"You have a core now," I said, lowering my hand from Maya's chest. "And because I fed you magic during formation, it's large. Larger than most first-years will ever achieve."
She exhaled slowly, eyes still closed, fingers resting over the right side of her chest as if she could feel the shape of it.
Magic hummed inside her.
Not chaotic.
Not unstable.
Smooth.
It moved in clean circuits—outward, inward, around again—like she'd done this before.
That shouldn't have surprised me.
Level 10 abilities didn't belong in weak bodies. They waited for one.
Watching her circulate, I felt a strange mix of relief and irritation.
Her pace was absurd.
Three times faster than my first attempt. Her breathing never broke rhythm. Her energy didn't snag against internal resistance. She wasn't forcing magic to move—
she was guiding it.
"…Unreal," I muttered.
Family heritage, maybe. Instinct, maybe. Or maybe Reality Manipulation users just understood structure in a way the rest of us couldn't.
Whatever it was, she wasn't fumbling forward like I had.
"Remember this," I said calmly. "A large core doesn't make you strong. It means your ceiling is higher. Until you can control your ability without collapsing, you're still vulnerable."
She nodded without opening her eyes.
Disciplined.
Good.
I stood, slipped on my shirt, and started toward the door.
Her eyes opened immediately.
"Y-you're leaving?"
There it was again.
Not dependency.
Fear of abandonment.
"I'll be back," I said. "Keep circulating. Stabilize the structure. Don't try activating anything yet."
She swallowed and nodded.
I stepped out and shut the door quietly behind me.
Maya's biggest danger wasn't lack of power anymore.
It was attention.
And attention in the Triangle spread like infection.
Class E wouldn't move directly—not after what I'd done.
Pressure didn't come from the bottom.
It came from structure.
So I didn't go to Class E.
I went where structure had weight.
Class B3
The moment I opened the classroom door, the noise dipped.
Not silence.
Recalibration.
People in the Triangle were good at reading stripes.
Mine was gold.
Conversations died mid-sentence. A few students straightened unconsciously, like posture might buy them safety.
I stepped inside without asking permission.
Thirty students.
Three clusters.
One dominant axis.
I found him immediately.
Blaze Fholder.
Mid-tier talent. Loud presence. Built like someone who trained hard, but thought harder about being feared than being strong.
He was in the middle of beating down a Class C kid.
Not efficiently.
Emotionally.
"You think you can walk into our wing and talk big?" Blaze snapped, fist slamming forward again.
The kid had a defensive skill—localized shock absorption, maybe—and Blaze hated that it wasn't collapsing fast enough.
His strikes were getting sloppy.
The room's tension tightened as he reared back again.
"I'll make sure you ne—"
I moved.
No Fire Fists.
No escalation.
I stepped in and slapped him.
Not hard enough to burn.
Hard enough to collapse the room's logic.
The sound cracked across the class.
Blaze hit the floor face-first before his brain caught up with what had happened.
Silence.
Real silence this time.
Not social silence.
Predatory silence.
He pushed up on shaking hands, blinking blood out of his vision, then froze as his eyes found my boots.
Recognition.
Stripe.
Weight class difference.
I crouched, grabbed his hair, and lifted his face just enough for him to see me clearly.
"You're Blaze," I said evenly.
He tried to straighten on instinct—then thought better of it.
I didn't raise my voice. That would've made this about dominance.
This wasn't dominance.
This was messaging.
"One of your people put their hands on someone I've decided to train," I said quietly.
His eyes flickered—processing.
Protégé meant ownership structure.
Ownership meant hierarchy crossing.
"Effective immediately," I continued, "she is under my name."
A ripple moved through the room.
Under my name.
That wasn't romance.
That was a declaration.
If anything happened to her, consequences climbed upward.
Blaze swallowed.
"…Who?" he forced out.
I leaned closer.
"You don't need her name," I said. "You need the boundary."
Then I lowered his face back to the ground deliberately—not a slam.
A press.
"If I hear rumors," I said, calm as a knife. "If I hear pressure tactics. If I hear someone 'accidentally' tests her…"
I paused, not for drama—for clarity.
"I won't escalate to fists," I finished. "I'll escalate to consequences."
His lackeys shifted in their seats.
None of them moved.
Everyone knew the same rule.
Class A wasn't a peer group.
It was a ceiling.
"Do you understand?" I asked.
Blaze's breathing was uneven.
"I understand," he said quickly.
Good.
I released him and stood.
On the way out, I glanced once at the Class C kid on the floor.
He met my eyes like I had just rewritten his future.
I ignored it.
Kindness wasn't the point.
Structure was.
Behind me, Blaze's voice returned—lower now, bitterly practical.
"Tandy," he muttered to one of his faction members. "Find out who she is."
Of course.
He wouldn't retaliate directly.
He'd look for leverage.
That was fine.
Let him look.
Back at the Dorm
Steam clouded the room when I returned.
The shower was still running. The bed had a damp patch where Maya had collapsed mid-circulation earlier.
I fixed the sheets automatically and sat cross-legged on the floor.
"Status."
Magic Energy: 210.
It had climbed steadily.
Still not enough.
Watching Maya made one thing obvious:
Talent widened the gap faster than effort alone.
If her activation cost was 730, she needed at least double that in capacity to wield it safely.
Which meant I needed enough to inject, stabilize, and not cripple myself in the process.
The bathroom door opened.
Maya stepped out with wet hair wrapped loosely in a towel.
Cleaner. Quieter.
Still cautious.
"Did you… handle it?" she asked.
I nodded once.
"That side won't bother you."
She studied my expression like she was trying to measure how expensive that sentence was.
"Thank you," she said softly.
Then, after a second: "Classes start soon."
She didn't want to leave.
It was obvious in the way she said it like a warning instead of a fact.
"You're not hiding in here," I said. "You go to class. You act normal. You don't respond to provocation. Not yet."
She nodded.
"Good."
We stepped into the hallway together.
A few students glanced at her.
Then at me.
Then looked away.
The shift was immediate.
Information traveled fast.
Good.
"Today's important," I said casually as we walked. "Weapon rotation."
She blinked. "Spiritual weapons?" she asked.
I glanced at her, mildly surprised. "You know about them?"
"I've heard," she said. "But Class E doesn't—"
"Doesn't get first pick," I finished.
She understood immediately.
"Go early," I told her. "Don't hesitate. Choose something you can grow into, not something flashy."
She nodded, then hurried ahead before doubt could catch her.
I watched until she disappeared around the corridor.
Not because I didn't trust her.
Because the Triangle rewarded awareness.
When she turned the corner, I exhaled.
Helping her wasn't charity.
It was investment.
Level 10 abilities didn't appear randomly.
They appeared at fault lines.
And the Triangle was sitting on one.
I closed my eyes.
The first arc villain would appear soon.
In the original story, he destabilized half of Class A before anyone understood what was happening.
If the timeline stayed even partially aligned—
chaos was coming.
I opened my eyes.
"Alright," I muttered.
Time to stop reacting.
Time to get ahead.
Because next time violence happened in these halls—
I wouldn't be responding to it.
I'd be shaping it.