Riven, after helping Joey out of his predicament, managed to make it to his next block just in the nick of time.
"Please have a seat, Mister Harlow," Mr. Sable said with a friendly smile.
The first thing Riven noticed was the number of students. Only ten. That was unusual. Even in his homeroom, the smallest class he'd seen had at least twenty students. Still, he took the same seat he had earlier that day.
Mr. Sable clapped his hands and began, "Now class, yesterday was your off day—but today is a learning day. So pay attention."
He glanced around the room, as if gauging how awake everyone was. "Some of this may go over your heads, but I'll give you a quick breakdown of physics to help you keep up—especially if you plan on mastering your Evolution."
Mr. Sable picked up an apple from his desk and held it up.
"When it comes to using your Evolution to lift, push, or pull something—or someone—there are three things you need to know:
One: How big or heavy is the object or person?
Two: What is their mass—and are you trained enough to affect that mass with your ability?
Three: How far are they from you? Distance affects control."
He paused, then held the apple a few feet above the desk.
"Now… here's where physics comes in. Watch closely."
He dropped the apple, and it hit the desk with a soft thunk.
"This apple falls because Earth pulls it down. That's gravity. Isaac Newton described it like this:
Every object attracts every other object with a force—and the bigger they are, and the closer they are, the stronger that force becomes."
He smiled and snapped his fingers. The apple floated back up.
"But with my Evolution—and some of yours—we can bend that rule. I can make it fall faster, slower… or not at all."
He held it there, mid-air, slowly rotating.
"That's Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation. Simple words, big impact. Mass. Distance. Force. If you want to control gravity—or defy it—you need to understand it first."
He gently set the apple back on his desk.
"Now, I'll explain how this can help people who don't have a gravity ability but instead use telekinesis. But first…"
Mr. Sable then grabbed multiple apples from his desk and handed them to four students—Riven included.
"Since I already explained how gravity works, I want you to try to make your apple hit the ceiling without throwing it naturally. I'm giving each of you four apples to try. If you fail today, come back tomorrow with a better understanding and try again. This is the true path to awakening."
Some students looked confused at the word awakening, but not Riven. He'd seen that term used several times in the system—and this was the first time hearing it from someone other than the system itself. That told Riven awakening wasn't just a system-based concept. It was probably common knowledge among higher-level users.
And the way the system first explained it—and the way Mr. Sable phrased it just now—it all lined up. A person really did need a deep understanding of their Evolution to awaken. But then he remembered something else—the Shop Tab and the potions. Specifically, the potion that allowed a person to automatically awaken to at least Awakening One without needing full mastery of their ability. However, taking multiple potions would be needed to awaken again.
Riven pulled up the system and navigated to the Shop Tab, where he found the potion that had caught his eye before Wren interrupted him: The Awakening Potion. He reminded himself to use it later—but not here, since he didn't know exactly what it would do.
He then closed the system, only to see the other students staring at him. They'd already smashed their apples on the ground, and he still had all four.
Riven tried with the first apple—but lost focus, and it smashed.
He tried with the second—same result.
On the third try, he managed to lift it a bit—but still lost control.
Finally, with the last one, he took it slow. The apple barely touched the ceiling… but then it fell and smashed like the others.
Riven sighed, waiting for the day to end. When the bell finally rang, everyone filed out of the classroom. Riven stayed back, cleaned up all four apples, then navigated through the crowded halls. Eventually, he made his way down a flight of stairs and activated the Telepathic Link system ability.
'So how did it go?' Riven asked Joey.
'It went well. I was going to stick with just my time Evolution, but they asked me to do things I don't think I could've done with it alone… so I had no choice but to use the healing Evolution. I still need to train it, though.' Joey's voice echoed in Riven's mind.
'I can help you,' Wren said, cutting in. 'You guys need a place to train—and obviously, you can't use your other Evolutions in public without raising suspicion. So I'll give you access to my private training room. Don't worry, I made sure no cameras are allowed in there. Even when they tried to sneak some in, I found them and shut them down. This is how I'm paying you both back after telling Tessa everything. I'll send you the location.'
