The next morning Lian skipped his classes and headed into town.
He checked the time.
10:00 a.m.
"This really brings back memories."
A few blocks away from the academy he stopped near a street utility pole and glanced around. The morning traffic was light. After making sure no one was paying attention, he opened a small service box attached to the pole and briefly tampered with the connection inside.
A minute later he closed it and walked away casually.
He bought an ice cream from a nearby stall, leaned against the wall, and waited.
Then he returned and repeated the process.
A few more times.
By now the academy's network connection would be dropping in and out at random intervals.
Lian smirked.
"Yeah… the old fart is probably furious right now."
Later that afternoon he stepped into a public pay phone booth and dialed the academy's office line.
"Hello, this is Ruby Network Services," Lian said in a calm, professional tone. "We recently made some updates to the local infrastructure. I'm calling to check if your institution experienced any connectivity issues."
There was a pause.
Then the old man replied "Yes! The internet has been cutting out every ten minutes!"
Lian noted the slight irritation in his voice.
Good. Annoyed people don't ask questions.
"I'm sorry to hear that," Lian replied calmly. "What we're seeing suggests intermittent packet loss. To confirm the issue on your end, I'll need you to run a quick troubleshooting tool."
There was again a pause on the other end.
"I'll dictate the link to you. Just type it into the browser, download the tool, and run it. It'll test the connection, fix a few common routing errors, and automatically send us the report."
He read it out slowly.
"Once it's done, tell me what it says."
A minute passed then the old man replied. "It says network OK."
"Perfect. That confirms the update applied correctly on your side. You shouldn't see further drops. If the issue returns, feel free to contact the help desk."
Lian hung up.
--
The Academy library was quiet at this hour with only a few students scattered across tables.
Lian took his usual seat — third system from the left, corner row, back to the wall.
He opened the terminal and started typing something.
It established a reverse shell back to the principal's machine. The RAT he'd embedded in the diagnostic tool had been running as a background process since the old man executed the file.
He started by searching through the academy's file system, moving from one directory to another.
Most folders contained old exam archives. Useful for studying, maybe, but not what he came here for.
It also records everything that was typed so Lian was trying to look for email credentials.
What he found was mostly garbage — search queries, typed memos, etc.
Then he found it Email and password, typed fresh after the browser had prompted a re-login since Lian had deleted the cookies file right after the connection was established.
He logged into the principal's email from a throwaway session.
He had even prepared backup plans in case the account was protected by two-factor authentication. But the security isn't that advance which made it lot easier.
Took him a few minutes of digging through Inbox and draft attachments before he found it. several documents, forwarded from the examination board two weeks prior.
Lian downloaded the files and leaned back in his chair, deep in thought.
Well if I had the invisible rune I could just walk into the office and cause a little distraction then plug in the USB and be done with it in 10 min. Instead I had to do the classic social engineering while bunking the whole day classes.
Not to mention the extra work—researching the network provider, locating the service box outside, and even making the call himself. Using his own voice still carried a bit of risk if anyone ever decided to investigate.
Lian sighed.
It worked, but it was messy.
With the invisibility rune, operations like this would be much cleaner.
The invisibility rune wasn't just a weapon for battle.
It was a strategic tool—something Lian could use in almost any situation.
Runes themselves were only tools. The real weapon was the person using them. There were no powerful runes in this world, only powerful wielders.
The same rune can be used in many different ways to achieve different outcomes.
In the end, the only real limits were the wielder's creativity and cunning.
It was almost 3 p.m. when Lian returned to the lab to continue working on his invisible armour.
Lian was completely absorbed in his work when he heard footsteps approaching from the corridor.
Lian glanced at the clock on the wall.
Almost closing time.
"Didn't even notice…" he sighed.
He raised his hand one last time, examining the result.
The glove had turned completely invisible—almost perfect. But every few seconds the image flickered, the cloak fading just enough for the glove to briefly appear before vanishing again.
A stabilisation issue.
"I'll need to fix that," Lian thought. "And add the thermal and sound absorption modules."
Only then would it be truly undetectable.
By the time the lab assistant finally reached him, Lian had already disconnected the equipment and packed everything away.
By the time he left the lab, dawn was already creeping over the campus.
The air was cool, the campus empty. A pale grey light was beginning to bleed across the horizon.
still a lot of work to be done, one step at a time or something like that.
Lian returned to his dorm and spent the entire night going through the blueprints again. The original military design papers and his modified version. Line by line, component by component, he compared them, trying to pinpoint where the instability came from.
He had to fully understand the inner workings of the spell and all its components to modify it effectively. That was taking some time.
Lately, he had been doing almost the same thing every night. Fortunately, the original Lian was a genius, so he was able to learn rapidly by using his memories and experience while working with stolen military documentation — research that represented nearly a decade of institutional work — accelerated his progress even further.
What should have taken months was happening in weeks.
The days passed in the same rhythm.
Classes in the morning.
Rune work in the evening.
He skipped more lectures than he attended while finishing the invisibility rune.
Now it worked close to military standard.
At Sequence-1 middle stage, he could maintain it for about 15 minutes.
I need to reach Sequence-2 soon.
But first—
The exams started tomorrow.
Lian looked at the stack of notes on his desk and smirked slightly.
Let's see if the questions I stole would actually show up.