Incubus Living In A World Of Superpower Users

When she finally stepped out into the corridor, the students moving past barely gave her a glance, their voices and footsteps weaving together into the usual soft rhythm of the academy's halls.

The air carried its familiar mix of scents—parchment, warm stone, and the faint perfume of silverleaf blossoms drifting in through the open windows from the courtyard outside.

It was the same air she had breathed countless times before, the same measured beat of life that made up her days here.

But to her, it felt different now. The change wasn't in the walls or in the light; it was in her.

Something in the way she held herself, in the steady placement of each step, carried the echo of what had been spoken in the last room.

That conversation hadn't stayed behind her—it moved with her, a weight she accepted without hesitation, a purpose she carried without complaint as she walked toward her next meeting.

She already knew the climb ahead had grown steeper for them both.

By the time she reached the tutoring chamber, the corridor's low hum had faded into the background.

The heavy oak door gave its familiar soft creak as she pushed it open, a sound that seemed louder against the quiet waiting inside.

The air here felt different—denser, more contained—the quiet of a room built for thought, focus, and work meant to leave an imprint.

Ethan was already seated at the long desk near the center, posture straight without being rigid.

His attention shifted to her the moment she stepped inside, offering a small, polite acknowledgment with his eyes that didn't require words.

Ardis crossed the room at her usual pace, her robes moving with the faintest whisper against the polished floor.

Her expression was as it always was—cool, precise, unreadable to anyone who didn't know her well.

But beneath that still surface, her thoughts moved in steady currents, shaped by the conversation with her aunt.

Those words had not just been a warning but a shift in perspective. The boy sitting across from her was no longer simply a promising student; he was a pivot point in a game neither of them had chosen to play.

The awareness of that fact now colored the way she looked at him.

She set a neat stack of notes on the desk before taking her seat opposite him. "We'll continue where we left off," she said evenly, as if nothing at all had changed.

Ethan gave a quiet nod, his eyes steady on hers, waiting for her to begin.

For the first stretch of the lesson, she kept to familiar ground, reviewing tactical patterns from their previous session.

Ethan followed her explanations closely, answering her questions without hesitation. His responses were measured—never rushed, never drawn out—showing that he had not only absorbed the material but had spent time turning it over in his own mind.

But slowly, almost imperceptibly, she began to alter the shape of her questions.

Instead of asking for simple recitation, she slipped in harder choices—scenarios where there was no obvious right move, where the balance shifted halfway through, forcing him to adapt on the spot.

She watched carefully, noting how he handled the turns. He didn't resist the change. If anything, she saw his focus sharpen, his voice gaining a quiet confidence as he navigated each challenge.

More than once, she caught herself studying him after he had finished answering—not just what he said, but how he said it.

The steadiness in his gaze, the way he kept his breathing even when pressed, the restraint he showed by not reaching beyond what he truly knew.

For someone his age, these were not common habits.

She considered asking where he had learned to think this way, but she didn't. The time wasn't right.

Her aunt's warning was still too fresh, and she wasn't ready to draw attention to something she herself had only begun to trace.

By the halfway point, the lesson had shifted entirely in tone without Ethan realizing it. The hypotheticals she posed were no longer pulled from the academy's curriculum but from real events she had witnessed or studied in her own years of service.

Ethan met them with the same composure, sometimes answering with careful logic, other times with the faintest curve of a smile she couldn't quite read.

It was then she noticed something else—he was watching her just as closely.

Not in the idle way a student might glance at a teacher, but in a way that felt deliberate, as if he were tracking her pauses, marking the subtle changes in her tone when she moved from guiding him to testing him.

He was studying her, quietly mapping her patterns the same way she was mapping his.

The realization didn't unsettle her, but it made her more precise. Every shift of her hand across the desk, every slight change in her voice, she became aware of how it might register in his mind.

She adjusted without letting it show, letting the lesson flow as naturally as before.

When it was time for the practical drill, she rose and led him to the open space at the side of the room.

Here, her testing became sharper, the scenarios more exacting. She set him to tasks that required quick shifts between offense and defense, layering in unexpected changes mid-movement to see how he adapted.

His reactions weren't flawless—few ever were—but they were steady, and more than once he offered an answer to a problem she hadn't expected him to solve so quickly.

She rarely didn't praise him aloud, but she marked each instance in her mind, tucking them away like points on a map for later.

This wasn't about what he could do today. It was about how far she could push him without him realizing he was being pushed.

When they returned to the desk for the final stretch, her mind was already shaping the weeks ahead.

The gradient of his training would steepen, but it would be gradual, so gradual he wouldn't notice the climb until he was already halfway up it.

When she dismissed him, Ethan gathered his materials with the same quiet composure he'd shown throughout.

He offered a polite nod before stepping into the corridor and disappearing into the hum of the academy's life beyond.