"Are you seriously still staring at his student profile?" Runo asked, tossing a small plush toy up into the air and catching it. "Maya, you have been sighing at that screen for an hour."

"I am not sighing," Maya muttered, her cheeks burning bright red as she quickly turned her terminal face-down on her bed. She pressed her palms flat against the mattress and stared at the ceiling, as if that might somehow erase the last sixty seconds.

"You are absolutely sighing. And blushing. Don’t get me wrong, it’s sweet, but also completely delusional."

"I am just checking to see if his medical status updated," Maya defended herself, pulling her knees up to her chest.

Runo sat up and crossed her arms. "Maya, he is an F-Rank with a shattered core. He is literally at the bottom of the academy rankings. You have had this weird, secret crush on him for how long now, and I supported it when it was just you quietly staring at the back of his head in Rune Theory class. But now it is getting out of hand."

"It isn’t out of hand," Maya insisted. "And he isn’t just an F-Rank. He saved us, Runo. He saved the entire squad yesterday."

"Jax saved you," Runo corrected, pointing the plush toy at her. "When that Beast smashed the floor and the ground split open, Jax is the one who lunged backward, grabbed your collar, and pulled you away from that twenty-foot chasm. Zen was on the completely opposite side of the room."

"I know Jax pulled me back, and I am very grateful to him," Maya said, her voice steadying. "But Zen is the one who stopped the monster from killing all of us."

"By poking a terminal?" Runo scoffed.

"He didn’t just poke it!" Maya’s voice rose with sudden passion. "You weren’t there, Runo. You didn’t see the way he moved. The extraction beacon was completely locked out. That corrupted Aggro-Lure was drawing the beast right to us. Everyone was panicking."

"And Zen?"

"He didn’t even flinch," Maya whispered, her eyes widening slightly at the memory. "He was completely isolated on the other side of the gap. A corrupted D-Rank boss was literally breathing down his neck, shaking the entire cavern. But he just stood there, completely calm, and manually rewired an encrypted military panel in seconds. It was like he had seen a thousand monsters like that before and was just annoyed by it. He didn’t even look scared, Runo. Not once. And you know how loud that thing was... the whole cavern was shaking. But his hands were completely steady."

Runo stared at her roommate for a long moment. "Okay, fine. So he kept his cool under pressure. That still doesn’t mean you should throw yourself at him."

"I’m not," Maya replied, staring blankly for a second. "But Zen is different. I have always known he was different."

"Yeah... different by being so fragile."

"I won’t let anyone hurt him," Maya said defensively. She reached out to grab her cup of tea from the bedside table.

Then, she flinched and her body locked.

"Maya? Did you burn yourself?" Runo asked, sitting up.

"No... I..." Maya gasped. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Her chest heaved violently as she dropped the teacup, which shattered against the floor and spilled hot liquid across the rug. But Maya didn’t even notice.

"Hey, what is wrong? Are you having a panic attack?"

"It is... so much..." Maya whispered, her hands clawing desperately at her own chest.

It felt like her soul was being ripped wide open.

Then a sudden, violent rush of pure, emerald-green Vitality mixed with blinding, golden Imperial mana slammed into her core.

The pressure was unlike anything she had ever felt from her own core.

It wasn’t her mana, she could tell.

This was coming from somewhere else, pumping non-stop through the invisible tether she hadn’t truly understood until this exact second.

"Maya, your eyes are glowing!" Runo screamed. She dropped the plush toy and backed up against the far wall. "What is happening to you?!"

"I can’t... hold it!"

Maya stumbled backward off the bed. The sheer volume of the foreign mana was redlining her pathways. Her hands trembled violently. Her vision flickered between gold and green.

Her trembling fingers blindly swiped across the desk, desperately looking for something to anchor herself to. Her hand slapped down onto the dead, brown potted fern that Runo had forgotten to water for over two months.

The moment her skin touched the dry leaves, the excess Imperial mana violently vented out of her.

A shockwave of green and gold light rippled through the small dorm room, violently rattling the glass in the windows.

The dead fern erupted.

In an instant, the dead brown stems turned a bright, glowing green. Thick vines burst from the small clay pot, wrapping around the desk lamp and quickly climbing the wall.

Two large white flowers bloomed at the top, dropping soft golden sparks onto the carpet. The air in the room smelled sharply of rain and wet soil.

Runo pressed her back flat against the wall, staring at the indoor jungle in terror. "What did you just do?"

Maya fell to her knees, panting heavily.

Her academy uniform was soaked in sweat. The euphoric high of the massive mana rush slowly faded from her veins, leaving behind a terrifying, crystal-clear realization that settled deep in her bones.

"It is him," Maya whispered, clutching her chest right over her mana core.

"Who?!" Runo yelled. "How did you do this to my plant?!"

"Zen."

Maya could feel the connection now; it was undeniable. Her soul was permanently tethered to his, and the power wasn’t just warm... it was heavy. It pressed against the inside of her ribs like something that had always been there, only now deciding to breathe.

"Runo," Maya said, her voice shaking as she looked up at her terrified roommate. "He isn’t an F-Rank. He isn’t weak at all."

"Maya, you are scaring me."

"He is hiding," Maya breathed, watching the golden sparks fall from the blooming flowers. "He is hiding something completely terrifying."