Chapter 89: Enhanced Cognition
"...Is that—?" Aria started.
"You didn’t—!" Mira gasped.
Elion chuckled wryly. "Yeah. I’m a DC officer now."
They both went silent.
Then—
"SINCE WHEN!?" Mira demanded, practically vibrating with excitent.
"I got offered the position the day Celeste brought
in," he said. "Today was my first official patrol."
He expected squeals, or at least the continued excitent.
Maybe even being shaken.
Instead—
"...Celeste, huh?" Aria repeated flatly. Her enthusiasm vanishing into a puff of smoke
He felt the change imdiately.
The smile on her face was completely gone.
"You’re already on a first-na basis with her?" Aria asked sweetly.
Cold sweat slid down his spine.
"Well, uh... I don’t actually know her last na, so I just call her Celeste."
Their eyes widened in surprise.
"...You don’t?" Aria asked.
They exchanged a look.
"Who the hell doesn’t know THE Celeste Chronos?" Mira said incredulously.
Elion blinked. "Chronos?" Had heard that na sowhere. He felt like he was supposed to know it from sowhere. It was right there, just at the back of his mind.
"Seriously?" Aria nodded grimly. "She is the second princess of the Chronos royal family."
"The Nightmare Kingdom. Otherwise known as the kingdom of vampires," Mira added helpfully.
Elion stopped walking.
"...You’re kidding."
They weren’t.
His mind reeled at the revelation. That small, calm, and stoic woman... was royalty from another race?
No wonder she felt untouchable. He let the thoughts settle in his mind, and they had an uneventful lunch together.
It all but passed in a haze of conversation, flirting, and laughter.
Spellcasting class afterward was... brutal.
For so reason, Professor Eveline was unusually serious today; her teasing edge was gone. She drove them hard, spell after spell, correction after correction, until most of the class staggered out with empty mana cores and trembling limbs.
By sundown, Elion was exhausted.
Dinner with Mira and Aria passed more quietly because they were all tired.
Afterward, he returned to his dorm alone as the girls went to bathe in their own rooms.
But Elion didn’t sleep.
Instead, he changed into his training clothes and reached for the sword that had been gathering dust in the corner of his room.
When was the last ti I even touched this thing?
He honestly couldn’t rember. It had been a gift from his father, yet it had seen little real use. Until now, it had been little more than a decorative accessory.
That was about to change.
Elion’s sword skills were nonexistent—his status made that painfully clear. None of his classes bore the title Swordsman. But that wasn’t because of a lack of desire to learn.
Every weapon he picked up had always felt unbearably heavy. Five swings were enough to leave him drenched in sweat, with his arms trembling, and his lungs burning.
So he had stopped trying.
Not anymore.
He made his way to one of the training rooms attached to the dorms and began practicing his strikes, over and over and over again.
Steel cut through the air again and again. The hours passed as the rhythm of his breathing synchronized with the asured arc of the blade, the sound echoing through the empty room.
His form was rusty at first—but familiar. More importantly, stamina was no longer a chain wrapped around his ankles. In an hour, he made more progress than all his previous attempts combined.
As ti trickled by, each swing grew sharper, cleaner, and more precise.
Before long, a faint ding sounded in his mind, but he didn’t hear it; he just kept swinging.
It was as if he had fallen into a trance. The world around him faded into nothingness.
[Ding]
[New Class Acquired: Swordsman — Basic Mastery: A basic combat class for those who train with a sword. Focuses on learning proper stances, strikes, and fundantals.]
[New Skill Acquired: Enhanced Cognition — Level 1: A heightened ntal state that sharpens perception, accelerates learning, and enables rapid analysis of complex situations. The user can recognize patterns, adapt strategies on the fly, and process information with exceptional clarity—especially under pressure.]
These gains had nothing to do with the system itself. Improved stamina had rely allowed him to focus longer than ever before.
The insights—the refinent—those were skills he had just earned himself.
It felt as though the system had simply unclogged years of suppressed progress, progress that had been locked away by the physical limitations of his forrly weak body.
If anyone had been present to witness Elion’s expression now, it wouldn’t have been an exaggeration to say they’d feel either deeply impressed... or deeply unsettled.
As the minutes continued to slip by, his eyes grew sharper. Colder. Focused to a frightening degree.
His expression grew colder and colder, until it seed almost inhumane.
Thin wisps of icy smoke began to seep from the corners of his eyes, bleeding into the air around him.
[Enhanced Cognition: Level 1 ?? Level 2]
The state he was in now was one few would ever recognise. And, he completely lost himself in this state of absolute concentration.
....
anwhile—
Aria stood outside Elion’s room. She was in her pink pajamas and walking barefoot.
Her hear thrumming anxiously beneath her rib cage.
She knocked softly and waited for ten seconds.
No answer ca, and there was no movent from inside.
"...Elion?"
Maybe he is out, or he is sleeping?
She frowned and tried the knob. It opened easily.
What she saw inside sent her reeling—
Mira lay sprawled languidly across Elion’s bed, her body a tantalizing sight clad in nothing but a semi-transparent negligee that hung loosely against her skin.
The sheer fabric, pale as moonlight, draped over her full breasts, the thin material doing little to hide the stiff peaks of her nipples pressing insistently against it.
It cascaded down her hips in delicate folds, revealing the smooth expanse of her thighs and the shadowed hint of her pussy beneath, where the negligee rode up just enough to tease the eye.
She propped herself up on one elbow, her dark hair tumbling in wild waves over her shoulder, framing a smirk that curved her plump lips with invitation.
Her skin glowed with a subtle sheen, as if she’d oiled it monts before, every curve—from the swell of her hips to the dip of her waist—begging to be touched, explored, and claid.
Her intentions were as plain as day. But Aria could not think clearly, she panicked, like she had been caught doing sothing she shouldn’t.
"What are you doing here!?" Aria shouted, slamming the door shut behind her.
Mira’s giggle was low and throaty, a sultry sound that vibrated through the air, making Aria’s cheeks heat despite her fury.
She shifted slightly on the bed, the negligee slipping higher on her thigh, exposing more of her toned leg as she stretched languidly, her breasts rising and falling with the motion. "You’re really adorable, Aria. Did you truly think I wouldn’t have the sa idea? Sneaking in here, hoping to slide between his sheets, feel his hands on you? Have him rail you all night long."
She glanced around the empty room. "But alas. He’s not here."
Her playful gaze turned back to Aria. "He probably went out for a bit. Or. Who knows? Maybe he’s tangled up with another woman right now, her legs wrapped around him, moaning his na. So now... we wait."
Aria’s face flushed with anger, but she ended up calming herself. Arguing with Mira never helped. "Hmph," She crossed her arms, propping up her breasts, her cheeks burning.
Yet, despite it all, she moved forward and sat down on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping under her weight.
She didn’t like being alone with this scheming whore.
Their friendliness earlier had been a lie.
A performance to impress Elion.
And they both knew it.
After all, they had both agreed to get along when he was around.
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