After closing the official Tower guides, Fenric searched the Samsara Forum for info on two things he’d just earned: the Golden Treasure Chest and the Personal Instance Card.
Nothing.
Not a rumor, not a screenshot, not even a "friend of a friend." Which made sense—before him, no one had ever scored an SSS Super God evaluation. No SSS, no chest, no card. He was the data point.
Jingle bell—
The class bell rang. Out of respect, Fenric pocketed his phone and sat up straight. His eyes faced the blackboard. His ears caught maybe three syllables. His brain? Elsewhere.
Should I use the Personal Instance Card tonight?
Any other Samsara players would call him sick. Most people risked their lives in the Tower only because they had to grow stronger. Fenric, walking plot‑spoiler with a cheat memory, got twitchy when he wasn’t fighting for loot? Wouldn’t that be asking for beating?
The morning crawled. Fenric decided he wasn’t sacrificing the afternoon too.
He went to the homeroom office. "Teacher, I need the afternoon off."
The head teacher frowned over her book. "The college entrance exam is half a month away. This is when you want leave?"
Fenric put on weary‑student face. "Lately I’ve had heart palpitations, arrhythmia, trouble sleeping. Probably exam stress. I want to get some air before I lose it."
Other students might fold under that stare. Fenric, mentally decades older, didn’t blink.
The teacher’s first instinct was to scold—but she remembered a recent headline: Senior Jumps From Building Under Exam Pressure. Her tone softened.
"How long?"
"Just this afternoon."
"...Fine. Back in class tomorrow."
If he’d been a top student, no chance. But a mediocre score? One afternoon wouldn’t move the needle.
After getting permission, he headed home.
The house is empty. His father—night shift—should’ve been back sleeping by now. Maybe overtime. Fenric didn’t dwell.
He pulled out the box of gold bars he’d brought from Samsara Space and grabbed some cash. Time to liquidate.
But not directly. Every legit bar carries stamped identifiers—serial strings, assay marks, mint letters. Sell those raw and you leave a trail. A trail someone could follow back from a recorded lot... to a buyer... to a surveillance angle... and eventually to a kid who just might be Shura.
So step one: re‑smelt into unmarked bullion. You lose margin, but you keep the mask.
Isla Wynn—"School Flower" by day, masked Samsara "Arke" by night—might not betray him. She might even be trustworthy.
But might doesn’t protect a secret identity when people start waving power, money, and national leverage. Even her parents couldn’t be considered safe variables. Push comes to shove? People flip.
He couldn’t exactly go on a preemptive "remove all witnesses" spree. He wasn’t strong enough to armor his identity by force—not yet.
Better to be invisible.
Fenric tucked the gold under his arm and headed out. He took a local bus bound for another city.
Why not high‑speed rail? Security screening. Metal detection. Declarations. You don’t haul a box of unregistered bullion through state scanners and walk away smiling. In Jadeveil, transporting more than 100g of unstamped gold without proper clearance counts as smuggling.
Buses, though? Hop on mid‑route, hop off mid‑route. No scanners. No paperwork. Drivers who accept "cash convenience." Everyone wins.
And every city has its quiet metals circle—pawn fronts, scrap refiners, gray‑zone jewelers. You melt, pour, shave the weight fee, and walk out liquid.
If he sold local, too many eyes. Too easy for "someone interested in Shura" to connect the dots.
Caution is the boat that carries you across the river. Fenric wasn’t sinking himself over gold.
With his current stats—even if some roadside crew tried robbing the "student with luggage"—he wasn’t worried.
He settled into his seat as the bus rattled out of town, city edges blurring past the window.