CHAPTER The Boy Who Saw Beyond
The city below was still.
Streetlights flickered faintly, cars passed in steady streams, and somewhere far off, a train clattered along the tracks. The air was cool against Luke's face as he leaned against the balcony railing. Inside, his apartment hummed with the soft sounds of silent night—his mother stirring groccary, the television murmuring news repeats—but Luke paid none of it attention.
He had been thinking for hours.
He didn't know why he hadn't slept. Or maybe he had, briefly, and his mind had pulled him back to the balcony, drawn by the same unease he felt for weeks.
Everyone else had been caught up in excitement.
The world had stopped talking about medicine, engineering, or ordinary careers. Doctors, engineers, pilots, teachers—all abandoned in the minds of their friends and peers—because now every conversation, every plan, every hope revolved around Aura Formulation.
Luke thought about it quietly.
People didn't even realize how quickly they had changed. What had seemed like harmless curiosity before had grown into obsession. Students compared aura types as if they were collectibles, and parents whispered about advantages as if the system were a lottery. Every friend, every classmate, seemed willing to risk years of effort for a chance at a category.
Luke didn't laugh. He didn't argue. He didn't complain. He simply watched.
He understood.
Power was dangerous.
Not because it could harm physically, but because it would shift the balance of human judgment. Humans always measured each other. By appearance. By wealth. By titles. Now, by aura rank. And when the world's newest measure appeared, people would judge each other ruthlessly, instantly, without waiting to know the person behind it.
Even friendships were fragile.
What would happen if someone got a low category? What if someone else got a high one?
Would laughter turn to envy? Loyalty to resentment?
Luke had been silent in class, quiet during lunch, and apart during breaks—not because he didn't care, but because he could see the fractures forming before the system even began.
And he was clever enough to see more.
Governments wouldn't be honest. They never were. Every official announcement, every prepared statement, seemed designed to calm the masses—but Luke knew better. Power like this never came without oversight, regulation, and, likely, hidden consequences. If humans received abilities on a global scale, there would be rules, limits, responsibilities, and costs—things no one else had guessed yet.
Somewhere, behind the glow and excitement, a system was waiting. A system that would test not just their power, but their morality, judgment, and restraint.
Luke rubbed his forehead.
He wasn't afraid of receiving power. He wasn't jealous of those who might get stronger categories. He was worried.
Worried for himself.
Worried for his friends.
Worried for the world that would soon celebrate a system that could change everything in a single instant.
And yet, nobody else seemed to notice.
He thought of the conversations from earlier that week—laughter, predictions, bold claims of who would dominate or heal. They were all blind to the implications. To Luke, the situation wasn't a game. It was a transformation of society itself. Careers, ambition, friendships, even families would be weighed by an arbitrary metric. The foundations of human trust, built over years, could crumble in a day.
It wasn't fair.
He exhaled slowly.
The city seemed quiet below, but in his mind, the countdown had already started. Tomorrow, the world would receive its aura. Today, the final hours of anticipation passed silently for those not thinking, but Luke thought. And thinking meant he couldn't celebrate.
It was 5:30 AM JST.
Almost everyone else was asleep.
The chnage will happen.Luke felt the stillness of the city pressing in. Traffic had slowed to a trickle. Shops were closed. Japan, like the rest of the world, had prepared for the global pause—an international holiday declared to mark the arrival of aura. No work. No study. No distractions. The whole planet seemed to hold its breath.
Luke's gaze shifted skyward.
He didn't know what awaited him. He didn't know what category he would receive. And in truth, he didn't care about the category itself. What concerned him was what people would do with it. How they would judge him, each other, the system. How the simple act of granting power could unravel so many things people had spent their lives building.
And yet… tomorrow would come. The system could not wait for reflection or hesitation. It would assign roles, and the world would shift overnight.
Luke's hands tightened on the railing.
He had to be ready.
Not to celebrate.
Not to fight.
But to see clearly.
Because when the world woke, nothing would be the same.
The wind brushed against his face, carrying the faint smell of morning dew, the distant sounds of trains and cars, and the whisper of a city asleep. Luke remained on the balcony, silent, observant, alone. The last moments before the awakening stretched endlessly.
And somewhere, deep in the stillness, a spark waited—one that would change the world, and Luke's life, in ways he could already imagine but no one else could see.
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End of Chapter .