X01: MY PERFECTLY ABNORMAL LIFE

INTEREST VS DISTRESS

X01: My Perfectly Abnormal Life

Xyan immediately sensed someone's gaze. He quietly moved to one of the pillars, but what he saw was a small ice butterfly.

He quickly looked around and froze.

He was certain something or someone was staring 1.9 seconds ago...

He tilted his head...

Maybe I'm wrong.

Xyan waved his new friend and hurried out. He didn't wanna get into big time trouble or immediate expulsion.

Maybe he was wrong.

Or not...

She was just above him upside down. Smirking. Her brown hair just an inch from his. Admiring his capabilities. Even with her Level 20. Camouflage, he noticed her.

She did not move when Xyan left.

In the shadows of the secret passage, half-hidden behind fallen stone, a woman stood with her arms folded. She had watched the entire thing — the 2% loser sitting down in front of a 95% crusted-ice mythical beast and taming its kill-temper with a floating shard and a trembling Grade One summon.

She was one of the Eight Eyes.

The third of the Right Eyes.

To the whole college, the Eight Eyes were gods. To the Elixirs and Amirahs — the third-years and final-years who thought themselves untouchable — she was definition. Even among the Eight, her name was spoken carefully.

Lady Veyra.

Tall, brown hair pinned with black ice pins that never melted. Eyes like cut glass — pale, depthless. She wore the white-and-black mantle of the Eyes, but hers had a third sigil burned on the shoulder: a closed eye, opening only when she willed it. When she walked, the air thinned. Professors bowed without being told to. Barriers bent around her.

She was highly powerful in a way that didn't need display. She had once frozen an entire external breach — seventeen Phantom-class intruders — with a single glance, while sipping tea. The incident was erased from records, but the third-years still whispered about the day the sky went white.

And she was intrigued by Xyan.

Not convinced. Intrigued. The boy the Eight had dismissed as a disgrace had just done what trained tamers failed to do with that ice beast for three years.

But she wanted more proof.

She let him go. She dissolved into shadow without a sound, her mantle not even stirring the dust.

Xyan never knew.

---

He breathed a sigh of relief when he pushed the grate shut and saw the service path empty.

Not caught, he thought, heart hammering. Thank god.

He shoved his mop cart back to the supply room and ran to his extra lessons — the remedial block all low Flex beginners were forced to take.

1. Basic Artifact Control — Prof. Harlow

A bald man with a voice like gravel. "Your artifact is an extension of your will! Not a decoration! Cross! Stop hiding that stick behind your back and manifest!"

Xyan stood in the back row with his blacked-out katana, trying to make it flicker at 3% like a proper loser. Prof. Harlow lectured for forty minutes on resonance breathing, drew diagrams of Flex channels on the board, and made them all hold their artifacts until their arms shook. Xyan's shoulder screamed from Gaiz's graze, but he kept his face blank.

2. Phantom Theory — Prof. Liora

A sexy lady with sharp glasses. She projected slides of Phantom anatomy, weak points, residue patterns. "Phantoms feed on emotional spikes! Fear makes you louder! Control makes you invisible!"

Xyan took notes furiously — this was actually useful for the forest. She quizzed them on Grade One vs Grade Three behavior. Xyan answered correctly but quietly, so no one would notice.

3. Physical Conditioning — Coach Bren

A massive man who yelled everything. His physique was a huge evidence of constant training. "TEN LAPS! FLEX-DAMPENERS ON! NO POWERS! RUN!"

Xyan ran with his dampener buzzing on his wrist, lungs burning, mud from Buzz's hut still on his shoes. Coach Bren lectured between laps about stamina being the true weapon: "Your fancy percentages mean NOTHING if you collapse in two minutes!"

Xyan almost collapsed in two minutes.

By the end, he was soaked, shaking, and starving. He sat on the bench, glasses fogged, necklace hidden under his damp shirt.

Lady Veyra watched from the high observation glass for exactly twelve seconds — untouchable, unreadable — then turned away.

More proof, she thought.

Xyan sneezed from the cold passage air and had no idea a god had just marked him for a test.

Lady Veyra didn't do obvious.

Three days after the ice chamber, a "random" remedial spar was added to the extra lessons list. Beginners vs a controlled Grade Two Phantom in a sealed ring. Professors called it confidence training.

She watched from behind the one-way glass above the training hall, silver hair pinned, glass eyes unblinking. Show me more, she thought.

Xyan knew something was wrong the second he saw the Phantom — a spiked crawler, faster than the syllabus said it should be. Prof. Harlow was nervous. Coach Bren kept glancing at the glass.

"Cross! You're up first! Don't embarrass us!"

Xyan stepped in with his blacked-out katana, dampener off for the drill. The plan in his head was simple: fail safely. Show 2-3%, get knocked down, stay dark. As usual.

But the Phantom was angry. Veyra had subtly spiked its aggression with a flick of her finger no camera caught.

It charged.

Xyan tried to do the loser fall — mistimed it completely. His burned shoulder gave out. He tripped over his own foot, his katana clattered away, marker squeaking on the floor, and he face-planted as the Phantom swiped clean over his head and slammed him into the barrier.

He failed so, so badly.

He scrambled, glasses flying off, crawling for his katana while the Phantom batted him like a toy. He tried a whisper of gravity to steady himself — it backfired, pulling a training dummy down on top of him.

The hall erupted.

Laughter. Phones out. "2% forever!" "Did he just get beat by a dummy?" Even some Amirahs in the observation seats snickered.

Coach Bren had to call the match. "Enough! Cross! Medical!"

Xyan sat in the dirt, nose bleeding, glasses cracked worse, necklace burning cold against his skin where he'd had to suppress everything to keep failing. He'd chosen to stay hidden, and it cost him.

He became a laughingstock again by lunch. The clip was already circulating.

Above, Lady Veyra turned away, disappointed. Nothing, she thought. Maybe the ice beast was a fluke.

She left.

---

Kitarah came back earlier than usual.

No convoy this time. Just one car, driver silent. She dragged her own luggage through the gate on a weekend morning, ring-blades case banging against her leg.

She couldn't stand staying at her house.

It had started well — her mum was so proud of her achievement, hugging her, praising the black card over dinner. But her dad didn't even glance at her. Like she was never enough. Like something in his blood rejected her. Completely.

The so-called mum she had was just the one that replaced her biological mum's position after her death. Her father had remarried. He treated her son — Kitarah's non-biological brother — like a king. Giving him the attention, time, and love he needed. And treated her the opposite.

She was the biological child, yet she was being treated like an outsider. The difference was laughable.

The reason she tries so hard to win and live up to his expectations is so that she can earn that quality time with him and prove she could in fact stand on her own. No matter how small. Yes, he provided her with solid education, the wealth and duties as a father, but only in name, not in feelings.

She thought that by bringing back the black card, her father would finally notice her and give her just a little of his time. She laid it on the table like an offering.

He looked at his son's school report instead. Kitarah remained silent.

They quarreled — her stepmother defending her, her father cold. Her non-biological brother didn't even care, thinking he deserved all that attention and care.

She packed up her luggage that night and left.

School was the only place she could breathe, because she felt suffocated by every second she spent at home.

Now she was in the empty training field at dawn, constantly practicing. Ring-blades spinning until her hands bled. Each strike harder than the last.

Xyan, limping past with his mop after his humiliation, saw her from the fence. He didn't speak. He just watched for a second — a queen who'd rather bleed here than breathe at home.

He understood that feeling.

He kept walking, laughingstock, invisible.