Isabel bounced with excitement, unable to contain her joy. "We did it, Kaivan!" she cried, and without thinking, she wrapped her arms around him.
Their warm embrace radiated the relief of success earned through hard work. But the sudden noise drew attention from across the workshop.
Felicia, Ethan, Radit, and Frans all looked up at once. Curiosity brought them closer.
When they arrived, they found Kaivan and Isabel still locked in an enthusiastic hug, laughter glowing on their faces.
Ethan lifted a brow and chuckled. "Wow, man. Every girl in this group is getting close to you now?" he teased. Light-hearted, but with a hint of something else.
Kaivan and Isabel stiffened. They quickly stepped apart, their faces flushing bright red as silence replaced their earlier excitement.
Felicia hurried forward. "I leave you for a minute, and this is what happens," she said, half annoyed. She flicked Kaivan's head lightly, hard enough to make him wince.
"Ow!" Kaivan rubbed his head, guilt written all over his face.
"I really have to keep an eye on you," Felicia muttered. But the faint blush on her cheeks made it clear, her tone was less anger, and more worry.
Isabel let out a small, bashful laugh beside Kaivan, embarrassed yet without a hint of regret. The workshop slowly regained its warmth; chatter and soft clinks of metal filled the air again. Everyone gathered around the computer and Kaivan's newly assembled scanner. The glow of the monitor painted gentle silhouettes across their faces, reflecting off scattered tools and tangled wires.
Zinnia studied the device with keen curiosity. "So this is what you built, Kaivan?" her voice soft, but edged with firmness.
Kaivan nodded, then pointed at the large whiteboard cluttered with his scribbles. He tapped one of the main diagrams. "This machine can read the contents of the Tome Omnicent and display them on the screen. I added a Text-to-Speech module too, so the Tome can read its own text aloud."
He drew a quick breath and continued, a spark of excitement flickering in his eyes. "And more than that, I connected it to my phone. Even if the Tome isn't physically here, we can still make it respond through a speaker, or even a walkie-talkie."
Several of them nodded, digesting his explanation. Raphael raised a hand, brow furrowed. "But... the Tome only activates when someone touches it, right? How did you bypass that?"
Kaivan met Raphael's gaze calmly. "In theory, a distant voice can also trigger its response. It doesn't need direct contact. We can test it now if you'd like."
He placed his phone beside the Tome Omnicent, then stepped outside the workshop. Inside, everyone turned toward the glowing monitor. The once lively room fell into a quiet, expectant stillness.
From outside, Kaivan's voice came through the call: "How far am I from you now, Tome Omnicent?"
A heartbeat later, the Tome's pages shifted. The scanner captured the movement, and lines of text appeared on the screen:
"Your distance from me is 19.3 meters."
Silence followed, then soft, collective awe. Raphael nodded slowly at the monitor. "Alright… so it works over the phone too."
Radit, who had been sitting alone, suddenly stood and hurried outside after Kaivan. Borrowing the phone, he exclaimed playfully, "Then I want to ask something important!" With a grin, he asked, "When will the fried rice seller pass by my house?"
Zinnia giggled inside the workshop. "Unbelievable. He actually asked that."
But the screen stayed blank. The Tome didn't react, almost as if the question was beneath its dignity.
In that lull, Ethan stepped forward. The monitor's soft light brushed across his calm expression. "It's clear," he said quietly, "the system only responds to Kaivan."
His words drew Isabel's brief glance before she returned to her phone, fingers dancing lightly across the screen.
Raphael, sensing an untested possibility, walked toward her. His eyes were serious, but his smile gentle. "Try going outside. Use Kaivan's phone. Maybe you can communicate with it too."
Isabel shrugged lightly. "Alright, I'll give it a try." With confident steps, she left the workshop. Evening light wrapped her in a warm orange glow. She paused outside, then spoke through the phone linked to the Tome, her voice soft and half-joking:
"When will the person I like finally confess to me?"
But the monitor remained still.
Raphael let out a quiet sigh. "No reaction… So it really needs Isabel to touch the Tome directly."
Soon after, Isabel returned with Kaivan and Radit. Her face remained calm, neither hopeful nor disappointed. Kaivan stepped forward and said, "I'm the only one who can speak directly with the Tome Omnicent, but if you all listen closely, I can add a TTS feature and connect it to a phone."
Silence wrapped the room. From a corner, Frans asked dryly, "If we use a phone non-stop, how much credit will it burn?"