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Chapter 2 - Chapter 2: Campus

The warning wasn't really something to be surprised about, he was more concerned about the voice.

Instability Zones happened often enough that they were just an annoying part of metropolitan life, like traffic or sudden rain, at least from what the media and internet has featured and revealed.

What was shocking was that this particular zone decided to pop up at his university today, well assumingly, according to the voice. It felt less like a real danger and more like the universe was personally trolling him. If this were a book, the author would definitely be laughing.

He ran a quick, internal check. The voice was alien, not the familiar, soft-edged mental signature of his mother, nor the steady warmth of his dad. It was high-frequency, like static, but with a strangely playful chime to it. Not a hallucination, thankfully. Just an unauthorized mental broadcast. Better, but only marginally.

"You forgot something, Son?" his dad asked from the doorway, slightly tilting his head at his son's momentary freeze.

"Nothing, Dad. I was just trying to remember if I left anything behind," Kai responded, forcing his tone to be light. It was exhausting having to use the Class B Psychic discipline training his mother had forced on him just to maintain a blank mental surface but it paid off now.

'Seriously, why do I need to hide my thoughts from the man who buys me cereal?'

"You sure, Buddy? Want to double-check your room? I'll grab the car from the garage," his dad offered, already stepping toward the exit.

As soon as his dad was out of sight, Kai dropped his mental guard.

He was a Convergent himself, one of the youngest registered at age ten, and knew the rules: only a Class C Convergent or higher could pull off this level of sustained, uninvited mental broadcast.

"So, there's an Instability Zone at my university?" he muttered. "and the WMA hasn't discovered it yet?"

"Yes. It's too dangerous for you. Do not go," the voice responded instantly, its transmission ringing vividly inside his skull. This time, the playful chime was overlaid with sharp concern.

"Seriously? Who are you? I'm not in the mood for a harmless prank," Kai demanded, his voice low but sharp with annoyance.

A mischievous sound rippled through his consciousness. "Hehehe. My, my. For someone who currently radiates the aura of a slightly grumpy golden retriever, you conceal so much valor, Kai."

"Can you please stop giggling in my head?" Kai whispered, feeling a wave of genuine creepiness.

"This is honestly freaking me out."

"Ah, well, If you don't want to listen, I'm curious and wanted to see the thing you're hiding inside you, perhaps, what you need is a sufficiently catastrophic trigger," the voice said, its tone suddenly shifting from teasing to cold.

"But upon second thought, go to your university."

Kai's jaw dropped. "Are you kidding me? You just spent a solid minute warning me about a Potentially. Catastrophic. Instability Zone, and now you're clearing me for launch? Are you kidding me?"

"Go," the voice insisted, and then, with a playful snap, it was gone.

"Hey!" he called out, but even after waiting for a good minute, there were no responses.

He hated it when he knew too much or he's being told beyond what he wants to know…

He had always lived by a principle of consuming just the right amount of information. Enough so he wouldn't be bothered by the world's constant impending doom, and that was a lesson he had learned the hard way.

His parents were WMA officers, so they usually talked about matters and events concerning the Fifth Force. He recalled the one time he spoke to his classmates about the things he overheard; they all panicked and cried. Apparently, he wasn't supposed to talk about man-eating monsters that hid in the darkness of night to his friends, even if he did it out of goodwill.

Since then, he had learned not to pry about his parents' work, and his parents had started conversing solely through telepathy when it was job-related.

"Ha, whatever, I'll tell Dad about this," he facepalmed, before heading out.

But contrary to his internal declaration, he arrived at his university without telling his father a single word, only offering a dismissive, "See you later, Dad."

"I hate this…" he muttered to himself, finding a quiet bench lane far from the main entrance.

"I don't feel a single sign of the Instability Zone," he said.

As a Convergent, he was supposed to be sensitive to fluctuations of Magic, especially an anomaly, but all he could feel right now was the cold post-winter breeze. But even then, he couldn't convince himself that it was just a prank.

"Whatever, there's still time till the Orientation. I'll go walk around just to be sure," he decided, heading in a specific direction.

He already knew the campus layout. He had studied the map, looking for secluded spots where an anomaly might brew silently, away from the crowds.

Memorizing things isn't really a big deal for him, or to most of Convergents. Their cognitive function will also improve the more they became proficient with handling Magic.

He wondered why the university had made a huge fountain so far from the main quadrangle.

"It's not like students would take the time to go here, the buildings are too far," he mused. It was annoying to him when people built useless things.

He circled the fountain a few times before moving on. Nothing suspicious.

He wasn't in a hurry, not minding if he missed the first parts of the orientation.

After checking out two more locations, placing him at the outskirts of the excessively huge campus, only then did doubt truly creep in.

The old library looked suspiciously normal.

Even less suspicious was the water garden situated far east, complete with a small pavilion shed, though he noted the Kois were definitely too fat, like some fishes might even be bigger than his arm, and this is considering him doing routine workouts too. 

"There's only the old sports pool. I swear, this better be the best saved for the last or something," he grumbled, forcing himself to go right to the final location, situated near the small hill.

He believed it was the most suspicious of the four locations he had guessed. But it wasn't wrong to check the less suspicious ones first, expecting some plot twist like in the TV dramas he watched as a kid.

He kept checking the time, making sure he wouldn't be too late to the Orientation, too the point of missing it. He figured he would only attend half-way for the formality, as the announcements would probably be the same old boring spiel.

And just as he approached the old sports building, he finally felt it. A cold, sickly ripple in the ambient MF.

"The voice was right," he concluded internally, "but this anomaly is at most, a Class 1 or Class 2 Anomaly. It's manageable, how is this a Catastrophic Trigger."

As a registered and licensed Class B Convergent, he knew enough about Anomalies and Instability Zones to proceed with basic first-response.

He currently didn't have any containment devices. However, he did remember the WMA Field Manuals stated that a Psychic agent, like him, or a Tether agent, could do some basic mitigations with their powers. Just that the scarcity of these two classes was the only reason the Association was troubled by the low-class zones popping up globally.

"Surely I wouldn't need a Psi-Conduit Injector (PCI) for this one, right?" he said.

He knew that for Class 3 Instability Zones (IZs) and higher, agents of the Sealing Corps required the use of PCIs to temporarily boost their power outputs, especially those with lower grades. But since this was a Class 1 or 2 IZ, he just needed to slowly seal off the leak or disperse the MF effectively so it wouldn't condense and progress more dangerously.

"I wonder what it's like inside this zone," he mumbled before deciding to enter the old building.

The front door of the building was slightly opened, so he peaked his head first, checking if there was anything alive inside that might endanger him. There was no harm in making sure.

True enough, what he saw was something he wished he didn't and wouldn't see in person.

It was a tall human-like creature standing on its feet, green skin, a body that could match an elephant in a tug-of-war, and it wore a hideously ugly face.

It's an Orc.

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