If he wanted to reach Gate Three by eight o’clock, he needed to get back to Dorm Block C, wash the red dust and dried sweat off his skin, change out of his torn hoodie, and cross back over to the south side of the perimeter wall.
The walk back to the dorms was long and unhurried, but his mind stayed hyper-focused. The evening sun was dipping low behind the high concrete perimeter walls of the academy, casting long, bruised-purple shadows across the manicured lawns of the central green. Groups of students were gathered outside the dining halls, laughing, arguing, and talking about evening raids or weekend passes. Rain kept his head down, his gray hood pulled up tight over his ears, avoiding the main thoroughfares where guild jackets might be lingering.
He reached his room on the third floor of Block C at 7:15 PM.
The tiny room was freezing. The central radiator had been broken since he moved in, and the small window didn’t seal properly against the frame. He stripped off his shirt, throwing it onto the metal folding chair in the corner, and stepped into the cramped fiberglass shower stall.
He turned the handle. Cold water hit his back like a handful of small needles. He didn’t complain. He just leaned his forehead against the cold tile wall, letting the water wash the concrete dust out of his black hair and off his shoulders.
He closed his eyes, letting his mind drop into the internal space where the faint blue light usually hovered.
[Host Profile]
[Name: Rain]
[Level: 1]
[Status: Awakened]
[HP: 68/100]
[Mana: 2/10]
[Physical Attributes]
[Strength: 10]
[Agility: 9]
[Endurance: 9]
[Intelligence: 16]
[Skill Slots: 1/1 (FUSED)]
His Mana was recovering slowly, ticking up by one point every hour or so of real rest. Two points wasn’t even enough for a single activation. Flash Step cost three per use, and he was sitting one short of even that. If something went wrong tonight, Zero Drag wasn’t an option until his core clawed back at least another point, and even then, he’d be spending his only charge with nothing left in reserve. A low-tier rift carrier job sounded simple on paper, carrying supply crates, holding extra utility gear, pulling salvage out of low-threat zones, but if something went wrong, walking in with his signature ability completely offline was about as thin a safety net as it got.
He turned off the tap, pulled his thin gray towel off the rack, and dried himself off quickly.
He pulled his dark gray hoodie back over his head and checked his sweatpants pocket. His student card was there. The three hundred credit job confirmation was stored in his local inbox. The small silver earring he’d picked up earlier that afternoon was still tucked deep into the pocket, cool against his hip.
His eyes caught on the paper envelope still sitting on his bare desk, the one from registration, mostly emptied out by now except for a flat gray slab he’d tossed aside without a second look that first morning. He picked it up, turning it over in his hand.
The student terminal. He’d forgotten it was even in there.
It was barely worth the name. No camera, no calls, nothing that resembled the phones half the campus carried around like a second hand. It could pull up his class schedule, check his account balance, flash campus notices, and that was about it. A real phone still sat somewhere near the bottom of a long list of things he needed and couldn’t afford. For now, this would have to do.
He slid it into his hoodie pocket and left the room at 7:35 PM.
The walk to Gate Three took him away from the bright lights of the main campus. Gate Three was an old, semi-abandoned industrial portal located on the extreme southwestern edge of the academy property. It hadn’t been used for major academy expeditions in decades, ever since the newer, high-density rift hubs were built near the central arena. Now, it was mostly leased out to low-tier private contractors, small salvage crews, and civilian transport outfits that didn’t want to pay the heavy docking fees at the main gates.
Rain arrived at 7:52 PM.
The area was completely dead.
A single rusted iron streetlight hummed overhead, casting a flickering, sickly yellow glow across a wide expanse of cracked concrete. High chain-link fences topped with coiled razor wire stretched out to the left and right, separating the academy grounds from the dark, unpaved roads of the outer civilian sector. The heavy steel gate was chained shut, a massive iron padlock hanging from the center latch.
Rain stood under the streetlight, his hands shoved deep into his hoodie pockets, his shoulders hunched against the rising evening chill.
He looked around. There was no one there.
No White Tiger Guild representatives. No transport vehicles. No other applicants. Not even a security guard sitting in the small concrete watch hut by the gate. The windows of the hut were dark, covered in a thick layer of grime and old dust.
Rain pulled his student terminal out of his pocket, checking the screen.
