Chapter 378:Reunion.

Chapter 378: 378:Reunion.

His smile faded slightly.

"I mean it. You don’t have to keep checking."

She looked forward.

"I know."

"You’ve looked at me eleven times since we started walking."

Her head turned sharply.

"I can’t help it okay... and first of all, why are you counting?"

"My senses upgraded now. Counting isn’t particularly difficult."

Ravenna stopped. Silver nearly took another step before her grip stopped him.

"What did you just say?"

He realized what he’d casually revealed. Mallory looked between them, confused.

Silver smiled.

"Spatial Sense reached Level Three."

Ravenna stared at him her eyes widening slightly.

"When?"

"Last night."

She squeezed his hand, as though confirming he was there before continuing.

"While I was travelling," he continued.

Her eyes immediately narrowed.

Herecognized that expression.

"Don’t look at me like that."

"You were training?"

"I was absorbing cores to keep myself awake."

That didn’t improve her expression.

"You were driving while so exhausted that you needed to absorb beast cores to stop yourself from falling asleep?"

He hesitated.

Her eyes softened slightly but the firmness remained.

"Silver."

"I told you I have a story to tell."

"You are already making that story sound worse every time you give me one piece of it."

He laughed quietly.

"Then maybe you should stop asking until I can tell you everything properly."

She rolled her eyes at that.

"Fine. I’m going to wait. But tomorrow, when you tell me what happened, I’m not letting you skip anything because you think I’ll get angry."

"Agreed."

"That includes whatever happened to your phone, your sword, the injuries..."

Silver sighed.

"Yes."

"And the queen."

"Obviously."

"Also why you looked guilty when I said you looked like you’d been thrown off a mountain."

He became quiet again. She pointed at him with the folder.

"Especially that one."

Mallory looked at Silver.

"Why do I suddenly feel like I don’t want to hear this story?"

He gave her a tired smile.

"That’s probably a healthy instinct."

Ravenna shook her head, but there was a small smile on her lips now.

They resumed walking.

He looked around as he finally took in his surroundings. The Academy was even more impressive from inside the grounds than it had appeared through the taxi window.

The admissions area alone seemed large enough to belong to a smaller sanctuary, with several broad pathways dividing applicants by category and uniformed academy representatives moving between stations.

Most of the morning crowds had already disappeared, but enough people remained that he could imagine how chaotic the place must have been earlier.

He looked back at Ravenna again. It all came crashing to him that she’d waited through all of it since morning.

His smile faded.

Silver still couldn’t decide whether he wanted to lecture her or hug her again, probably both.

She noticed his stare.

"What is it now?"

"I was thinking about you waiting here all day."

Her expression immediately became defensive.

"We already talked about that."

"Not enough."

"Silver."

"You had a guaranteed admission letter. You could have finished everything hours ago, I feel like I’ve failed you somehow in a sense. If I had just hurried up, you wouldn’t have had to go through all that."

Ravenna stopped again, this time she turned completely toward him and cupped both his cheeks forcing him to look down at her.

"And if I had, what would have changed? I would have been inside a dormitory somewhere staring at my phone while wondering whether you’d reached Alpha Three. Instead, I stayed somewhere I knew you would eventually come if you made it here before the deadline... everyone has their own little worries if we beat ourselves up for something that is out of our control, we’ll be in too much pain to even function," she gave him a small kiss before continuing," You’re here now, that’s all that matters."

"But..."

He looked at her his expression morphing into one of guilt. Ravenna continued before he could come up with something else.

"I know it wasn’t the most logical decision for me to wait outside. Mallory told me. Antony told me. Shawn told me. You told me through your message to continue toward the academy. I heard all of you, and I still waited because I wanted to. After spending days having absolutely no control over what was happening to you, I wanted to make one decision for myself."

His expression softened. She released him and linked their hands before looking down at them with a fond expression.

"And maybe I was scared."

Silver said nothing.

Her voice became quieter.

"I kept thinking that if I entered without you, it would make everything feel final somehow... you get it, right? We were supposed to come here together. We talked about the academy. We travelled toward it. Even when we were separated, this was the place you told me to go because you said we’d find each other here. I knew it was irrational, but I wanted to see you walk through those gates."

He swallowed.

She looked up.

"So I waited. See... you came."

There wasn’t much he could say to that, he could only stepped closer.

Ravenna raised an eyebrow.

"What?"

Silver pulled her into a hug. Ravenna stiffened for perhaps half a second before wrapping her arms around him carefully, much more carefully than when she’d jumped into his arms earlier.

He rested his chin lightly against her hair.

"I’m sorry."

Her fingers tightened against his shirt.

"You’ve already apologized."

"I’m apologizing again."

"Then I’m still angry."

"That’s fair."

"But I’m not angry that I waited."

"I know."

"And I’d do it again."

He sighed.

"That part worries me."

She laughed softly against him. He smiled at that. Then something appeared before his eyes.

[Relationship condition detected.]

Silver’s eyes widened.

He remained still as he waited. Ravenna noticed the change in his breathing.

She slowly pulled back.

"What happened?"

He stared at the notification.

[Processing emotional synchronization.]

His smile disappeared. She immediately became concerned.

"Silver?" She softly called.

Another notification appeared.

[Reviewing previously unresolved milestone.]

His eyebrows rose.

Previously unresolved?

Then he remembered.

The system had behaved strangely during Death Row Valley. At the time, Silver had been more concerned about not dying, and now the system was processing it again.

Ravenna touched his arm.

"You’re doing that thing."

He looked toward her.

"What thing?"

"Your eyes stop focusing properly because you’re reading something I can’t see."

Mallory looked between them. Silver remembered that Ravenna knew everything now.

There was no reason to lie.

"My system," he whispered to her.

She immediately looked nervous.

"What did it say?"

He looked back toward the notifications.

[Emotional instability period concluded.]

[Affection Detection restored.]

Then the number appeared.

Silver froze.

[Ravenna Arkland]

[Current Affection: 68]

He stared in complete shock.

Sixty-eight.

The last stable reading he’d seen before everything became chaotic had been far lower.

He read it again.

Sixty-eight.

Ravenna watched his expression.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

Silver didn’t answer since another notification appeared.

[Affection threshold exceeded.]

[Relationship classification updated.]

His heartbeat accelerated.

[Affection 60+: Love Threshold.]

[Current Emotional Classification: Love.]

For perhaps the first time since meeting Ravenna, Silver Ruddington had absolutely nothing intelligent to say.

He simply stared at her. She became increasingly uncomfortable as they stared at each other.

"Silver, you’re starting to scare me."

He blinked getting out of his reverie.

"No. Nothing bad happened."

"Then why are you looking at me like your system just told you I’m dying?"

"It’s basically the opposite."

She frowned.

"That explanation didn’t help."

Silver glanced toward Mallory. She immediately understood.

"I suddenly feel like I should walk a little farther ahead."

Ravenna turned towards her.

"Why?"

Mallory smiled.

"Because whatever he wants to tell you clearly is between you two, and I have no interest in standing between the two of you while you discuss it."

Before Ravenna could stop her, Mallory moved several meters ahead.

She looked back at Silver, her eyes narrowed.

"What did it say?"