Eventually, the boys arrived at the bluish training room, where Wren was already sparring with Tessa, who seemed to be learning basic combat skills. When Wren saw them, she stopped and waved them over. All of them wore gym-like clothes.
"You all can take your own corners. Me and Tessa will be over here."
The boys nodded and split off to different areas. Just as Riven was about to start, he was nudged by Wren.
"Hey… can you make Tessa a bounded party member? You don't have to give her a new Evolution, but… I think she felt left out. And I hate doing that to her."
Riven saw the conflict in Wren's eyes and understood. He nodded and added Tessa to the bounded party—though she wouldn't be receiving a new Evolution just yet.
Wren smiled, more at peace now, and went back to training without asking what Riven was doing. She could tell it had something to do with his system—but she chose not to pry.
Everyone got to work.
Harkel focused on both wind and lightning instead of just one, trying to combine the two.
Jordan practiced speeding himself and his ink creatures up, while also learning to control them from a distance.
Wren was screaming like a madwoman during her drills—but luckily, her zone had a built-in sound muter, sparing everyone else the noise.
Joey kept his distance from the training dummies, holding out his hand. A silver glow shimmered from his palm. He was using time manipulation to rewind the dummy's actions—resetting them to the moment they were stored in the room.
Tessa was still working on her hand-to-hand combat with steady discipline.
Then… the air shifted.
Everyone turned toward the center of the room.
Riven stood there—still and calm—but there was something different about him. It felt like he was radiating something new, something powerful. He flexed his hands slowly.
"I didn't level up, and none of my stats increased," he said. "Yet I feel physically stronger."
"What did you do?" Harkel asked.
"I used the Awakening Potion—it cost 1,000 system points."
Riven lifted his hands, pulling all the training dummies toward him—then blasted them away in one motion.
"I didn't have a full grasp of either my teleportation or gravity Evolutions before. But after drinking the potion… it's like my body just knew them. Like second nature."
"Wait… how many system points do you have now?" Harkel asked.
Riven held up a hand. "Zero."
That disheartened Harkel—he'd hoped to awaken too.
"But," Riven added, "the system said I could exchange Units for system points."
At that, Harkel's eyes lit up. He reached into his bag and pulled out a golden card.
"Then let's go to the ATM. I've got 5,000 Units on this card—we can awaken all of us here."
[System: Would you like to transfer Units into system points?]
[Yes/No]
[Yes]
"No need. I've already extracted the full amount—5,000 system points have been added," Riven said
Riven then enabled the system for everyone in the room—including Tessa. Each of them bought one Awakening Potion and drank it.
"With all of us at Awakening One," Riven said, "we can now focus on getting our own funds—and helping Joey."
Riven checked the party tab. He could now see everyone's names, Evolutions, and abilities. And next to each of them was a single glowing word:
[Awakening One]
All except for Jordan felt a change, and everyone talked about how they felt weird. Tessa started flying faster than before. Joey saw a combat dummy attacking the air and, lifting out his hand, walking closer. He stopped the dummy in place with ease. Harkel then walked towards a dummy and held a condensed ball of lightning in his hand mixed with air, blasting it at a dummy. But something he didn't expect was the big recoil it would have, jerking his whole arm back. And Wren then shot out a breath of lightning instead of sound.
"How come you guys awakened but I didn't?" Jordan questioned.
"That's because you were already in your first Awakening ," Riven said.
"When you saved me and Joey from falling and failing, your awakening was also probably the reason why you were able to control the Ink Lion. Something to note is the fact that it will take more than one potion to awaken again. That's most likely the reason why you didn't awaken. I think we can call it a night—what about you guys?"
Everyone nodded and walked off to their dorms. When the girls and boys split apart, they immediately fell asleep on their beds like they hadn't slept in days.