Thin wisps of smoke drifted out from the restroom doorway, mingled with faint grunts and muffled cries of pain.
Using his cane, Sam nudged aside the stained yellow curtain hanging over the entrance and stepped inside. Just as he did, a boy was walking out.
The boy had an unremarkable face, one that would blend into any crowd, but his expression carried a mix of arrogance and hostility. Dark red stains marred his knuckles, evidence of recent violence.
The boy noticed Sam and said nothing, though a faint frown creased his brow. His eyes held a subtle hint of warning as he brushed past, striding out of the restroom with his head held high.
Sam paid him no mind, even though this boy was his intended target—Ethan Reed.
Instead, Sam moved further into the restroom, stopping at one of the stalls. He used his cane to push the door open, revealing three boys with bleached yellow hair sprawled haphazardly on the grimy floor near the urinals. They groaned and whimpered, clutching their injuries.
"Wha… what the hell are you looking—" one of them began, his voice laced with vulgarity, but—
Thud!
The cane tapped lightly against the floor, producing a low, resonant sound.
A strange mental ripple spread outward, brushing over the three boys. Their previously aggressive gazes immediately turned vacant, before shifting to one of seriousness.
"Chief!"
"Hmm, what happened?"
Under Sam's unwavering gaze, the leader of the three yellow-haired boys, Troy Hunt, began to answer.
"We were extorting money from Ethan Reed, like we usually do. But this time, he didn't pay up and beat us up instead."
Sam nodded slightly. "And what do you plan to do next?"
"I told him not to leave after school if he had the guts, and he agreed. I've got an older brother I met outside of school. He's got dozens of men under him. I'm planning to call him and ambush Ethan after school."
Hearing this, Sam gave a faint, silent smile but said nothing. Without another word, he turned and left the restroom.
Not long after his departure, the sounds of groaning and wailing echoed once more from inside the restroom.
In the classroom, Sam sat in the last row by the window, gazing absentmindedly at the view outside.
At the front of the room, a balding, middle-aged teacher with a paunch and thick glasses droned on from the textbook, his voice monotonous and uninspired.
Most of the students were either dozing off or whispering to one another, while only a handful in the front row paid any real attention to the lecture.
The teacher ignored the lack of discipline in the classroom, intervening only when the noise grew too disruptive. At such times, he would simply send the troublemakers outside to stand as punishment. For the rest of the lesson, he merely went through the motions, teaching as though fulfilling a task rather than inspiring his students.
A mundane classroom, an unremarkable teacher—everything appeared so ordinary. And yet, within this small, nondescript room sat a legendary extraordinary and someone determined to hunt him.
Ethan was Sam's classmate. Unlike Sam, who was admired and untouchable, Ethan was one of the most inconspicuous students in the class, often the target of bullying and extortion.
But things had changed. The once-timid Ethan now carried himself with an air of defiance. There was a newfound arrogance in his demeanor, a quiet confidence that set him apart, as though everyone else were beneath him.
At the moment, Ethan sat idly at his desk, holding a pen. Occasionally, he would glance down and jot something into his notebook, his expression distant, lost in thought. No one knew what was on his mind.
Time ticked by, and halfway through the lesson, Ethan's face suddenly tensed. He instinctively clutched at his chest, a flicker of fear flashing across his face.
"Mr. Wang, may I go to the restroom?" he asked abruptly, raising his hand.
Mr. Wang, the balding teacher, glanced at Ethan with mild disinterest and waved dismissively. "Go ahead."
Ethan scribbled hastily over the notes in his notebook, obscuring what he had written before rising and walking quickly out of the classroom.
Such lax management was characteristic of Elite High School. Despite its loose discipline, it remained one of the top schools in District 13. Of course, there weren't many schools in the district to begin with.
As the sound of footsteps faded into the distance and finally disappeared, a strange scene unfolded in the classroom.
Mr. Wang's droning lecture abruptly ceased. The students who had been whispering among themselves also fell silent, as though following some unspoken agreement.
It was as if someone had pressed a pause button on the entire classroom.
The air grew heavy with an eerie stillness. Every student sat upright, their postures rigid like lifeless dolls.
Swish!
In perfect unison, all the students turned their heads toward the back of the room, their unblinking gazes locking onto Sam.
"Chief!"
The deep, synchronized voices echoed, breaking the silence.
Sam withdrew his gaze from the window, turning his attention to the students before him.
"What did he write?" he asked, his voice calm yet commanding.
Two students—Ethan's deskmate and the one seated behind him—spoke simultaneously: "Dreams! Nightmares!"
Sam's eyes flickered with interest, his expression turning contemplative.
Dreams? Nightmares?
Why would Ethan write those words?
For most teenagers, jotting down odd phrases in their notebooks wasn't unusual. Adolescence was a time of strange and fantastical ideas. But for an extraordinary like Ethan, it couldn't be dismissed so simply.
Ethan's sudden rise from being a bullied nobody had only happened within the last two weeks. It was obvious that he had become an extraordinary during this brief period.
When someone ascends to the realm of extraordinaries, their way of thinking inevitably changes. It's like comparing the mindset of someone earning $3,000 a month to someone making $3 million—their concerns and perspectives would naturally diverge.
Thus, the words Ethan had written, dreams and nightmares, weren't likely some adolescent dabbling in angsty poetry. They had to be connected to his earlier sudden shift in demeanor and his extraordinary status.
Could it be…?
A suspicion formed in Sam's mind. Could Ethan, like himself, have gained his abilities through dreams?
Sam's power was the unlimited growth of his mental energy, while Ethan's seemed to be the unlimited strengthening of his physical body.
If that were true, then Sam himself was also an extraordinary.
But wait—something didn't add up.
Ethan wasn't sleeping during class.
Sam distinctly remembered that when he first gained control over his dream abilities, his overwhelming urge was to sleep, no matter the time or place. Compared to the omnipotence of his dreams, reality had felt unbearably dull.
If Ethan's powers were dream-related, Sam couldn't believe someone with Ethan's temperament could resist the temptation to sleep.
"Interesting," Sam murmured, the corners of his mouth curving into a smile. He relished the unknown—unknowns brought surprises, and surprises shattered the monotony he had long grown tired of in his dreams.
Thud!
With a soft tap of his cane on the ground, the classroom instantly returned to its lively chatter.
"Class, turn your books to page 138…"
The droning lecture resumed, its monotony enough to lull anyone to sleep.
Sam's thoughts drifted.
In truth, he had long since hypnotised everyone in the school, including the janitor's guard dog. With his ever-growing mental energy, how could he possibly spare his classmates?
This was also why he had been able to identify Ethan as an extraordinary.
Half a month ago, he noticed something strange—Ethan had broken free from his hypnosis.
In other words, while everyone else in the school was like a puppet on strings, the strings binding Ethan had… snapped.
It was at that moment that Sam realised Ethan had become an extraordinary.
Roughly two weeks ago, Ethan had been absent from school for about a week. When he returned, Sam decided to reinforce his hypnosis. Casually, he waved the ouroboros symbol on his cane in front of Ethan, as though by chance. But to his surprise, Ethan showed no reaction.
Intrigued, Sam conducted a series of subtle hypnotic tests on Ethan, which led him to two conclusions:
Ethan had undergone some kind of transformation that rendered him immune to conventional hypnosis.
This transformation was primarily physical rather than mental; otherwise, the hypnosis would have been detected much earlier.
With these findings, the stage for the current developments was set.