“Yo Jay, who do you think it'll be this time?” A woman asked a man in front of her. They weren't the only ones wondering the same thing in the auditorium. Countless voices chatted overlapping each other. “Who knows? Teacher mentioned that it was someone important.” The man looked bored, disinterested as if none of this actually mattered. “Yeah. Did you see the look in her eyes? I think it might be the leader.” The deadline approached, yet no one seemed to be coming any closer to an answer. “Ah, are you crazy? She's way too busy there's no way. It's probably just some random idiot again.” Not hearing her answer, the man turned his head. “Audrey?” he asked, coming face to face with her frozen figure.

“Good evening, my name is Vyacheslav Scern, but you can call me Professor Scern. I will be the one teaching you today.” Hearing the unexpected voice, the man slowly turned back around. And so did everybody else. He'd come in unnoticed, one second there was no one and the next, he was there. “Please take your seats.” Everyone silently listened, complying with his command. The students were shocked and more than that, afraid. Every single one of them possessed a sigil. Yet, none of them had noticed his white-haired figure until now. And even though most of them couldn't fully grasp their own domains, they instinctively felt his overwhelming presence pressuring them.

Seeing this, Slava sighed. He knew it would be bad, but he didn't expect this. First Angel left to spread Henosis’ influence and act as a spy, then C left to act as a spiritual healer and recruit new troops. Now this shit. He couldn't talk to Sasha and he was forced by Serena to teach these idiots. She somehow found out about the sacrifice. Although… he did owe her for helping him get Sasha back on the right track.

“Now, before we start. Can anyone tell me why you're here?” He owed her, he owed them both. The room was silent, no one dared move a muscle. This would be a long lesson. He shook his head. He was about to turn towards the board when he saw a hand rise up from the rows of spineless rookies.

Raising his eyebrow, he squinted his eyes, a light smirk on his face. He nodded. He remembered her, Mag's student who stood up for herself. Who was ready to fight fully trained soldiers. To die for her freedom.

“Well, Audrey? Tell me; why are you here?” His words animated the crowd. They all turned to their classmate including her close friend. They all looked more shocked than the other. Under the pressure of the numerous gazes, she bit her lip answering his question.

“Professor, I believe we… I believe you are here to teach us how to use our Awakening.” She met his cold stiffening gaze. Faced with her stiffness, Slava cracked up in a soft laugh, bringing his palm to his face, relaxing the atmosphere. “No, no,” he shook his head. “You’re here to make the impossible possible,” He raised his palm up in front of them so that everyone could see it. “Forget everything you know.” A white glow flowed from his back all the way to his hand where it spread into fine threads that gradually thinned into nothing. “Common sense no longer exists, all that matters is your domain. You are it and it is you.” Their mouths agape, the students watched as everything around them began to levitate. “Everything is possible, you just have to figure out how. It’s the essence of what we are,” saying this, he abruptly closed his fist. The sphere of strings in his hand exploded, spreading all throughout the room, reaching toward each and every one of them, creating an aurora of colors.

“This is your domain, your influence over your knowledge.” He forced their domains out with his, everyone’s eyes lighting up in the light show. Some looked surprised, others looked confused, but all were mesmerized. “This is what I’m here to teach you today.” He snapped his fingers, the world turning back to what it was as if nothing had ever happened. The people who'd just experienced a strange feeling they had never experienced before, jolted in their seats.

“How did he do it?” Jay unconsciously let out, his eyes growing wide as soon as he'd realized what he just did. Slava turned around. “Not how I did it, but how you could do it.” He swiped his hand across the board, a human figure materializing in front of it, a translucent halo behind it, threads connecting them.

“The first thing you need to understand is that your domain is as much a part of your mind as it is like a muscle.” The scene came to life, a flow moving from the halo to the body, revitalizing it. “Your domain and its influence grow with your knowledge and understanding.” The flow suddenly reversed, feeding into the halo and making it gradually grow bigger. “However, no matter how vast your domain might be, it's all useless if your connection to it is weak.” The flow reversed again, the thin threads now struggling to keep up.

