Success is a test of temperature. Too warm, and you melt. Too cold, and you break.
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Day 2 of the Project · Initial Progress Report
By the afternoon of the second day, the team submitted their first framework draft.
The report was disturbingly efficient—Elric led the structural design and logic modeling with sharp precision, seamless data alignment, and nearly perfect time control.
Professor James left a note in the faculty group chat:
"Elric Zane's model is too refined for this level. Recommend archiving it as a benchmark case."
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Break Room · Gwynne Holding the Report in Silence
She stared at the data sheet in front of her without flipping the page.
"You know this data isn't real," she said softly, not accusatory—just tired.
"That community feedback form only had a 40% response rate. You filled in the rest."
Elric didn't look up.
"You extrapolated based on trends. The model isn't wrong," she added.
He nodded slightly. "It's clean."
She replied, quietly:
"But it's not the truth."
"You covered the gaps with logic—but the gaps were the part that mattered."
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Hallway · A Brief Confrontation
She followed him out to the stairwell and finally said,
"I'm not asking you to be softer. I'm afraid you're becoming too perfect—so perfect it's stripping the humanity out."
"When you begin to see flaws as something to design around, you stop being the person I met at the beginning."
He stopped walking.
For a moment, the overhead light cast flickers across his face—sharp light and blurred shadow.
His gaze was quiet. Detached.
"I didn't change," he said. "I just realized—human warmth is expensive in a system like this."
She said nothing. Only stepped back, slightly.
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Downstairs Café · Idris Vale's Offer
Idris sat at a table with Marissa, a coffee in front of them.
He slid over a sleek project booklet. Her name was on the cover.
"I added your name into the credits," he said. "If the panel recommends this, co-signing will help your application for the internship track."
Marissa's eyes lit up, unsure.
"Really? I didn't do that much…"
"You staying or not," he said casually, "isn't about contribution. It's about whether you're worth keeping."
He took a sip of coffee. His eyes drifted to the window, calm but unreadable.
"I see a direction in you. These programs don't measure beginnings—they measure trajectories."
She nodded. She believed him.
She didn't know that a line from her casual voice memo two nights ago had been turned—word for word—into a 'case study of youth anxiety under unstable housing.' It was now part of the final draft.
She was the subject. She just didn't know it.
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Late Night · Elric Alone with the Watch
11PM. The training center was quiet, only the night lights left.
Elric sat alone in a meeting room, the team's logs and submitted records spread before him.
When he flipped open Idris's personal summary, his hand paused.
The wording was too polished. Too strategic.
He had no proof, but it didn't read like something a student would draft casually.
He closed his eyes.
And Gwynne's voice echoed in his head:
"You're not cold-blooded. You're just starting to understand how the system works."
Tick. Tick.
The pocket watch on the table clicked steadily.
It wasn't just telling time.
It was asking: Is this still your line? Or have you already crossed it?
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End of Chapter Message
Not every deviation gets flagged.
But every time you let it slide,
you step one more inch away from where you started.
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Chapter 30 · The First Lie You Can't Unsee Comes from the Person Who Seemed Harmless
—Not every lie is hostile. Some are dressed in kindness, but born for gain.