Reading was not working. No new information came up and his anxiety was growing, the reading did not feel productive, usually the only goal of reading was entertainement but this time it was different and he hated feeling like he was wasting time when he could be doing something else. It was a strange situation to be in, so it would require a strange solution, it was time to go out at night.

The night was quiet, Lucianus always liked that it made reading easy, this time however he had to be more active. He never explored the city at night, or during the day for that matter, it was interesting to see how even during the night light was everywhere, the marvels of progress. The other world was supposed to be much darker, nightvision made the difference hard to notice, but one sure thing is that the town was easy to spot because of that like a lighthouse in the sea.

It was not the time for enviromental reverie for now, and the city lights while useful for normal people were not helpful for someone wanting to attract no attention, it was time to find a more out of the way spot possiby in the dark. The city was quiet but not dead, many animals take advantage of the dark to go around unobstructed and humans used it for much the same, or maybe they just had no choice. Deeper in the city offices were filled with workers doing the night shift, almost certainly wishing to be anywhere else, it was even brighter there than near home however so the vampire would have to search elsewhere for a good spot. Getting away from the offices the light stated dwindling, that was enough to give Lucianus a bit more confidence so he started taking shortcuts, jumping on roofs and lightpoles to get to the other side of the city, to the industrial zone. He was getting a bit too confident however as he landed on the back of a shop just in time to see the young man exiting the door with trashbags in his hands.

The teenager was clearly tired, with bags under his eyes looking almost as pale as the vampire himself, his long hair was somewhat familiar to Lucianus as if he had seen it many times before but the angle looked wrong. At first the two just stared at eachother, both probably unsure if what they were seeing was really there even if for clearly different reasons. The overworked man broke the silence "Lucianus? Is that you? What are you doing here?", time felt like it stopped, panic anxiety stress, all rushing in, it was a bad situation so it was time to get out. "You saw nothing.", without even giving the other party a chance to respond panic had already set in, a jolt of electricity enveloped the legs of the inexperienced vampire and he shot upwards and away from the situation he wanted to be no part of, the other man was only left with confusion and a scorch mark on the floor.

That was unexpected, Lucianus had never been that scared in his life, the bandits were less worrying. Thinking about that past experience made Lucianus notice something, there was no voice this time, no instinct kicking in, no blood in his mouth, apparently the voice was not trggered by fear. What did trigger the voice then? Maybe it needed real danger, but in that case how did they determine it. With the panic subsiding he started to notice another thing, he was recognized back there, called by name, a very rare event in his solitary life. The other young man seemed at least familar, his hair did at least, he must be from the only place Lucianus frequents enough for people to recognize him from, school. Thinking that people would notice him and even remember his name when he just ignores everyone around him was really strange, and a bit sad, he felt bad for not knowing the name of someone that cared enough to remember his, he should at least try to do the same. Another very obvious thing in hindsight was that maybe he was not discovered before, appearing out of nowhere in the dark could be explained, jumping several feet in the air from a standing position while covered in electricity and leaving who knows what damage behind probably could not.

After a moment of guilty conscience convinced him to go back and check he discovered there was at least no corpse around so he did not kill anyone, there was also no strange smell, so hopefully he did not hurt him either. Considering his options Lucianus decided that stalking a random guy at night was not a good idea so he decided to met him at school, if he was even from there, for now it was time to keep going, the goal was pretty close now. The industrial zone was full of abbandoned factories that buisenesses did not want to renovate because making a new one was cheaper, it was the perfect place to test his powers. The building was dirty and some vermin clearly made nests there but that only made it less likely to be spotted.

The main reason Lucianus wanted to test his powers in the first place was the knight part of them, he experienced the vampire part of them plenty already, too much maybe, so it was time to see ho knight he was too. Finding a metal pipe to act as sword was easy, the place was full, usin it was a bit different, swinging the pipe around like a sword reminded him of when he did the same as a kid with sticks, the pipe was lighter than it should have been but that was just a result of being stronger, he was not sure if he was more skillful than before or if he was still just a kid pretending. Maybe hitting something would help, so after finding an appropiate dummy it was time to strike, the best target around was a half collapsed column, it was already sepatated from the ceiling so even if it does break the factory should not come down around him. The first few hits were pretty normal, stronger than what he would be able to do before and even chipping the concrete but nothing special, he was unable to repeat the same trick with his legs from the panic response. Since it was clearly not working it was time to try something else, concentrating on the pipe in his hands and the sensation of electricity the spark finally happened, the strike was stronger, almost cutting the pillar if it was not for the metal inside of it. After a couple more hits the pipe started falling apart, it was clearly not meant to be used like that, but it served it's purpouse and the night was getting a bit too short.

Not being tired did not mean he should not sleep, and he still had school so it was time to go back. The travel was thankfully uneventful, without any more surprise clasmates or other problems, it was also done safer to avoid other problems for now. He was too distracted by the recent events to check on the forum and see if the artist had decided to accept the challenge, it was too late to answer now anyway, sleep was a better idea. After remembering to close the blinds and setting five different allarms he crashed in bed, this time better prepared for the horror of the morning. Waking up was much better without being paralized, and the allarms worked well, if they were even necessary, getting ready was equally easier. Not being late Lucianus had no reason to rush this time so he took the normal route, crossing paths with other students going the same way, unlike usual Lucianus was paying attention to them this time in case the green haired guy from the night before was among them, but that was not the case.

Paying attention to the rest of the class was no easy, old habits die hard they say and no matter how enhanced the senses things can still simply be ignored. The young man he was searching for was not there so he was either not at school today or he simply was in another class, however this allowed him to notice his other classmates. It was like seeing them for the first time, yesterday it was noticing they existed but today he was actually looking at them, they were all so different from eachother. There was still the lesson to follow so he could not devote his whole attention to observing the class but he did notice a couple glances from different students, so people really did know he existed, that was a scary think ti think about. It was about halfway through the day when something strange happened, a girl did not come back after lunch, in an uncharacteristic bout of spontaneous curiosity Lucianus asked the nearest classmate what happened to her, after a short stunned silence at hearing the pale guy talk the classmate revealed an interesting information. The girl was tasked with cleaning up an empty club room, but she hurt herself in the process, it was a really strange accident as the other student that was with her saw her trip on nothing.

A normal person would laugh or ignore the story, Lucianus instead had a bad feeling about this. He managed to excuse himself from the classroom by pretending to be sick, which was believed by the teacher more for the sudden ability to speak than his acting skills, and he rushed to the club room when out of sight. His intuition was correct, the room was left half clean and the table had fallen in the center of the room, he had left it there since last time and this was the last proof he needed to come to a conclusion, not everyone can see the table. He was unsure of why he was able to see it, or if there where others that could, but compared to the rest of the things happening this one seemed almost mundane in comparison. Noticing that his absence was getting a bit too long he decided to simply move the table back in the corner to hopefully avoid more accidents and go back, it was a problem for later, the meeting was tomorrow after all.