Chapter 42: Gossips

Night had settled fully over the city by the time Rael finally sat down with nothing left to do. The apartment was quiet. The plastic-covered furniture still gave the place a temporary feel, but the silence itself felt like a luxury. For the first time since returning he could look at his status without interruption or danger hanging over him.

He remembered the system message that had appeared when he nearly died: System 2.0. He had never heard the term before. In the real world the Status was a simple window—stats, skills, nothing more. It was not some overpowered game system that handed out quests or cheats. Yet the words still lingered in his mind like the opening screen of a game he had just unlocked.

"Status."

The familiar panel unfolded in front of him, cleaner and more detailed than before.

╔══════════ STATUS ═════════╗

Name: Rael

Race: Human

Level: 13

Main Class: Analyze (E-Rank), Infernomancer (B-Rank)

Bloodline: Abyssal Sovereign

Stage: Dormant

Effect: +100% Growth Multiplier

━━━━━━━━ ATTRIBUTES ━━━━━━━━

Strength: 42

Agility: 48

Mana: 46

Vitality: 42

Intelligence: 10 (New) (Sealed)

Unallocated Stats: 6

━━━━━━━━ RESOURCES ━━━━━━━━━

Souls: 23

HP: 42 / 42

━━━━━━━━ SKILLS ━━━━━━━━━━━

Inferno Bolt (Expert) (5%)

Hellfire (Expert) (3%)

Flame Manipulation (Master) (4%)

━━━━━━ BLOODLINE SKILLS ━━━━━━━

Conceal (Grandmaster)

╚═════════════════════════╝

A quiet thrill ran through him. It felt exactly like the moment in a game when the character finally received the long-awaited class upgrade and a handful of new skills. The numbers were higher. The options were wider. He wanted to test everything at once.

Infernomancer had replaced Flamecaller completely. Archer and Soulbinder were gone—sacrificed during the evolution. His original Copy class had become Analyze at E-Rank. He opened the description.

[Analyze] (E-Rank)

Allows you to analyze a copied class. If you fully understand the properties and principles of the copied class, you can permanently make it your Main Class.

Slots: 3 Remaining

Then his eyes landed on the line that did not belong.

Intelligence: 10 (New) (Sealed)

10. The number was absurd. Before awakening he had been the top student of his year. His memory was closer to perfect than photographic; once he saw something he almost never forgot it. Yet during the first realm Aurelia had manipulated him with almost no effort, and there had been moments when his thoughts felt strangely slow. The sealed status suggested someone—or something—had interfered. Leveling up was the only clear path to raising it. He would have to grow stronger simply to think as clearly as he once had.

Then other implications settled in slowly, then all at once. If he could fully understand a class, he could keep it forever. No more one-month limit. Combined with Conceal, the possibilities were almost unfair. He could become anyone. A perfect infiltrator. A first-rate assassin if he ever chose that path. The thought was tempting for half a second, but it was not what he wanted. His old dream had always been the same: a mage-warrior who could fight with both blade and spell. His family had drilled dark-element swordsmanship into him since childhood. If his affinity had been dark instead of fire he could have used those forms already. For now fire would have to do. He would work with what he had.

He turned his attention to the new Infernomancer skills. Inferno Bolt, Hellfire, and Flame Manipulation each carried a small percentage next to the mastery rank. The system had told him earlier that mastery could rise through use and understanding alone. No souls required. That single change made everything feel different. It was like being handed a character who could grow infinitely as long as the player kept practicing. He found himself already planning the next day’s training—how to shape the flames, how far he could push control, how the new skills would feel in real combat.

He closed the status window and picked up the new phone. The quiet excitement of the power-up still hummed under his skin, but curiosity about the world he had left behind pulled stronger. He opened the news and went straight to the trending list of new rising stars.

Faces from the academy filled the feed. Many of his former classmates had already cleared the First Realm and were making names for themselves in Aetherion, the Second Realm. Most awakeners returned within a month. The fact that people were still missing after four months in Bloomingdale remained an unsolved stain on the city’s record.

One name sat at the top of nearly every article.

Seraphine Strombane.

Daughter of the Strombane family head, another sovereign house on the same level as the Blackthorns. Rael had seen her at university and at formal gatherings. They had never been friends. She had always ranked second to him in exams and practical evaluations, and she had never hidden her dislike. He had never returned the hostility; being first had simply been normal. If someone hated him for it, the solution was to surpass him. Now the articles declared her this year’s top awakener. She had taken the position he once occupied without effort. A faint, unfamiliar sting of jealousy surfaced before he pushed it aside.

Further down he found Adrian Gale.

Lightning Swordsman—S-Rank. The same irritating presence from university, born into yet another sovereign family, impossible to ignore completely. The article showed him standing with a party that made Rael stop scrolling.

Eve Starborne and Matthew Rockwell.

His former best friends. Eve had once had a quiet crush on him. Rael never returned her feelings but still considered her a good friend; Matthew had clearly liked her all that time and later he had grown strange whenever the three of them were together. And when Rael was classified as Classless he was the one who was most happy. But what Rael find funny was according to the article, Adrian and Eve had been found together inside the Dream Realm and were now publicly linked romantically. Neither had confirmed a relationship, but the photos and captions left little doubt. Rael stared at the screen for a second, then let out a short, genuine laugh. He could almost picture Matthew’s face when the news reached him—the moment he thought the path was finally clear, only for Adrian to walk away with her. The absurdity of it felt sharper than it should have. "Wait why am I liking gossips so much." For a brief moment Rael wondered whether the less Intelligence was making the gossip more entertaining than it deserved to be.

He kept reading. Other names appeared—new guild recruitments, early dungeon clears, a few quiet scandals among the noble heirs who had returned on schedule. The four months he had missed were already being written into official records and social columns. The world had continued without him, assigning new ranks and new favorites while he fought to stay alive in a place that should not have existed.

Rael set the phone down on the sofa and leaned back. The apartment remained quiet. Outside the window the city lights glowed in layered bands of neon and mana-lamp white. The power-up still sat in his chest like a banked fire, waiting. Tomorrow he would test the new skills. Tomorrow he would begin turning percentages into real control. Tonight, for the first time in a long while, he simply sat with the knowledge that he was stronger than when he had left, and that the game—whatever shape it now took—had only just started again. He is going to rise to the top once again.

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