[Rendezvous Point: Sector 4 Gate Three. Time: 20:00 Sharp.]
The display read 7:55 PM.
’Okay,’ Rain thought, shifting his feet on the cold concrete. ’I’m early. Five minutes. They’ll be here.’
He waited.
The minutes ticked past with agonizing slowness.
7:57 PM.
A cold wind blew through the wire fence, making the chain links rattle with a thin, metallic sound. Somewhere out in the dark civilian sector beyond the wall, a dog barked twice, then went quiet.
8:00 PM.
Rain stared at the screen. The numbers shifted from 07:59 to 08:00.
Nothing happened. The road remained completely empty. The dark forest of rusted iron pylons and overgrown weeds outside the fence sat motionless in the gloom.
Rain began to pace, taking three steps to the left, turning on his heel, and taking three steps back to the right. His breath was visible in the cold air now, coming out in small, white puffs.
’Did I get the gate wrong?’ he wondered, pulling up the campus map again on the terminal. He zoomed in on the southwestern perimeter. The red dot indicating his current location sat directly on top of the icon labeled Gate Three (Service/Industrial). This was the place. There wasn’t another Gate Three within five miles.
8:10 PM.
Doubt began to creep into his chest, cold and heavy, mixing with the knot of hunger still sitting in his stomach.
He replayed the entire afternoon in his head. The cheap, poorly rendered website. The pixelated White Tiger logo. The immediate, instantaneous approval of his application the second he typed in his ID number. At the time, he had laughed it off as a lazy IT department in a big guild. But standing alone in the pitch-black quiet of an abandoned service gate, the laugh felt hollow and stupid.
’What if it wasn’t White Tiger?’ the thought surfaced, sharp and unwelcome. ’What if someone put up a fake posting just to farm baseline student IDs? Or worse...’
His mind jumped immediately to the three guys in the navy jackets. Could they have put up a dummy posting? No, that didn’t make sense. They didn’t even know his name or his student ID when they cornered him in the alley. They hadn’t checked his card; they had just searched his pockets for physical disks. They couldn’t have targeted his terminal account directly unless...
He shook his head, running a hand over his face. ’You’re losing it,’ he told himself, leaning his upper back against the cold steel of the light pole. ’It’s just a late transport. Private contractors run behind schedule all the time. They probably got held up at the Sector 4 processing checkpoint.’
8:20 PM.
Twenty minutes late.
Rain’s excitement from earlier had completely evaporated, replaced by a dull, aching frustration. He had wasted an hour walking all the way out here. If this job fell through, he was down seven credits for a bus ride he didn’t need, his core was still sitting at two points of Mana, and he had nothing to show for his day except a ruined set of clothes and a bruised shoulder.
He pulled his hands out of his pockets, blowing on his fingers to warm them up. ’Ten more minutes,’ he decided, setting a mental hard line. ’If nobody shows up by 8:30, I’m walking back to the dorms and reporting the listing to the student welfare board.’
He turned his back to the road, staring up at the dark, loom of the academy’s inner wall.
8:26 PM.
The sound of a low, struggling engine hummed in the distance.
Rain turned around quickly.
Down the unpaved civilian access road outside the chain-link fence, two dim, yellow headlights cut through the gloom. A vehicle was moving slowly along the rutted dirt track, its suspension squeaking loudly with every dip in the road.
It wasn’t a sleek, branded White Tiger Guild transport. It wasn’t an armored rift carrier or an official academy shuttle.
It was a plain, unmarked commercial van. The body was painted a dull, faded dark blue, covered in dented metal panels and patches of brown primer. The side windows were completely blacked out with dark tinting, and the front grille was missing its center emblem, leaving a dark, gaping hole between the headlights.
The van ground to a halt directly on the other side of the rusted iron gate.
The engine sputtered, gave a heavy, wet cough, and cut out completely, leaving the headlights shining weakly against the metal mesh of the fence.
For several long seconds, nobody got out. The van just sat there in the dark, its exhaust pipe letting off a final, thin trail of gray smoke into the night air.
Rain took a slow step back from the gate, his hand resting lightly against his hip, his eyes fixed on the blacked-out driver’s side window.
But something was off.
"The energy from this van," Rain muttered in cold sweat.