Silas had retreated to his room for the day with questions upon questions as to what had happened. The one question that wouldn’t leave his mind was who Nurse Anna was. Anna Miles. Was she some heiress of some big family or what? But there was no family with the name of Miles. He couldn’t understand, but with what had happened, he put it at the back of his mind.

No matter what had happened and how fed up he was, he would never admit that he didn’t want to leave the academy. It wasn’t because of anything huge, but because of Anna and Chloe. It might sound stupid, but Silas knew his chances with them were very high, and he wasn’t ready to leave them to some other man. Just how long would it take them to get over him? Yes, he had the Cupid System, so what? The system didn’t build true relationships. And he would be a fool if he couldn’t figure out the path the system was pointing him to.

With all that in mind, he went to sleep without even showering. He was exhausted after all that had happened.

***

Silas was turning over for the umpteenth time on his bed when it happened. People who have experienced an awakening either through rifts or awakening catalysts told of different experiences, but in all that, one thing remained the same: Visions. That was what he was experiencing at the moment.

It was empty and filled with darkness. Absolute darkness. But then, a single silver thread appeared. It floated before him, stretching endlessly into the void.

"A thread?" He frowned in confusion. What was the meaning of this? He didn’t even know what was happening. Shouldn’t he be sleeping? Or was this one of the Cupid-related visions?

The thread vibrated, and another appeared. Before he could react to it, another thread appeared. Within moments, thousands of silver threads filled the darkness. They crisscrossed one another like the strands of an impossibly vast spider web, but this was something far grander than a mere spider web. This was a tapestry so enormous that its boundaries could not be seen.

Silas stared at the threads in shock, his eyes traveling all over, admiring their majesty. The further he looked, the more he noticed. The threads weren’t all silver. Some were golden, crimson, black. Some even shone with colors he couldn’t describe, and every single one connected something.

Without waiting for him to comprehend what was happening, the scene shifted. A newborn child emerged from a crying mother. The instant the child took its first breath, a new thread appeared. It connected the infant to the woman, then to its father, followed by the doctors, then countless others. Each encounter, each meeting, and each decision the child took from infancy to death had a thread. He was understanding something from it. Destiny. But the vision changed again.

Silas saw himself on a battlefield where he gazed upon a tall and mighty warrior with thousands of soldiers surrounding him. Golden threads stretched from the warrior to every soldier under his command. They showed loyalty, trust, leadership, and connections.

The scene changed once more, and he appeared in a throne room where a king sat upon a throne. His body was old and frail, yet countless threads radiated from him, not because he was powerful, but because he was connected to a lot of entities. Nobles, armies, merchants, enemies, allies, and history itself.

The vision instantly accelerated, showing various things, including cities, countries, empires, wars... everywhere Silas looked was filled with threads. They were infinite, connecting everything. He then noticed something terrifying. The threads weren’t only between people. No! It was more than that.

A hunter swung a sword: a thread connected him to the blade. A mage cast a spell: threads connected her to mana. A beast hunted prey, and threads connected the predator and its victim. Even the clouds possessed threads, connecting them to the sky and rain. Mountains, rivers, even the stars. Everything was connected.

The realization struck him like lightning. The universe itself wasn’t built from matter. It was built from connections. The world was a tapestry. Reality was woven together, and every living thing was merely a knot within it. But what did it have to do with him or Cupid?

Then something moved in his vision. He then realized he wasn’t alone. A presence stood somewhere within the infinite web, watching him. It was beyond comprehension. He couldn’t see its form or even determine if it had one, but felt it. He felt the being or whatever it was acknowledge him, making the threads vibrate simultaneously. The entire tapestry trembled. Then one thread detached itself from the infinite sea of threads.

It was silver, brilliantly glowing, and beautiful. It floated toward him until it touched his chest, and the world exploded.

***

"Gah!" Silas’s eyes snapped open, bolting upright to find his body drenched in sweat and his heart pounding violently. For several seconds, he sat there, breathing heavily. The room was dark and silent, yet something felt very different.

A strange sensation crawled across his skin, like invisible strands brushing against him. He frowned and looked around, but he found nothing. Just then, something flashed at the edge of his vision. It was a faint silver line. It vanished immediately as he saw it.

Silas blinked, and there it was again, near his desk: a thin silver thread. It was barely visible, stretching from his diary to the desk itself.

"What..." His eyes widened in shock, only for more to appear everywhere. They numbered in the hundreds, even thousands, filling the room, and connecting books, furniture, and objects. Some were so faint they nearly disappeared, while others glowed softly.

Silas raised his hand instinctively, and a nearby thread reacted, trembling, as though acknowledging his presence. His breathing stopped. Instinctively, he reached toward it, and his fingers touched empty air, yet the thread moved and bent, following his motion like an obedient snake.

Silas realized he was looking at something no one else could see, just like his system. At that moment, a translucent pink screen appeared before him.

[Awakening Successful!]

[Ability Acquired!]

[SSS-Rank Thread Manipulation]

For a moment, Silas stared. Then he looked at the silver thread dancing around his fingers. A genuine smile appeared on his face, because instinct told him one thing: this ability was his. Completely his. That felt better than everything he had gained so far.

He was officially an awakened, and they were in for it.