Pale morning sunlight slipped through the cracks of dorm room 402's window, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air. Aster Vale opened his eyes, and the first thing to greet him wasn't a warm salutation from the god of luck, but pulsing red digital numbers in the corner of his vision.
[COUNTDOWN: 54 HOURS 12 MINUTES 08 SECONDS.]
Aster let out a heavy sigh and wiped his greasy face. He sat on the edge of his bed and stared at the floor. Right beside the tin plate he used to burn mosquito repellent, three sets of tight black outfits and three gleaming, perforated daggers lay there, their surfaces dull and grim.
"Toby," Aster called, his voice hoarse. "Why are there ninja outfits and daggers on the floor? Did some senior students from the theater class get drunk and throw up in our room?"
Toby, who was brewing instant coffee with water from a thermos, turned around and scratched his messy head. "No idea, Aster. They were already there this morning. Maybe they left behind some training props. Weird, though. The clothes look like they tear way too easily. The ends are practically crumbling into ash."
Before Aster could process the weirdness, Kaelen had already moved. With movements far too fast and practiced for an ordinary student, the young man picked up all three daggers and black outfits and slipped them into the spatial ring on his finger.
"Allow me to take care of this, Master," Kaelen said quietly, his eyes narrowing meaningfully. "You need not sully your hands with last night's leftover 'mosquitoes.' The secret of your room's cleanliness is safe with me."
Aster could only stare blankly at Kaelen. 'Since when do mosquito scraps come in human clothing sizes and get made from anti-magic steel?!' But before Aster could object, their door was kicked open, slamming hard against the wall.
Professor Balthazar stood in the doorway. The middle-aged man's face looked ten years older than the last time Aster had seen him at the black market. Dark circles hung beneath his eyes, and his ceremonial robes were rumpled, as if he'd just fought a storm. In his hand, he clutched a piece of parchment radiating blood-red light.
"Aster Vale. Pack your things. Or better yet, get ready to run," Balthazar said, his voice heavy with urgency.
"Run? Where? I still have an unpaid dorm bill—"
"This isn't about money!" Balthazar cut him off, throwing the parchment onto Aster's desk. "An S-Class Arrest Warrant. Signed directly by the Supreme Council of Menara Sihir. As of this morning, you've officially been branded an 'Abyss Terrorist.'"
Aster froze. His eyes fixed on the parchment. The red ink on it seemed to drip like blood.
"Charges: Using forbidden-level dark magic to kill Inquisitor Vance and deliberately triggering an Abyss Flare to summon the Doomsday Wave," Balthazar read bitterly. "Menara Sihir has issued a kill-on-sight order. Whoever brings them your head will receive a bounty of one hundred thousand gold coins."
"A terrorist?!" Aster leaped off his bed, panic exploding through him. "I'm just a junk dealer! And Vance was the one whose stomach was bloated with parasites—I only gave him whitening toothpaste! Besides, why does Menara Sihir even care about me?!"
"Because Menara Sihir has been infiltrated, you idiot!" Balthazar hissed as he stepped inside and shut the door tight. "The Abyss faction within Menara has seized control of half the Board of Directors. They're using Vance's death and the Abyss Flare as justification for martial law. They want to hunt you down and silence you before you expose any more of their agents in disguise."
Aster's knees went weak. The Abyss Doomsday was only fifty-four hours away, and now the most powerful magical institution on the continent wanted to chop off his head.
"Professor Balthazar, let me scan this room," a cold, analytical woman's voice came from the hallway.
A woman with short silver hair stepped inside. She wore brass-plated protective goggles, with numerous lenses rotating around her eyes. In her hand, she held a mana-scanning wand that ticked like a steam engine. This was Seraphina, Head of the Academy's Department of Runology and Artifacts, a genius known for having no empathy and caring only about antiques.
"Seraphina, we don't have time for a search—" Balthazar began.
"Protocol, Balthazar. If he's really an Abyss Terrorist, there must be a dark artifact hidden here," Seraphina cut him off, her eyes magnified by the lenses of her protective goggles as they swept over the messy room.
Aster backed away, hugging his sack of junk. "Hey, don't search my room! There's nothing here but scrap metal and dented pots! No dark artifacts!"
Seraphina ignored him. The scanning wand ticked louder and louder as she approached Aster's desk. Her eyes locked onto a dented, rusty tin lunch box in the corner.
"A lunch box? That can't be..." Seraphina murmured. She moved closer, ignoring Aster's protests as he tried to snatch the box away.
"Don't touch it! There's salted fish inside, with a stone on top to keep the smell in!" Aster cried in a panic.
But Seraphina had already turned the dial on her protective goggles, activating the highest-level [Runic Eye of Truth]. She stared through the dented tin, focusing on the "Cracked Stone" Aster had picked up at the black market several days ago.
Suddenly, one of Seraphina's lenses cracked. A sharp snap shattered the silence of the room.
The scanning wand in her hand exploded into splinters of wood and gears. Seraphina staggered backward, gasping for breath, her face deathly pale as if she'd just stared into the face of the god of death.
"This... This isn't an ordinary cracked stone," Seraphina said, her voice trembling as she stared wide-eyed at the lunch box. "Its crystal structure... The concept bound within it... This is an Earth Dragon Heart Scale! A mythological artifact containing the [Doomsday-Repelling Concept]! This thing can anchor a dimensional rift and absolutely repel the entry of Abyss entities!"
Before Aster's eyes, the system screen blinked casually. [WARNING: A MORTAL ENTITY HAS SCANNED 'SALTED-FISH WEIGHT STONE.'] [CONCEPT REVEALED. MORTAL IS EXPERIENCING AN EPIPHANY SHOCK.]
"You..." Seraphina dropped to her knees in front of Aster's desk, staring at the lunch box with tears welling in her eyes. "You used a sky-defying artifact... as a salted-fish weight?!"
"The stone is heavy, and it's just the right size to keep the lid closed so Toby won't steal my food," Aster answered honestly, completely unaware of the gravity of his words.
But inside the mind of the genius yet eccentric Seraphina, the pieces of the puzzle suddenly came together, forming a grand and terrifying picture.
She stared at Aster. This man branded a terrorist had deliberately triggered the Abyss Flare. And now he possessed an Earth Dragon Heart Scale.
'I understand now,' Seraphina thought, her entire body trembling with intellectual euphoria. 'He's not insane. He's the Architect! He triggered the Abyss Flare to lure the entire enemy army to a single set of coordinates, and with this Dragon Scale, he'll create an absolute zero zone! A sealed stage for a holy war where no Abyss monsters can escape!'
Seraphina suddenly crawled forward and seized Aster's hand, clasping it tightly between both of hers.
"Make me your disciple!" Seraphina cried, her eyes blazing with a fanaticism as insane as Kaelen's. "Or at the very least, let me be your chronicler! Let me document your tactical masterpiece! I'll falsify Menara Sihir's scan data. I'll be your spy inside the Council! I'll prepare the stage for your holy war, Master!"
Balthazar gaped, staring at his usually cynical colleague, now kneeling in worship before a student holding a rusty lunch box.
In the corner of the room, Kaelen smiled faintly and nodded slowly, filled with profound respect. 'Incredible. Master didn't even have to lift a finger. Just by letting them see his "junk," he managed to recruit the head of a Menara Sihir department into his faction.'
Meanwhile, Aster could only stare at the moldy ceiling of his room, feeling tears of despair welling in the corners of his eyes.
'System,' Aster groaned inwardly. 'Please kill me now. Or at least tell me how to sell this salted fish before these lunatics put me on trial as a false prophet.'