The final dismissal bell of the week had long since echoed through the school corridors, and Victor was now walking toward the main school gates alongside Dylan and others.
It was late afternoon, and the sky above Camnora City had dipped into a deep, quiet twilight.
Having spent hours locked inside the resonance halls exhaustively manipulating pressure pads and tracking styluses, just about every third-year student streaming out of the building looked thoroughly worn out.
After all, channeling bio-acoustic waves and maintaining strict physical pressure for hours demanded a massive amount of metabolic energy.
Yet, despite the palpable physical fatigue, an undeniable wave of excitement rippled through the departing crowd.
The students could physically feel that they had made tangible progress during the intensive session.
The classmates who had already celebrated their eighteenth birthdays could see the direct fruits of their labor with their own eyes—their stabilized Tier 2 pulses allowed them to project noticeably sharper, less flickering geometric outlines into the open air as they walked.
Meanwhile, the underage students stuck in the Tier 1.5 limbo could easily verify their own growth through the data sheets, having watched their diagnostic terminal parameters steadily flatten into more consistent, precise waveforms over the course of the afternoon.
Even Victor felt a rare, quiet spark of excitement humming in his chest, though his face remained a calm, unbothered mask beneath the edge of his dark beanie.
After all, he had a reputation of sad boy to maintain.
Looking through the dual lens of his current self and his Earth memories, seeing those digital stability scores improve hit differently today.
He wasn’t just blindly memorizing high school content anymore; he was actively learning how to master a physical force, building a reliable foundation that would eventually unlock a clean, effortless adult frequency in just a few months.
Victor reached the edge of the campus perimeter and paused, adjusting his single backpack strap over his shoulder.
The mass of third-year students was fracturing into smaller groups, everyone eager to kickstart their weekend routines.
“Alright, Vic, I’m heading out with the track guys to grab a quick recovery shake before heading home,” Dylan announced, giving Victor a hearty, appreciative slap on the back that almost knocked his beanie loose.
“I’ll see you on Monday, or are you going to be online over the weekend?”
“Probably not much,” Victor replied with a wave of his hand.
He planned to spend his weekend researching for his book.
“I need to pack my gear first, and then I’m catching a train straight to my aunt’s house. See you next Monday, Dylan.”
He turned to the rest of his classmates, offering a brief nod.
“Have a good weekend, everyone. See you on Monday.”
Victor soon turned away from the crowd and officially began his short trek back to his studio apartment.
As he navigated the familiar pavement, a genuinely good mood settled over him—a rare, refreshing change from his usual heavy cynicism.
The early evening air was crisp, and the setting sun cast long, peaceful violet shadows across the concrete.
For the first time in three days, his mind wasn’t a chaotic, suffocating battlefield of existential panic or bitter Earth memories.
His concussion throb had completely receded, his afternoon technical parameters were logged successfully, and he had a solid, balanced plan to tentatively explore his Wylding Hall adaptation over the weekend.
As Victor continued his peaceful walk home, his mind began to remember the events of his day at school.
It had been an exceptionally productive Friday.
He had managed to stay focused and study normally for his upcoming college exams, ensuring his realistic second-tier university goals remained fully on track.
But more than that, his time in the classroom had given him an entirely new layer of historical material to analyze for his novel.
During the morning Literature block, Mr. Nathans’ lecture on the Dark Centuries of Expansion had detailed the Vault Communions—the real-world, historic events where desperate, independent citizens used to gather in secret locations to preserve forbidden art away from the corporate grid.
An instinctual narrative idea had sparked right there in his seat.
In his adaptation of Wylding Hall, Victor realized he could seamlessly integrate these real-world Vault Communions into his story’s setting.
More intriguingly, he could weave a plot point where the band’s lead singer, after a mysterious and eerie disappearance inside the country manor, begins to manifest within these very gatherings—appearing through the old audio frequencies not as a standard projection, but as a lingering, haunting spirit of resistance woven directly into the acoustic rhythm itself.
It was just a rough, initial concept, and Victor wasn’t entirely certain if the mechanics would hold together smoothly.
He knew he would have to research the specific laws and historical accounts of those corporate-era communions much more deeply over the weekend to see if it was viable.
But as he turned the corner onto his apartment street, Victor realized that today had brought a far more personal revelation.
After waking his past-life memories, he had been running away from anything related to sound, tightly guarding his frozen heart against his trauma.
Yet, standing inside that glass cubicle today, watching the colorful, erratic static warp under his palm, Victor had discovered a completely genuine passion—not for the music, as even though he denied it, his passion for it never went away; it was just dormant.
No, he felt a passion for the raw, breathtaking magic of his own biological ability.
For the first time in a long time, he wasn’t just tolerating his upcoming milestone out of obligation.
He was actively, eagerly looking forward to his eighteenth birthday.
He wanted to feel his adolescent half-tier static permanently settle into a reliable, adult rhythm, and he couldn’t wait to see what kind of crisp, clear boundaries his own hands could carve into the open air once he finally achieved the Standard Pulse.
He moved around the small room with practical efficiency, sliding his portable tech console into the main sleeve alongside a couple of notebooks.
Since Aunt Elena’s house was his primary family home, he didn’t need to overpack or rifle through his drawers for a fresh wardrobe; he already maintained a fully stocked closet of clean clothes over there.
Instead, he simply tossed a few items of dirty laundry from the week into the bottom of his bag to wash over the weekend, keeping the pack lightweight and easy to carry.
He zipped the bag shut, threw the strap over his shoulder, and reached for his keys on the counter.
Right as his hand brushed the metal ring, his smartphone began to buzz against his uniform trousers.
He didn’t even need to look at the display matrix to know who it was.
Victor tapped the bio-acoustic receptor to answer the call.
“Hey, Aunt Elena.”
“Victor,” her strong, commanding voice echoed clearly through the isolated room.
“Are you still laying lazily on your bed, or are you actually making your way over? Don’t make me go there and drag your ass home again.”
“Geez, Aunt Elena.” Victor grumbled, “That only happened one time, and I was just tired that day.” He murmured defiantly.
“Hmm, it seems our little Vic learned to talk back to this poor old lady.” Her voice came through the phone.
“Okay, it was my fault.” Victor sighed in defeat.
“Good, it seems you aren’t completely hopeless.” Her voice came with a happy laugh.
“But where are you, young man?”
“I’m literally locking the door right now,” Victor replied smoothly, a faint, genuine amusement softening his usual calm expression.
“I’m heading straight down to the platform to catch the next subway line. The commute is easy, so I should be arriving at your station in thirty minutes max.”
“Good,” Elena approved, her sharp tone dropping into a familiar, warm cadence.
“Your uncle is making some delicious things; we’ll be waiting for you.”
“Understood. See you in a bit,” Victor said politely, cutting the call with a quick tactile pulse.
He stepped across the threshold, firmly locked his apartment behind him, and headed down the quiet hallway, fully ready to leave the high school routine behind and embrace a quiet family weekend.