KON POV

The Academy opening ceremony unfolded as expected. It began with the typical series of dull and seemingly endless speeches, leaving me sympathizing with those who work jobs requiring them to stand still for hours on end. My condolences to the hot bar workers.

Strangely, the principal couldn't make it and instead delegated his speech to the vice principal. As the teachers took their turn to address the gathering, I found myself losing interest altogether.

Instead, I found myself playing around with the enhanced intent reading abilities I had gained from the Arcanum.

First, I focused on connecting my consciousness to my core. It took some time, but eventually, I located the flickering orange embers within. With practice, I knew accessing it would become faster and smoother, almost like muscle memory, perhaps even instinctual.

I observed the dancing embers for a moment, mesmerized by their warmth and comfort. If my room heater ever broke down, perhaps I could rely on this instead. However, I needed to regenerate my prana before I could make full use of it. While I hadn't tested what would happen if I ran out of prana, I suspected it wouldn't be too detrimental.

It seemed like a category of stamina all its own, distinct from mental and physical stamina. More tests were needed, but I didn't want to deplete them right now, not when my core had barely stabilized. So, why not just use a tiny bit of it for fun?

Area of intent reading.

It was like intent reading, but instead of focusing on a particular person, I developed a range of awareness that extended to the intents of beings surrounding me. I pushed the range to its limit, covering the entire gym building. At that point, it started to strain my capacity, so I stopped and began concentrating.

I tuned out the teachers' speeches and other noises as my eyes began to dim. I could feel my awareness spreading, existing anywhere within the established perimeter. No longer focused solely on what was in front of me, it felt as though I was seeing things from above, or from another dimension.

I could sense the guy three rows behind me twitching and shaking his legs for some reason. A girl five meters to my left was tapping on her phone, expertly hiding it from the teacher's line of sight. A couple of rows in front of me, a guy yawned and picked his nose. The nearby teacher who saw him looked visibly annoyed. I suspected there would be a scolding session after this. Good luck, dude.

As expected, while it's intriguing to sense everything around me as if I were a chess player observing the board from above, this skill isn't omnipotent.

For instance, the guy shaking his leg could be doing so out of frustration and impatience, but I can't discern if it's because he's tired of listening to the speech or if his leg is simply hurting. To understand his motivations, I'd need to study his features and reasoning in greater detail to build a connection to his actions.

Similarly, while I can sense the girl tapping on her phone with a smirk, indicating she likely has a scheme in mind, I can't know the specifics of what she typed or what her scheme entails unless I can read every button she tapped, which is highly improbable.

Then there was the guy who yawned and picked his nose. Wait... Is that Zack?

Uh, he's flicking boogers into other students' backs. Was he aiming for a bullseye?

I can feel the teacher's rage building up, even from here. Venti beside him notices this and just watches Zack while giggling like a donkey. At this point, the teacher's face is redder than a tomato and more scrunched up than a tossed paper. I pretend not to notice them. You're on your own, buddy; I'd rather take it easy on my first day at the academy.

I wonder if I can use it to read lips.

Hm, no.

No, I can't. It's just intent and general features. That's why I was able to locate Zack and Venti among the sea of students. I have spent a lot of time with them and their intent became unique and imprinted in my mind. Sort of like a defining feature of a person that one can't forget.

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Now let’s see, what else can I test it-

DANGER!

I broke out of my intent reading immediately and held myself still from staggering backward out of surprise. Concentration backlash. I can feel my prana circuit flared a bit from being cut off so abruptly and my ember flickered wildly for a brief second.

Just now, I felt a pair of eyes aiming its intent directly at me. It was so sudden and the intent was so loud, it blared through my mind like a siren.

Shoot, I haven't been masking my intent before reading other people's, did I?

Oh, God.

I hold no illusion that I am the only one out here who is capable of reading intent. Many are just as capable if not far better. What happened just now is proof of that.