“The way you strengthen that connection is through straining yourself. Straining that connection.” To his words, the connecting threads began to pulse back and forth, slowly increasing in size. “You need to constantly utilize it to its limits to expand your influence.” Over time, the halo and the figure shifted to become one, the body getting swallowed whole.

“Questions?” he asked the shocked faces in front of him, the projection vanishing next to him. It took time for them to regain their senses, but when they did, hands slowly rose up. “Yes?” His gaze shifted to one of them. “Professor, you keep talking about strain and exercising our sigil, but I don't understand, is there… a concrete way to feel it, To know?” Hearing this, Slava brought his arm forward, his clothes dissipating to reveal his skin.

“You’ll know when you do it.” A small cyclone formed above his hand as he frowned, flashing in different colors, congregating into a singularity. “You’ll feel it, just like you feel it when you work out.” A phasing crystal slowly formed from it while white light smoked out from his orifices. “But you have to be careful, sometimes you can go too far.” Cracks were spreading all over his body, clearly defined on his arm.

“Ah!” Audrey gasped almost falling off of her seat. Hearing her, Slava closed his fist, satisfied. The strange shape instantly collapsed sending a light shockwave throughout the class that shook everyone out from their shock.

“Don't let your domain consume you,” he said, his expression growing grim. “Regardless,” he clapped his hands. “Now, any other questions?” He returned to his neutral expression. Sasha hadn't been the only one working her ass off. In the beginning, she insisted they trained together almost every day. They got to a point where they could almost predict each other's movements. But then it stopped. She grew busier by the day. Ever since they started to build around the city…

“Professor?” A student asked, interrupting his thoughts, and making him look up at the only hand which was still raised. Seeing him look his way, Jay spoke. “Professor, I didn't quite get the last part of the…” Meeting Slava's confused look, he rephrased his question. “What happens when the threads that connect us to our domain become larger than us… than what we can take in?” Hearing him speak, Slava began to smile and as soon as he finished, the peculiar halo reappeared.

“Well, I wasn't expecting you to notice.” He turned to the side, twisting his hand, the projection slowly reverting back to the point right before the figure was engulfed. “Keep in mind, this is simply speculation,” he turned back to face the class, “a way to visualize it. It's impossible to truly know what it actually is.” The scene resumed its normal flow. “This is simply my way to see it, a hypothesis.” He moved his fingers and it slowed down.

“From what I've gathered, no matter how hard you exercise your domain, you eventually reach a wall where it gets exponentially harder to grasp the scope of your own comprehension.” The threads reached the size of the figure, almost overtaking it completely. “Your mind and body start to hold you back.” The slowed-down playback revealed the aggressively pulsing threads. That's when the body began to grow closer to the halo.

“At that point, the only thing that's left to do is die.” As the figure got engulfed, Slava thought back to Kolya's death, to Chaos… Looks of astonishment spread through the crowd. “However, you can try to leave your part, to imprint your consciousness onto your domain.” Now that they got a closer look, the halo seemed to shape itself around the figure. “To escape this mortal coil and open the door to limitless potential.” Once it was gone, the halo shook and two identical figures popped out from it, the halo also shifting to take a vaguely similar form.

“Like I said, this is only a hypothesis, so don't take it to heart,” he said as the projection vanished again. “Any more questions?” He moved on so quickly that no one had the time to process the information.

“No? Great, it's your turn,” he said, bringing confusion to the class. “Now, close your eyes.” Everyone sat frozen. “I said, close your eyes.” The room instantly came alive, following his instructions. “Remember the first time you awakened.” Immediately, people's backs began lighting up. “Remember, you were probably researching, training, studying, having an epiphany. Remember that feeling and catch onto it. Continue that train of thought and manifest it.” Using his words as a guide, some began trying to manipulate the air between their fingertips and others burst out into intense glows.

