Julian Neal, sitting just a few rows away, couldn’t take his eyes off Isabella.
He noticed every tilt of her head toward the corner of the room, every time the heiress’s golden eyes searched, almost hungrily, for the scruffy silhouette of Lohan Hayes. Rage bubbled in Julian’s chest like acid.
’It can’t be...’ Julian thought, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the edge of the table. ’Is she really interested in that lowlife from the Lower Zone? Just because he got lucky with a cheap trick and fried my projector?’.
The humiliation of that day still burned in his memory like ozone. To Julian, the fact that Isabella, the girl he’d been trying to impress for months with his lineage and good looks, was devoting even a single second of attention to Hayes was a personal offense.
He had to act. He had to restore the "natural order" of things and show Isabella that Lohan was nothing more than a mistake who shouldn’t even be there. But he couldn’t just attack him... he needed something that would make Lohan look pathetic, while he himself emerged as the epitome of competence and authority.
A malevolent smile spread across Julian’s face as he looked at the classroom control panel.
Dr. Aris, who had just arrived, was distracted by the toxicity graphs.
’Hayes thought he was so clever talking about oxygen filters...’ Julian opened his terminal in private mode, connecting remotely to the campus health security system. ’Let’s see how his slum-dweller lungs handle a real "calibration error."’
Julian’s plan was simple: using the privileges of his uncle’s administrator account, he would trigger an Emergency Disinfection Protocol focused exclusively on the gas vents above Lohan’s seat.
The system would release a concentrated cloud of neutralizing agents, a chemical spray theoretically harmless to them Upper Zone folks who wore intra-nasal filters, but which would react violently with the unprotected, pathetic bodies of the Lower Zone, sending Lohan into a humiliating coughing fit and forcing the security guards to remove him from the room as if he were a biohazard.
Even if he were later caught in the system’s activity logs, Julian didn’t care; pranks like these were perfectly normal among students from the Upper Zone and those from the Lower Zone.
That’s why everyone from the Lower Zone walked with their heads down, desperate not to attract the attention of anyone from the Upper Zone.
Isabella, noticing Julian’s frantic movements at the terminal and the sinister gleam in his eyes, felt a pang of worry, especially when she realized that every now and then he was looking at Halon with malice.
She knew Julian was petty, and that was what worried her the most.
She looked at Lohan, who remained engrossed in his phone, completely oblivious to the imminent danger.
However, Lohan was not the easy target Julian imagined.
Even without looking up, his Instinctive Perception picked up the rhythmic change in the vibration of the ventilation ducts just above his head.
Sensing that something was wrong, the flow of Mana in his human body reacted, entering combat mode as he stood up from the chair, trying not to show any Elysium abilities outwardly.
The moment the sensor beeped, indicating that the purification valves above his head would be activated, Lohan didn’t panic and try to get out of there.
Unfortunately, he didn’t want to use any flashy external abilities, so his movement was a step slower than it should have been.
Julian, watching from his desk with a victorious smile, pressed the final command on his terminal. With the activation of the Emergency Sanitization Protocol, a whitish cloud shot out of the duct, completely enveloping Lohan under the watchful gaze of the entire class.
Isabella saw this and was enraged, her nails digging into her palm as she rose from her seat, ready to intervene.
However, before she could do anything, she felt a very familiar fluctuation in the air that she often sensed in Elysium.
Lohan remained standing, shrouded in the chemical mist.
Thanks to his [Efficient Digestion]
The moment he inhaled the irritant, the Halon’s systems identified and isolated the toxic components at the molecular level, transforming Julian’s "attack" into nothing more than a refreshing, purified breeze.
In fact, Lohan even managed to gain a bit of biomass by digesting air as chemically laden as that.
While everyone expected to see him drop to his knees in a humiliating coughing fit, Lohan merely adjusted the hood of his black hoodie and calmly looked in Julian’s direction.
Using the [Artificial Magic Core Harmonizer] to channel a subtle pulse of Mana through the network wires embedded in the floor, Lohan sent harmonic interference directly to Julian’s terminal, just as he had done with the pulse projector days earlier.
"It seems the ventilation system has the same problem as your projector, Neal." Lohan’s voice was cold, laced with a lethality that sent a chill down Julian’s spine. "Perhaps you should stop trying to control things you don’t understand now that this ’technical error’ has become... personal."
The next second, Julian’s console emitted a shrill error beep:
[PROTOCOL VIOLATION: UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO SANITARY SYSTEM]
The alert flashed in garish red on the room’s central hologram, visible to everyone, including Dr. Aris.
"Mr. Neal!" the professor shouted, his face red with indignation at seeing that one of his elite students was tampering with the lab’s chemical safety systems. "Explain yourself now, or you’ll be reported to the dean’s office for technical sabotage!"
Julian stammered, his face turning pale as he tried, in vain, to close the error windows popping up on his screen. He looked exactly like the "scared little boy" Lohan had described earlier.
Julian didn’t understand why this was happening now?! Didn’t everyone do this all the time in college?!
’Why did this stupid system malfunction right when it was my turn?! How was I identified and removed from control so quickly?’
Across the room from where this commotion was taking place, Isabella was staring at a golden screen with a cold expression.
Julian’s removal from the college systems was only her first step; now the real consequences would come for that spoiled boy who dared to attack her friend.