Monday morning arrived, signaling the start of Airis Dover's second week of rebirth.
She lay in her king-sized bed, watching the sunlight filter through the cream curtains. She didn't want to get up.
The silk sheets were too warm, and the 'Perfected Cellular Vitality' meant she never woke up with a stiff neck or a groggy mind.
She was simply, blissfully comfortable.
In her past life, Lin Ye would have had to drag himself out of a freezing apartment, shivering as he pulled on stiff, unwashed clothes to catch the 6:00 AM bus.
I need my uniform, Airis thought lazily.
She didn't move a muscle. Instead, her sapphire eyes flashed with a microscopic spark of emerald green.
Across the room, the heavy mahogany doors of her wardrobe swung open with a soft click.
The crisp white blouse, the pleated navy skirt, and the crimson ribbon lifted off their hangers, floating through the air as if carried by invisible, deferential servants.
They drifted across the room and laid themselves perfectly at the foot of her bed.
Airis smiled. The 'Absolute Psychokinesis' was, without a doubt, the greatest quality-of-life upgrade the System had provided yet.
Why expend the physical energy to walk across the room when she could bend the fundamental laws of physics to fetch her clothes?
She sat up, and with another flicker of thought, her silver hairbrush floated off the vanity, gently and methodically brushing through her heavy, golden-blonde hair while she simply sat there.
It was the ultimate, decadent laziness, powered by a force capable of ripping continents apart.
She dressed, adjusted the Aesthetic Dampener to her standard 65%, and willed herself downstairs.
She didn't actually walk; she allowed her feet to hover exactly one millimeter above the carpet, gliding down the grand staircase like a ghost in a navy blue skirt.
It was faster, smoother, and entirely effortless.
As she entered the sunlit dining room, her feet softly touched the marble floor, seamlessly transitioning back into the gait of a normal, aristocratic teenager just as Mrs. Gable appeared with a plate of warm croissants and fresh strawberries.
"Good morning, Miss Airis," Mrs. Gable greeted warmly.
"Your mother left early for the gallery. She said to tell you to have a wonderful day."
"Thank you, Mrs. Gable," Airis replied, taking her seat.
On the far wall, a sleek, flat-screen television was quietly playing the local Riverdale morning news.
Airis elegantly buttered a croissant, paying it little mind until a specific headline caught her attention.
"...authorities are still investigating the bizarre sinkhole that opened up in the abandoned industrial park on the outskirts of the city last night,"
the impeccably dressed news anchor reported, her expression grave.
"Initial reports suggest a massive, localized seismic anomaly, though seismologists are baffled, as the region sits on no known fault lines.
Structural damage is extensive, with several warehouses completely reduced to rubble.
City officials are currently blaming an undocumented, deep-underground gas explosion..."
The broadcast showed helicopter footage of the site. It didn't look like a gas explosion.
The crater was perfectly spherical, and the surrounding concrete was scored with massive, jagged claw marks that looked like they had been carved by something the size of a city bus.
Airis paused, her teacup hovering an inch from her lips.
Her analytical mind, honed by years of corporate problem-solving, instantly connected the dots.
The "factory accident" that killed Lin Ye's parents, the Level-9 Black classified firewall her father had supposedly hit, and now a perfectly spherical crater with giant claw marks blamed on "gas."
This world was not a normal, mundane reality. There was a hidden layer beneath the surface.
Perhaps there were supernatural beings, secret organizations, or monsters lurking in the shadows of the city. Time would eventually tell.
The twenty-seven-year-old salaryman inside her stared at the TV screen.
Well, Airis thought, taking a calm sip of her Earl Grey tea.
That sounds like a lot of work.
She placed the teacup back on its saucer with a delicate clink.
She had the Aegis Bioskin to render her invincible. She had the Esper telekinesis to instantly eradicate any threat that dared approach her.
She was a walking, talking extinction-level event.
But she had absolutely zero intention of putting on a cape, investigating secret government agencies, or hunting down whatever made those claw marks.
I am just an ordinary girl, she decided, cementing her philosophy.
Unless a giant monster physically steps on Sakura Crest High School and interrupts my lunch, it is officially outside of my jurisdiction.
She didn't want to be a hero. Heroes had stressful lives.
They got dirty, they had to deal with politics, and they rarely had time for high-grade sushi.
She was going to embrace the ordinary, slow-paced life of a wealthy heiress. Let the secret agents and the hidden superpowers sort themselves out.
"Mrs. Gable, could I have a little more jam, please?"
Airis asked politely, completely dismissing the news report.
The private bus ride to Sakura Crest was peaceful.
Chloe spent the entire twenty minutes showing Airis digital swatches of imported silk for the Gala tablecloths.
Airis nodded along, offering the occasional "Mm-hmm, the ivory looks much better than the eggshell," while internally using her telekinesis to keep a spare pen perfectly balanced on its tip inside her closed leather tote bag, just to amuse herself.
When they walked into the school, the usual murmurs and lingering stares followed Airis.
Her reputation as the untouchable, effortlessly beautiful ice-queen who had publicly shot down the captain of the soccer team had only cemented her status at the very top of the social hierarchy.
Monica Sterling glared at her from across the hallway.
Airis offered a serene, perfectly polite smile in return, which only seemed to infuriate the brunette further.
It was all so delightfully normal.
During AP Calculus, while the teacher droned on about integrals, Airis let her thoughts drift to the Southside.
With her newly expanded mental capabilities, she couldn't literally see Lin Ye across the city—her telekinesis was physical manipulation, not clairvoyance—but she felt a profound sense of peace regarding him.
The System's passive updates had confirmed it: the boy was currently locked in his apartment, fueled by premium protein and a warm heater, tearing through his textbooks with terrifying efficiency.
The phantom benefactor had given him a lifeline, and he was climbing it.
"Airis," the teacher, Mr. Harrison, suddenly called out, attempting to catch her off guard.
"Could you perhaps walk us through the solution to the equation on the board?"
Airis blinked, pulling her attention back to the classroom. She looked at the complex calculus problem scrawled on the whiteboard.
To the original Airis, it might have been a challenge.
To the soul of Lin Ye, who had spent his teenage years studying these exact formulas until his eyes bled to secure a scholarship, it was elementary math.
She didn't even need to stand up.
"The derivative of the function evaluates to 4x cubed minus 7x, Mr. Harrison,"
Airis said softly, her melodic voice carrying effortlessly across the silent room.
"Assuming the constant of integration is zero, the area under the curve between intervals two and five is exactly one hundred and forty-two point five."
Mr. Harrison checked his answer key, his eyebrows raising in surprise.
"That is... precisely correct, Miss Dover. Thank you."
Chloe nudged her under the desk, whispering, "Show off."
Airis just smiled, turning her gaze toward the window. The cherry blossoms were drifting on the breeze, pink and perfect against the blue sky.
She was Airis Dover. She was ordinary. She liked pretty dresses, she got good grades, and she spent her afternoons drinking tea.
The fact that she was harboring a male soul, possessed an invincible body, and could theoretically throw the school building into orbit with a single thought was simply a minor, hidden detail.
She rested her chin on her hand, settling in for another perfectly mundane, wonderfully slow-paced day.