Chapter 4 | Loaded Hands and Empty Seats

Chapter 4: Chapter 4 | Loaded Hands and Empty Seats

The bathroom on the third floor on the classroom building had four stalls and a mirror that had seen better decades.

Zane locked himself in the last one, stood in the middle of it, and looked at his right hand.

’Okay,’ he thought. ’Impact Breaker. Shockwave through direct hand contact. Output scales with physical force applied. Simple enough in theory.’

He drew his fist back and punched the air in front of him.

Nothing.

He tried again. Slower this time, more deliberate, trying to feel for whatever internal switch the system had quietly installed in his palm overnight.

Still nothing.

『 System Note: You look like you are practicing for a dance recital. 』

’I am trying to activate a Sigil,’ Zane thought. ’Some guidance would be appreciated.’

『 Figure it out. That is part of the process. 』

’You said that already.’

『 It remains true. 』

He tried a different approach. Pressed his palm flat against the stall wall and pushed. Hard. Focused everything on the warmth he’d felt during absorption — that low pulse in his hands, the current that had moved up through his wrists.

The wall did not dent.

His palm hurt slightly.

『 Degradation Timer: 6 days, 23 hours, 41 minutes. 』

’Thank you,’ he thought. ’Very helpful.

Really needed that reminder right now.’

『 You’re welcome. 』

He stood there for another thirty seconds.

Then he gave up, unlocked the stall, washed his hands out of habit, and left.

_ _

Classroom 1-A was on the second floor, east corridor, third door on the left.

Zane found it four minutes before the 9AM bell and took a seat near the middle. Not the front that was for people who wanted to be seen. Not the back that was for people who wanted the full picture before deciding where they stood.. Middle row, aisle seat, clear sightline to the board and both exits.

The room filled in around him.

He counted twenty students in the intake year assigned to this section. He recognised a few faces from registration. Most of them were already talking to people they’d met the day before, clustering into the early formations of social groups that would probably calcify within the first two weeks.

Nobody sat next to him.

He didn’t take it personally.

The instructor walked in at exactly the bell.

A woman, late thirties, sharp face, the kind of posture that suggested she’d either been in the military or wished she had.

She dropped a folder on the desk at the front without looking up.

"I’m Instructor Vael," she said. "This is Sigil Theory and Practical Foundations. If you were expecting an easy first week because you’re first years, adjust that expectation now."

She finally looked up and scanned the room.

Her eyes landed on Zane for exactly one second longer than everyone else.

He held her gaze.

She moved on.

"Before we begin," Vael said, pulling a sheet from her folder, "administration has asked me to relay the following. Ranking trials will be held at the end of week three.

"Details including your opponent’s name will be sent to your academy mail accounts by the end of this week. You will receive only the first letter of their first name. The rest you figure out on your own."

A few people in the room exchanged glances.

"That seems deliberately unhelpful," someone muttered from the back.

"It’s meant to be," Vael said flatly, and moved on.

The room shifted. Not dramatically. Just the specific energy of twenty people recalibrating their internal timelines simultaneously.

Zane filed that away.

’Three weeks,’ he thought. ’And they’re only sending the first letter of my opponent’s name.’

’So basically I go in with almost nothing,’ he sighed.

『 Correct. Which means you need a Sigil in both slots before the trial. Whatever you absorb should be versatile enough to cover multiple scenarios. 』

’And if my opponent’s Sigil counters whatever I’m holding?’

『 Then you adapt. You have three weeks. Use them. 』

Zane tapped his pen against his palm once under the desk.

’Right,’ he thought. ’One slot filled. One empty. Three weeks to figure out the rest.’

Instructor Vael moved to the board and started writing. Sigil Theory basics — classification tiers, activation principles, output scaling. Foundational stuff. The kind of thing every Sigil Bearer in the room had already lived through firsthand.

’Obviously,’ he thought. ’Every Sigil Bearer in this room has been living with their power for years.

This is a refresher for them. For me it’s a manual I should have had from the start.’

He underlined the activation principles section twice.

’If I had this yesterday I wouldn’t have spent ten minutes punching air in a bathroom stall.’He was halfway through a diagram instructor Vael had drawn on the board when he felt it.

Not much. Just a flicker. A warmth in his right palm that hadn’t been there a second ago, triggered by nothing he’d consciously done. He’d been pressing his pen against his palm while writing, a habit, and something in that pressure had caught the edge of whatever internal mechanism Impact Breaker ran on.

He went very still.

’That,’ he thought carefully. ’Do that again.’

He pressed the pen against his palm again. Deliberate with controlled pressure, not a punch, not a push — just steady contact with intent behind it.

The warmth returned. Stronger this time.

Moving up through his wrist.

’There it is,’ he thought.

PSssshh..

He redirected it immediately. Pushed it down, killed it before it built into anything visible. The last thing he needed was a shockwave going off in the middle of Sigil Theory with twenty witnesses and an instructor who had already clocked him once.

The warmth faded. His hand felt normal again.

Instructor Vael kept writing on the board.

Nobody had noticed anything.

Zane looked down at his palm.

’Pressure plus intent,’ he thought. ’Not a punch. Contact with focus behind it.’

『 Correct. Impact Breaker activates through deliberate physical contact, not striking motion. Dex’s knuckle crack discharged passively because the Sigil has partially integrated with his nervous system after extended use. Yours has not. You need conscious activation for now. 』

’Why didn’t you just tell me that in the bathroom,’ Zane thought.

『 You needed to find the edge of it yourself. Understanding follows discovery. Instructions without experience produce poor results. 』

Zane stared at the board.

’I genuinely cannot tell if you are wise or just lazy,’ he thought.

『 Both, probably. 』

He turned back to his notes.

He tapped his pen against his palm once under the desk, quiet and controlled, and felt the warmth answer immediately this time.