre-orders for the 'Vanguard' parka are hitting the absolute ceiling."
She glanced sideways at me. "We desperately need to throttle the hidden server, or the University's IT department is going to wonder why Room 102 is suddenly drawing more raw traffic than Netflix."
"Let it burn, Ramona," I smirked, leaning back and crossing my arms.
"Eliza, give me a quick status check on the room. Anyone remotely interesting?"
["Scanning..."]
Eliza sighed heavily in my ear.
["A room completely full of Level 0.0 humans, Mason. It's exactly like staring at a large box of lukewarm ham."]
["Wait... there is a boy in the third row with a 0.1 SPR stat. He has likely just consumed far too much caffeine, or he's about to have a very minor, tragic epiphany about a toaster."]
["Otherwise, it's an absolute desert of biological mediocrity."]
I felt a sudden itch in my Overclock Mind.
I decided to test a new, non-lethal skill I'd been quietly tinkering with in the Vault: [Minor Gravity Tug].
It was a crude derivative of the Spatial Anchor, specifically meant for subtle, localized environmental manipulation.
I aimed my focus squarely at Professor Nolan's piece of chalk.
Target: Chalk. Force: 0.01 Newtons. Vector: Down.
I gently flared my Spirit stat.
Instead of a subtle, invisible tug, my 999 INT and 210 SPR violently overcompensated.
The chalk didn't just fall from his hand. It was aggressively hammered into the wooden floorboards with the kinetic force of a falling anvil.
CRACK.
Nolan blinked slowly, staring down at the splintered white dust violently embedded at his feet.
"Well... that was... an unexpectedly high-density piece of calcium carbonate," Nolan muttered dryly.
"Nice one, Architect," Dexter grunted softly beside me. He didn't even shift his heavy gaze from the blackboard. "Subtle as a brick thrown through a glass window."
"Shut it, Dex," I hissed, my face flushing with sudden, unexpected heat.
"I'm still calibrating the physical output. My STR is 10.8, but my SPR is currently acting like a busted firehose. It's incredibly hard to do 'subtle'."
["Do try not to accidentally collapse the building, Mason,"] Eliza snickered in my ear.
["I would absolutely hate to have to find a new server room just because you wanted to play petty pranks on a man whose biggest thrill in life is a well-organized Excel spreadsheet."]
Nolan calmly picked up a fresh piece of chalk from the tray, seemingly completely unfazed by the localized anomaly.
"As I was saying... the elasticity of the material is strictly governed by—"
He suddenly stopped.
He looked up, his gaze drifting slowly toward the back row.
For a terrifying split second, I felt a massive, icy shiver run straight down my fragile spine.
It was the exact, instinctual 'ping' you get deep in the 999th loop when a colossal Boss monster suddenly locks onto your specific coordinates. My heart slammed against my ribs.
But when I focused on Nolan, he was just casually squinting at the harsh morning sunlight hitting the dirty windowpane.
"Mr. Pryce," Nolan said. His voice was as flat and remarkably unbothered as ever.
"You seem highly distracted back there. Perhaps you can accurately tell the class the Young's modulus of the specific titanium alloy I've just described?"
I stood up quickly, forcing the 'Weeb NEET' mask firmly back into place.
"Uh... 110 Gigapascals, Professor?" I stammered intentionally. "Assuming a standard room temperature of 20 degrees Celsius and a strict 5% margin for structural impurity?"
Nolan stared at me.
One second. Two seconds. Three long, agonizing seconds.
The air in the lecture hall suddenly felt... incredibly heavy.
It wasn't the violent, electrical pressure from the Tesla Core. It was something else entirely. Something quiet. Something impossibly dense.
"Correct," Nolan said, slowly turning his back to the class to face the board.
"Try to stay with us, Mr. Pryce. The universe simply does not wait for those who daydream."
I sat back down heavily. My pulse was roaring in my ears.
"Eliza, scan him again," I whispered frantically, hiding my mouth behind my hand.
"Deep scan. Cross-reference his biometric signature with the encrypted 999th loop archives."
["Scanning..."]
Eliza paused.
["Absolutely no match, Mason. He is a total, unremarkable NPC. Born in Croydon, three children, lists his primary hobby as birdwatching."]
