Night fell slowly over the academy not as a blanket, but as a breathing, shifting thing. The sky deepened from violet to ink, and the lights in the dormitory halls dimmed one by one as the Engine lowered its activity for the nightly cycle.
Rin sat on the edge of his bed, shoes already tied.
He waited.
The moment the final chime of the academy's patrol wards passed overhead, the System's voice murmured in his mind soft, but threaded with urgency.
Rin rose without hesitation. His hands trembled not from fear, but from anticipation. For the first time since he arrived at the academy, he wasn't obeying rules or following a class assignment.
He was leaving to hunt.
Not for credits.Not for training points.
But for knowledge.
Slipping Through the Sleeping Academy
The corridors were shadows layered upon deeper shadows. Rin moved quietly, barefoot on stone, remembering the breathing rhythm the System had taught him earlier a pattern that made his presence blur against spiritual senses around him.
The academy wards shimmered faintly at the courtyard's edge, an enormous dome of silver lines humming with Flux. Students were forbidden from exiting after dark unless part of a supervised hunt team.
Rin placed his palm just above the surface of the ward.
The silver surface rippled. For a heartbeat, the ward's flux patterns twisted the System forcing a narrow opening by syncing with its rhythm. A single slit widened just enough for a human body to slide through.
Rin slipped out, exhaling the moment his feet touched the outer grass.
Behind him, the ward sealed with a whisper.
Into the Wild Belt
The forest beyond the academy was nothing like the calm training groves inside. Here, the trees were thicker, ancient, and full of silent motion. The moonlight filtered through jagged branches, creating tangled layers of faint blue and deep black.
Every plant had Flux. Every insect carried a faint hum. Even the wind felt alive.
The System's interface unfolded over Rin's vision in translucent glyphs.
Rin nodded and walked deeper, letting his senses stretch. Since the System's awakening update, he felt the world differently. Flux threads could be felt like warm or cold currents brushing his skin.
Some were red-hot. Some cold and smooth like flowing water. Some breezy, sharp, or earthy.
Different. Alive.
Monsters did not cultivate like humans. They grew through the absorption of raw Flux, letting it crystalize inside their cores forming colored stones, each tied to an elemental attribute.
Tonight, Rin needed to understand them.
All of them.
First Encounter — Ember Tail Hare
A faint rustle brushed the undergrowth.
Rin dropped low.
A small creature hopped into view rabbit-like, but its tail glowed bright orange, flickering like a tiny flame.
[Ember Tail Hare — Low Rank Beast][Attribute: Fire]
The System highlighted its movement pattern, predicting arcs where the creature might jump.
Rin picked up a fallen branch.
He didn't need a real weapon not tonight.
The hare sensed him and darted. Rin lunged, sweeping the branch down. The creature collapsed with a soft yelp.
A faint red glow rose from its chest.
Its core.
Small, warm, swirling with orange-red motes like embers suspended in honey.
Rin lifted it carefully.
The System chimed.
"Yes…" Rin whispered mentally.
The core dissolved into a map of moving lines thousands of tiny threads of flux weaving and spinning.
Rin's heart raced.
This was knowledge worth sneaking out for.
Distinct Crystals, Distinct Laws
Rin stored the hare body under leaves and walked deeper.
He soon encountered a Blue-Scaled Newt clinging to a rock near a pond. Its eyes reflected moonlight in ripples of sapphire.
A quick strike with a sharpened stone ended the beast silently.
Its core was blue, cold to the touch water-aligned.
In another clearing, a Windcrest Moth fluttered wildly, leaving shimmering silver dust in its wake. Rin trapped it gently in a leaf net.
Its core was silver, as light as breath.
Further in, he encountered a Verdant Bark Lizard, camouflaged against a thick tree root. When defeated, it left behind a soft green core, pulsing like a beating seed.
And then a heavy thud from the ground revealed an Earthbound Mole, which moved like a tiny living boulder.
Its core was yellow, dense and squared like a rough pebble.
One by one, the differences became clear:
Fire crystals: fluid heat, swirling fast
Water crystals: smooth spirals, cooling
Wood crystals: layered cycles, regenerative
Air crystals: light, unstable, sharp
Earth crystals: compact, heavy, steady
But deeper inside the forest, Rin sensed something else.
A different signature Sharper Heavier Like space bending slightly.
His breath caught.
A rare type.
A Strange Signature — Beyond the Basics
The System's voice tightened.
Rin shook his head.
"No. I want to see it."
The forest ahead warped faintly, like heat waves rising from stone. Even the air seemed to vibrate.
Then he saw it crouched atop a boulder half-covered in moss.
A Night Rift Lynx.
Its eyes glimmered purple, and each step it took left behind a faint ripple in space. Its fur shimmered as though refusing to stay fully inside the world.
Mid-rank. Dangerous.
But Rin didn't need to fight it.
He just needed its flux pattern.
The System dimmed its glow to avoid detection.
Rin crouched behind a fallen log.
The lynx growled, scanning the trees.
For a moment, the world seemed to twist the lynx stepping from one spot to the next without moving.
Rin felt sweat on his palms.
Flux could do that? Fold space?
He wanted to touch it, to feel it, to see how it worked. But the System's tone sharpened:
The lynx's ears pricked. Its head snapped toward Rin's hiding spot.
Rin didn't breathe.
The lynx stared for several seconds muscles coiled, eyes glowing.
Then…
It vanished. Reappeared ten meters away. Continued walking.
Rin exhaled shakily.
System Revelation — The Bigger Pattern
Once the danger passed, the System opened a wide holographic diagram before him a layered circle of colors and symbols.
Multiple icons flickered:
Red: Fire
Blue: Water
Green: Wood
Silver: Air
Yellow: Earth
Then others appeared:
Violet: Space
Black-Gold: Gravity
White: Light
Obsidian: Shadow
Rin's breath caught.
"There are… more?"
"Forbidden?"
Rin looked down at the crystals he collected each glowing faintly in the night.
Tonight wasn't just a hunt.
It was a window into how the world truly functioned.
Return to the Academy
The moon had shifted low by the time Rin made his way back to the academy boundary. The System reopened the narrow passage in the ward, weaker than before.
Rin squeezed through, sprinting quietly back to the dorm.
He placed all the crystals on his table.
Red. Blue. Green. Silver. Yellow.
Each one hummed with a unique vibration.
But his mind lingered on the purple flicker of that lynx the way space bent around it.
He sat cross-legged and whispered mentally:
"System…Teach me how to understand them all."
The System hesitated.
Then:
Rin opened his eyes slowly, determination bright.
"Then I'll just have to grow faster."
The System pulsed once approval, uncertainty, and warning layered together.
Outside, dawn's first wind swept across the academy grounds.
A new day was waiting.
A new path too.