Lin Chen did not touch the formation again that night.
Not because he didn't want to.
Because he was afraid of what might happen if he did.
He lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the distant hum of traffic and the ticking of the cheap clock on his desk. Every so often, he shifted slightly—just enough to check whether the strange feeling in the air would return.
It didn't.
The room felt normal again.
That should have been comforting.
Instead, it made him uneasy.
*Maybe it was a fluke,* he told himself. *A stress hallucination. Lack of sleep.*
He'd been playing *Eternal Grid* far too much lately. Anyone would start seeing patterns after hours of staring at glowing lines.
Still… the way the desk had sounded when he knocked on it—
Lin sat up abruptly.
"No," he muttered. "I'm not doing this tonight."
He forced himself to turn off the light and sleep.
It didn't work.
---
Morning came too quickly.
Sunlight streamed through the blinds, and with it came the return of that sensation—subtle, almost imperceptible, but undeniably *there*. The room felt slightly… structured.
Like it was waiting.
Lin swung his legs over the side of the bed and pressed his bare feet against the floor.
The wood felt normal.
But when he *focused*—just a little—
Something shifted.
He stopped immediately.
Heart pounding, he stood still until the sensation faded.
"…So I can choose when to see it," he whispered.
That was new.
That meant it wasn't just happening *to* him.
It meant he was doing it.
Lin took a slow breath and grabbed a notebook from his desk. He didn't open his computer. He didn't open the game.
If this was real, he didn't want any interference.
He sat on the floor, back against the bed, and stared at a single spot on the wooden boards.
Just one.
No wide awareness. No scanning the room.
One point.
Gradually, faint distortions emerged—barely there, like pencil lines drawn too lightly to see unless you tilted the page.
His head began to ache almost immediately.
Lin grimaced and pulled back.
"Okay," he said aloud. "Limit confirmed."
He scribbled in the notebook.
**Focus causes strain**
**Wider awareness = faster fatigue**
This wasn't mana.
It was cognition.
The realization made his stomach twist.
He wasn't burning energy from some external source.
He was burning *himself*.
Lin closed the notebook and leaned his head back against the bed frame.
If he pushed too far—
He didn't finish the thought.
---
He spent the rest of the morning doing normal things on purpose.
Showering. Eating breakfast. Checking his phone. Stretching.
Each action grounded him.
Each one confirmed that reality hadn't broken overnight.
Only when he felt steady did he return to the experiment.
This time, he didn't attempt a formation.
He simply traced a line.
One line.
In the game, even unfinished arrays influenced flow slightly. Lin wanted to know if that principle held.
He crouched and extended his awareness just enough to *suggest* direction.
Nothing visible happened.
But the air shifted.
Barely.
Enough to raise the hair on his arms.
Lin recoiled instantly, breathing hard.
"…It responds," he whispered.
Not to force.
To intent.
That scared him more than the formation had.
He sat down heavily, hands trembling.
This wasn't something he could mess with casually.
Whatever he'd touched, it wasn't forgiving.
---
By afternoon, exhaustion weighed on him like a lead blanket.
The headache lingered no matter how much water he drank.
Lin stared at his notebook, flipping through the sparse notes he'd written.
There were no answers.
Only boundaries.
And a growing sense that what he'd done last night hadn't been clever.
It had been reckless.
"If I hadn't played that class…" he murmured.
The thought trailed off.
No—he corrected himself.
If he hadn't *understood* that class.
The game hadn't given him anything.
It had taught him how to think.
That difference mattered.
Lin closed the notebook and slid it under his bed.
For now, he would stop.
Not because he was done.
But because he wasn't ready.
As evening fell, the lines faded completely, leaving the world solid and unremarkable once more.
Lin lay back, staring at the darkening ceiling.
One question echoed in his mind, quiet but persistent:
*If this works… what else does?*
He didn't try to answer it.
Not yet.