CHAPTER 171: IT’S TIME

The sun poured down like honey over the F-Rank Superhero Academy’s campus, its rays warm and golden, caught in the dew still clinging to the trees and marble tiles. The next day arrived with a breeze gentle enough to lift the ends of Elius’s perfectly unwrinkled collar. He strode toward his class with a calm gait, his hands in his pockets, and a subtle gleam in his golden eyes that made it difficult for anyone to look away once they’d met his gaze.

Behind him, as always, trailed a wave of energy—a small army of girls from the academy who had, in just a few days, become his self-declared entourage. They didn’t walk with him as much as orbit him, like moons to a star. Chatter bloomed from their lips like wildflowers, lively and colorful, their voices laced with delight and barely-contained excitement.

"I made bento for him—do you think he’ll accept it?"

"No way! I brought dessert!"

"He smiled at me yesterday, I swear! He did, I almost died."

Some fanned themselves dramatically, others giggled like they’d lost control of their own hearts, and a few more timid ones simply followed in silence, admiring from a respectful distance. They whispered his name as though it were sacred. Elius, Elius, Elius.

He didn’t mind.

He liked the attention—not in the way a narcissist craved power, but in the way a monarch accepted reverence as natural. He didn’t ask for it, but neither did he reject it. It settled around him like a tailored cloak, weightless, familiar. His responses were few, a smile here, a nod there, sometimes a slow blink of acknowledgment that made their hearts stutter.

Classes were standard. Techniques, theory, ethics, and some dull lectures about the dangers of uncontrolled power. Elius sat through it all with a distant gaze, not disrespectful but somehow detached, as though he already knew these things—or perhaps as if they were beneath his concern.

After class, a few of the braver girls asked, almost in a synchronized breath, "Elius, do you want to hang out with us today?"

He turned to them, eyes half-lidded, his tone unreadable. "Sure."

And that was it. That one word unraveled an entire afternoon’s worth of noise and wonder.

What followed was an unusual kind of chaos. Elius didn’t plan where to go—he simply walked, and the girls followed. They roamed the upper gardens first, where artificial trees bloomed with neon-blue flowers and crystalline butterflies danced along the petals. Some of the girls tried to strike up conversations, light and playful. They laughed at their own jokes and blushed whenever Elius turned his head slightly in their direction.

"I heard he once dodged lightning."

"No, I heard he talked it out of striking him."

"He smells like... I don’t even know. Heaven, maybe?"

As they descended toward the lower campus, they stopped by the hero statue garden, where great figures of history stood immortalized in white stone. One of the girls whispered, "Someday, there’s gonna be a statue of him right here."

Elius walked beside them in silence. Not aloof, not cold. Just present. He never raised his voice. He didn’t joke, didn’t tease. But his stillness had gravity. His presence filled the air like incense—soft, overwhelming, unforgettable. He answered a few of their questions with short replies, not because he was rude, but because he believed in saying only what needed to be said.

They tried taking pictures with him. He didn’t pose, didn’t smile, but didn’t refuse either. He simply stood there, expression unreadable, posture perfect. And somehow, every picture came out like a painting.

They visited the tech tower’s observation deck next, where futuristic telescopes showed glimpses of dimensional rifts and alternate realms. One of the girls pointed excitedly and asked, "Would you ever go there?"

Elius replied, "Maybe."

That "maybe" was enough for them to squeal and imagine a hundred different stories.

Then they went to the indoor waterfall garden, a luxury dome with serene music and mist that made everything feel like a dream. There, one of the girls tripped over a rock and would have fallen—but Elius caught her. His hand wrapped around her wrist just before she hit the ground. The touch lasted less than a second, but it was all they could talk about for the next ten minutes.

"He touched her!"

"Her hand’s glowing now!"

"I would faint if that were me..."

They sat together under a tree, the girls chatting, laughing, taking selfies and talking about their favorite heroes. Some dared to ask more personal things.

"What’s your favorite color?"

"Do you like dogs?"

"Are you dating anyone?"

Elius didn’t answer all of them. Some he ignored entirely. Others, he met with a tilt of his head or a half-smile that said more than words could. He didn’t lie, didn’t pretend. He simply remained himself—composed, regal, distant, and mesmerizing.

Even when they ate snacks together near the academy’s floating koi pond, he didn’t eat much. Just a few bites of something handed to him, a nod of thanks, and that was it. Still, the one who gave it to him nearly exploded with joy.

But even as the girls laughed louder, chattered faster, and clung more tightly to the atmosphere around him, Elius remained unshaken. His mind never drifted too far from his inner world. He listened, but not with full attention. He walked with them, but part of him was always elsewhere.

Until, as the sun began to dip ever so slightly in the sky, Elius glanced at his wristwatch.

He stared at it for a long, quiet moment, his golden eyes dimming slightly.

Then he stood.

The girls, startled by the sudden movement, turned their heads toward him.

He looked at them, the soft breeze stirring his hair.

Then, quietly, he said, "It’s time."

They blinked.

"Time for what?" one of them asked gently.

But Elius didn’t answer.

He turned and began to walk—his steps measured, decisive, quiet.

The attention never left him. Even as he disappeared into the distance, the girls watched, silent now, their hearts beating wildly in their chests, knowing without understanding:

Something important had begun.