I calmed myself down and thought back on the intent that was locking on me. I don’t think it’s a warning, let alone a desire to harm me. It’s just there, making itself known to me. I suspect it has been observing me observing people for quite a while before it just decided to show its face like a badly cut movie frame.

Ugh, I’m going to regret this, aren’t I…..

As if being jumped scared once was not enough, I composed myself and summoned my ember once more to mask my intent. My eyes dimmed even more as my previous deadpan face was now a legit poker face. I could feel myself stand perfectly still and my overall presence became a little more imperceptible.

The nature of masking one’s intent affects one’s presence too, that’s why I couldn’t detect where the pair of eyes is coming from just now. However, with this, it will be like a game of hide and seek, except we are both hiding and seeking each other at the same time.

Well, I already made my intent known back then, and he or she already knows where I am so it’s just me seeking them now. At least this time my intent to find him or her is masked. My curiosity got the better of me since I wanted to know who detected me. There was no malice, so I’m free to try again, right?

Right?

I summoned my ember once more to widen my perception range, except this time I poured in more prana to see and perceive the surroundings in greater detail. Every twitch in facial expression, every tick in their fingers, every body movement that looks suspicious enough whenever my intent is directed at them.

There was none among the students, but I found her.

It was a teacher. She had been standing there staring at me in plain sight. Our eyes met and I instantly froze like a rabbit that had poked its head out of the bush and came face-first into a waiting wolf.

She had blonde-colored hair tied up neatly into a bun with square glasses adorning her face. Her body proportion was slim and busty yet toned with a healthy thigh right below the pencil skirt. She wore black leggings. I could feel my mouth drying up as she playfully gazed into my eyes and crossed her arms together to accentuate her upper chest in my direction.

When she smiled, fear overtook me as I felt a shiver down my spine. The mask that I wore to defend myself from her intent reading broke into pieces like brittle glass the moment it reached me. I should have broken eye contact right about now, but I simply couldn’t. Like a deer caught in a headlight, my mind was running a hundred miles per hour but my body refused to listen.

Is this what a true intent can do to people?

It is said that the eyes are the window to the soul. The ember inside my core was thrashing around wildly as she began to peer in deeper and dissect me little by little. My breathing pattern, my body language, my small imperceptible reactions as she probed me with her intent.

This is bad. Very bad. Extremely bad...

She is going to see the inside of my core. She is going to see my Arcanum!

Closing my eyes or averting them wouldn’t work since I was currently paralyzed senseless. So, the only thing I could do was to push away her influence from deep inside me and start from the ground up.

I flared my Ember and evoked its heat intensity throughout my prana circuit, flooding them with my presence and pushing hers back.

Surprisingly, her influence relented, and she allowed me to push it further and further away from me until it was completely expelled from my body. My eyes stopped dimming as I exited the trance.

Finally breaking eye contact with her, my knees buckled, and I almost stumbled forward from the exertion. It was taxing, both physically and mentally. And there was something else – my mind felt sluggish, as if everything was a chore, even breathing or lifting myself back up. Oh no, had it taken away my willpower too?

This prana thing is far too dangerous. Forget a double-edged sword, I am strapping myself with a sword that can slide down its handle and stab me in the foot! Well, the sword can shoot some magic, so that is kind of cool.

I held my intent back and masked myself again in case she decided to try something. Slowly looking up, I found her still smiling at me, but this time there was a hint of amusement in the corner of her lips. My neck broke out into a cold sweat when she licked her lips.

I just had to poke my nose into it, didn’t I? Haha. Three days in and my Arcanum was almost revealed, by a teacher no less.

I think she could feel my fear and trepidation because when she got up on the stage to give a brief speech, she ended it with a wink in my direction. Students hooted and cheered for having such a model-like teacher playfully giving them attention.

Me? I just stood there, sweating even harder like a magnified toad. It wouldn’t have been a surprise if she had decided to pounce on me right there and ragdoll me around by the neck.

To make matters worse, she will be my homeroom teacher.

Mon Dieu.

I am screwed. So royally screwed.