Chapter 34: [34]: [The System will keep watching.]

The blade passed the split point. The pathway widened. The burning pain began to fade into a strange warmth, like blood returning to a numb arm. Essence flowed through the wider channel, testing the new space.

Serah let out a slow breath. She put the blade down and checked her screen.

"Main channel widened by forty-two percent," she said. "Essence flow increased by about fifty percent." Her eyes on the screen. "Your Domain’s drain rate will drop from ten Essence per second to about seven. With your current Essence, you can keep the Domain active for roughly four seconds instead of one."

Four seconds. Still short of the five-second minimum Serah had identified for practical combat use. But three times better than before.

Four seconds. Still under the five seconds needed for easy combat, but three times better than before.

"That is session one of five," Serah said, wiping sweat from her forehead. Her hands shook slightly. "The second session widens the smaller branches. The third clears blocked channels. The fourth and fifth strengthen everything."

She paused, looking at her screen with a frown.

"There is something else," she said. "When I opened the main channel, I found a hidden pathway that shouldn’t be there. It splits off near your Talent core and runs parallel for three inches before hitting blocked tissue."

"A dormant channel?"

"Maybe, or something else." She tapped her screen to show a scan. "This blockage isn’t natural. It looks like it was placed there on purpose. Someone sealed this pathway shut."

Alvian thought about the System, his E-Rank Clearwater classification at the Awakening Ceremony, and the old scavenger who said his Talent felt strange.

"Can you open it?" he asked.

"Not today. I need to study it more." Serah put her screen away. "But during session three, I will try. If that pathway is what I think it is, opening it could change your Talent completely."

She did not explain further, and Alvian did not ask.

She finally looked up. Their eyes met.

Serah’s expression held no embarrassment. No apology. She looked at him the way she looked at a circuit diagram that had just revealed something unexpected. Curious. Interested. Unwilling to pretend she had not seen what she saw.

He sat up slowly. His right arm trembled. The warm feeling in his Essence pathway settled into a steady hum as his body adjusted. His Essence was recovering faster now that the wider channel let more energy flow.

[DING!]

[Essence Circuitry procedure complete.]

[Primary Clearwater Channel: Widened +42%.]

[Essence Throughput: +50%.]

[Abyssal Dissolution Domain drain: 10/sec → 7/sec.]

[Current Domain duration at Essence 28: ~4 seconds (full radius).]

[The System congratulates the Host on upgrading from ’dangerously unsustainable’ to ’merely unsustainable’.]

┌──────[ Profile]──────┐

│ [Host]: Alvian Vance

│ [Level]: 32 (Mortal Tier)

│ [Talent]: Clearwater [E-Rank, S-Rank effective]

│ [Skills]: Abyssal Dissolution Domain [S-RANK]

│ Clearwater Coating [E-Rank]

│ Severing Sword Aura [A-Rank]

│ [Weapon Mastery]: Short-Sword [MAXIMUM, evolved]

│ [STR]: 40 | [AGI]: 38 | [VIT]: 55

│ [INT]: 22 | [Essence]: 28/28

│ [Essence Throughput]: +50% (restructured)

│ [Domain Duration (full): ~4 sec]

│ [Domain Duration (contact, min radius): ~16 sec]

│ [Karma Points]: 16

│ [EXP Bank]: ~1,400 / ∞

│ [Monthly Stipend]: 200 credits

│ [Credits]: ~44,240

│ [System Version]: 2.0 (Proficiency Tier)

│ [Academy Status]: Review suppressed

│ [Circuitry Sessions]: 1/5 complete

└─────────────────┘

"Rest tonight," Serah said. "No Warren diving. No farming. Your pathway needs twelve hours to stabilize." She paused at the door. "And Alvian. Whatever sealed that secondary pathway, it was not Academy technology. The seal pattern is older than the Cataclysm."

Alvian stared at her.

"Older than the Cataclysm," she repeated. "That means someone sealed your Talent before the world broke. I don’t know what that means, but you should find out."

She left the room. The blue light from the resonance crystals faded to darkness.

Alvian sat alone in the dark laboratory. His right arm still shook, and the warmth of his new pathway beat with his heart.

Older than the Cataclysm.

Someone had touched his Talent before he was born. Someone had locked a pathway inside him, making sure his Clearwater Talent was marked as weak E-Rank trash.

The System screen floated quietly in front of him. The roulette wheel sat still, waiting. His KP counter showed sixteen, his EXP Bank held fourteen hundred points, and his Domain could last for four seconds instead of one.

Small, slow, painful progress.

Still, Serah’s discovery burned inside his mind.

’Who sealed my Talent,’ he thought, ’and why?’

The room was quiet. He had no answer yet.

He put on his shirt and walked out into the night.

-

The apartment was quiet when Alvian came back. Martha breathed slowly on her mattress. The crystal spots on her fingers were softer than last week, but they were still there. Leo was asleep with charcoal dust on his fingers and a drawing of a warrior on the wall above his head.

Alvian sat on his mattress and pulled off his boots. His body hurt from diving into the Warrens earlier. His Essence was back up to twenty. His HP was full. Everything looked normal.

Then the System flashed red.

Not gold. Not blue. Not the usual happy text with its sarcastic comments and silly jokes. This message was blood-red, pulsing bright and dark. The message covered his whole view and would not close.

[⚠ WARNING: LUCK ANOMALY DETECTED BY LOCAL REALITY ⚠]

[Analysis: Host’s S-Rank Skill (Abyssal Dissolution Domain) created a luck distortion wave that broke local reality limits.]

[The event was noticed by the World Will.]

[The World Will: A silent, half-living rule system that keeps order in this world.]

Alvian’s heart beat fast. He read the words three times, and each time made less sense than the last. The World Will. Reality had an immune system, and it had seen him.

[Assessment: The World Will does not hunt System hosts directly. But breaking reality’s luck again and again will attract its attention, sending Fate Enforcers.]

[Fate Enforcers: Special beings/ Conceptual Entities made to fix errors by removing the source.]

[Recommendation: Use S-Rank Skills less. Collect Karma Points. Get ready.]

[The System will keep watching.]