“Good, keep it up. Focus only on yourself.” The method didn't matter. He walked past a sweating student. Everyone would have a different method, as long as they felt it. And he could feel it. Some were struggling and when he passed by, he would give them a little push, stimulate their domain with his.

“Only by straining yourself can you grow to understand the possibilities of what the world has to offer.” As he spoke an explosion went off beside him. “Push yourself and the world to its limits, I will deal with the consequences.” Before it could do any damage, he extended his hand halting it in its tracks. The desk that was fragmenting, the wounds that were accumulating on the student's body all reverted back with the flick of his fingers.

Witnessing this, the students regained their focus, visibly increasing their efforts. Slava watched as odd things began appearing throughout the class, starting with Audrey who studied her crystals attentively with her fingers. Some extracted the moisture in the air, others combusted the oxygen to create flames, others condensed it… But it wasn't enough.

“Don’t hesitate, use everything that you have,” he said, opening a hologram in front of a struggling student. “I told you I would deal with the consequences.” It took some time for the class to understand what he was saying, but eventually, it began to resemble a fairy tale. Fantastical objects floating around, normally unexplainable and unrelated events intertwining with one another.

He was helping two of them, stopping them from collapsing when he felt something at his fingertips. Seeing the warning appear in his vision, he smiled, dismissing it. Good! Something infected his nervous system, slowly making its way into his brain. He swiftly made eye contact with the determined black-haired boy, before moving on to help the next person. He was satisfied, they were learning quickly.

Nobody in the room felt the time pass until Slava noticed a green object flash past the window. Checking the time, he snapped his fingers, shutting the class down and bringing it to order. He didn’t see the time fly, but still, why was she here?

“This is the last lesson for the day, if someone’s domain is larger and denser than yours they can easily suppress you.” If she was here, it had to be something serious. Did Sasha finally climb out of her hole?

“Then how could we fight them?” He paused remembering all the times he fought Kolya, Sasha and Serena, smiling. “That’s up to you to find out. Homework if you will.” Without looking back, he stepped towards the door.

“Don’t forget you won't stagnate unless you become complacent.” He was well aware that some would still lose focus and it would cause problems. A hierarchy would certainly establish itself, but that wasn’t his problem. He gave them what they needed, whether they decided to take it was up to them. Arrogance, jealousy, envy…

“So what are you here for?” he asked, walking out of the class full of frozen students. “Wow! You froze the entire class? I understand you've improved, but is showing off like this really necessary?” Well, he’d practiced and learned a lot in the past two months, not to mention, preparing for this lesson. It gave him interesting new perspectives. “It’s good practice,” he smiled sarcastically.

Sasha wasn't here, he was disappointed. What did she call him for? Another stealth mission? Those had been pretty common lately. After his performance with Sasha, he’d been sent out alone a lot.

“Don't look at me like that,” she said, meeting his annoyed gaze. “This time I'm here for something else.” Seeing her solemn face, he was reminded of Crow. Somehow they had been on really good terms recently. Neither wanted to admit it, but he could tell. His arm twitched as he felt it sting. He was still unsettled by his answers. He'd asked him about the binding tattoo and his sky-splitting technique but to no avail. If he invented them, then how did his sister use them? Did she… no…

“A girl named Valerie showed up yesterday.” This wasn't the first ‘visitor’, why was she mentioning it now? The Army stopped its useless assaults, instead settling for establishing a perimeter around the area. Quickly creating a sort of strange city around it. It allowed them to study the barrier with all of their resources while pressuring Henosis with the public. They'd labeled it as some sort of unknown object. It led to all kinds of rumors of alien or Union infiltration, but nothing was ever confirmed.

Henosis might not care about the humans, but they still had an image to maintain for those on the inside, those they were trying to recruit and those who had yet to awaken. Slava found it stupid though, they would just increase the awakening phenomenon, unless. He thought about Suvorova when Serena continued.

“She was looking for Alexandra.” His mind sorted itself out and he immediately remembered the woman. Without thinking or speaking, his expression stiffened and he began walking, Serena turning into leaves to lead the way.