["His magnetic signature is as flat as a stale pancake. You are just being incredibly paranoid because your Vitality is still terribly low and you are over-caffeinated."]
"Maybe," I muttered, gripping the edge of the cheap desk.
But the massive '999' INT stat burning inside my skull was actively screaming at me.
That specific titanium alloy.
I had used it exactly once. In loop 872. To build a cage.
He knows.
"Focus, Mason," Ramona nudged me sharply with her elbow, breaking my spiralling paranoia.
"We have a massive logistical problem. Lilith just sent an emergency ping on the dark-web channel."
She angled her laptop screen slightly so I could see the encrypted text.
"The 'Demon-Staff' delivery van carrying the raw materials for the elixir has been violently intercepted by a local gang in East London."
Ramona scowled. "They clearly think they've hijacked a massive shipment of high-end designer drugs.
They don't know it's actually 'Aetheric Marrow-Salts' that will literally melt their veins from the inside out if they try to snort it."
I looked down at the board, then up at the clock ticking on the wall.
"Dexter, we're leaving early," I commanded quietly.
"Ramona, immediately track the live GPS on the delivery van."
"What about the rest of the class?" Dexter asked, his massive frame already shifting to stand.
"Nolan won't even notice we're gone," I said, hastily sliding my grease-stained notebook into my bag.
"He's too busy talking to the bloody chalkboard."
As we stood up to leave the tiered row, I decided to try one more subtle System skill: [Static Cloak].
It was a basic stealth protocol, supposed to bend ambient light and sound to make us significantly less noticeable as we exited through the heavy doors.
I activated the skill, feeding it a tiny fraction of Spirit.
Instead of becoming invisible, the localized frequency interference violently rejected my input.
Every single laptop, tablet, and phone in the entire lecture hall suddenly emitted a high-pitched, agonizing screech of raw feedback.
"Agh! My bloody ears!" a student in the front row yelled, violently ripping his headphones off.
Professor Nolan didn't even flinch. He didn't drop his chalk. He just kept writing his equation.
"Resonance is a very common, destructive issue in structural analysis, class," Nolan droned on, his back still turned.
"Please ignore the localized feedback."
We scrambled out of the heavy oak doors and into the corridor. Eliza was cackling relentlessly in my ear the entire way.
["Behold the mighty Master of Time and Space!"] she mocked ruthlessly.
["You cannot even leave a boring classroom without causing a massive digital riot! Truly, Mason, your crippling 'God-complex' desperately needs a 'God-manual'."]
"I'm bloody working on it!" I hissed, finally pushing through the main doors and reaching the damp, fresh air of the university courtyard.
My physical body was slowly stabilizing, but my actual life was currently operating at 100% pure chaos.
The 'Mask' was slipping. The 'Fortress' in Brixton was humming like a beacon. And apparently, I was the absolute worst stealth operative in the entire history of the 1,000th loop.
"Let's go find those absolute idiots in East London," I growled.
My 'Aether-Cane' hit the wet pavement with a sharp, resonant thud.
"I desperately need my juice, and I really don't want to explain to the Met police why five gang members suddenly turned into glowing piles of radioactive salt."
Back inside Lecture Hall 102, Professor Nolan finally stopped writing.
He slowly turned around.
He looked at the three empty seats in the back row where we had just been sitting.
He didn't smile. He didn't frown.
He just looked down at the splintered, crushed chalk embedded in the floorboards.
"Calibration is entirely essential in any structure," Nolan said quietly to the empty air, his voice completely devoid of emotion. "Excess force merely destroys the frame."
He picked up a rag and calmly wiped the board clean.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: SKILL FAILURE]
[MINOR GRAVITY TUG > OVERCHARGED]
[STATIC CLOAK > SONIC DISTORTION]
[USER NOTE: YOUR SPR IS CURRENTLY TOO HIGH FOR YOUR VIT. YOU ARE A NUCLEAR REACTOR OPERATING INSIDE A DAMP CARDBOARD BOX. CALIBRATE IMMEDIATELY.]
"Right," I muttered to myself, heading aggressively for the university gates.
"Calibrate. I'll add that to the bloody list right after 'Global Domination' and 'Not Dying'."