The lesson dragged on, the teacher's voice a distant hum. Oliver's eyes flicked toward the clock. Thirty more minutes. Too long.
Ren, sitting a few seats ahead, lazily scribbled in his notebook. He was more subtle than Akari, but just as much of a slacker. The three of them had built the Asian Culture Club from nothing, somehow convincing the school it was an educational endeavor while using it as an excuse to watch anime, debate manga power systems, and drag unsuspecting members into their madness. It was the one place in this school that actually felt like his.
The thought settled something in him. No matter how much he needed to figure out his cultivation, he had time. For now, he'd sit through class, meet up with Ren and Akari later, and maybe—just maybe—get some answers soon.
After all classes were finished for the day, most students packed up and headed home, while those involved in clubs made their way to their respective rooms. Among them, in one of the smaller, lesser-known clubrooms of Hoshizuki High, a group of five students gathered inside what could only be described as a shrine to their shared obsessions.
The Asian Culture Club's room was cramped but cozy, its shelves packed to the brim with manga, wuxia and xianxia novels, and old anime CDs. A small TV sat against the wall, hooked up to an ancient DVD player, both of which had survived countless club screenings. The air carried the faint scent of instant ramen and the ink of well-worn pages, and a long, slightly unstable table in the center was covered with everything from light novels to a few half-finished sketches.
Seated around the room, the five members lounged in various states of relaxation. Ren leaned back in his chair, flipping through a volume of an old action shonen, while Akari sat cross-legged on the floor, reading something she probably shouldn't be in a school setting. The other two members, a quiet underclassman named Hiroshi and a second-year girl named Yuki, were sorting through a stack of new arrivals, debating which series should be added to the club's "must-read" list.
Oliver sat opposite of Ren with his arms crossed, his gaze distant. Normally, club meetings were something he looked forward to—the only part of the school day that didn't feel like a complete waste of time. But today, his mind was elsewhere, turning over everything that had happened on the roof, the strange pulse in his dantian, the way his body reacted to the smoke.
Akari must have noticed his strange behavior. She snapped her book shut with a loud thwap and grinned at him.
"You've been weird all day," she said, tilting her head. "What's up? Thinking about confessing to your secret crush?"
Oliver scoffed, forcing himself back into the flow of the conversation. "Yeah, sure. I've been so overwhelmed by my love for Ren that I can barely focus."
Ren, without even looking up from his book, replied with an unbothered, "Understandable."
Akari cackled, kicking her legs out from where she sat on the floor. "You wish. But seriously, what's going on? You've been totally checked out in class. Don't tell me your planning to not show up later, "
Oliver hesitated. He couldn't just say "I think I've awakened Qi" outright. Even if Ren and Akari were among the few people he could actually talk to, that was the kind of thing that would get him laughed out of the room. But he needed answers, and this was his best shot at getting them without tipping his hand.
He leaned forward, lowering his voice slightly.
"It's about that dream pattern ritual you guys gave me," he said, watching their reactions carefully. "Stuff happened in that dream, and… I felt like some of it carried over. Like, it wasn't just some random dream bullshit—it actually stuck with me. It's still on my mind."
Ren finally looked up, curious. "What do you mean 'stuck with you'?"
Oliver tapped his temple. "Like, knowledge I didn't have before. You ever feel like that after using it? Like, let's take you as an example, Ren. You said your dream setting was some kind of… what? A porn studio or something, right?"
Ren grinned. "The finest in dream-crafted degeneracy."
Oliver rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. But have you ever felt like you actually learned something real from it? Like, I don't know, you wake up and suddenly you know camera angles or lighting setups, or hell, some… uh, practical techniques?"
Akari snorted, the sound echoing through the small club room. "Are you asking if Ren learned how to do porn moves from lucid dreaming?" She raised an eyebrow, a mischievous glint in her eyes.
Ren smirked, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed. "I mean, I am a man of culture, but no. Nothing like that. Sure, I felt like I was some kind of directing genius in the dream, but when I woke up, it was just… vague impressions. Nothing concrete. I think the community I got it from called it false enlightenment or something?"
Oliver frowned. "False enlightenment?"
Ren nodded, stretching his arms over his head. "Yeah, basically. You think you're learning something in the dream, and sometimes you can refine stuff you already had a foundation in—like drawing or memorizing a story you've read before. But if you go in with zero knowledge, it's all nonsense when you wake up. You feel like you understood something deep, but it doesn't hold up in reality."
Oliver processed that, his mind working through the implications. What he experienced… it didn't feel like false enlightenment.
Which meant one of two things.
Either he was imagining all of this and the weed had amplified it…
Or, as Ren had casually mentioned earlier, maybe he actually had some kind of latent foundation in cultivation, and the dream ritual had awakened something deep inside him—something that wasn't just a product of a random dream, but something real. A real shift, a real change.
His stomach tightened with the weight of that thought. Was he really cultivating Qi now? And how far could this take him?
He shifted in his seat, tapping his fingers against the edge of the table, trying to shake off the unease growing in his chest.
"Thanks… I think that actually helped clear things up a bit," Oliver said at last, breaking the silence. He kept his tone casual, but his mind was still racing, trying to piece everything together. "Anyway, you got any more of those pattern printouts? I want to set up the dream ritual again when I get home."
Ren raised an eyebrow but didn't comment, instead reaching into his bag. "Yeah, give me a sec."
"oh yeah, before I forget. The community, or more like hard core Chuunibyou, who gave me sign us up for a cosplay tournament or something, it's in a week from now so you guys can buy some outfits for next week if your interested, " he said not really interested himself, and had just sighed up to see if the pattern was legit.
After rummaging through his things, he pulled out a stack of papers, handing them over to Oliver. The printouts were covered in intricate, swirling patterns, the lines forming almost hypnotic shapes that seemed to shift the longer he looked at them. The red, green, and blue colors blended together in a way that made his eyes feel strangely drawn into the design, as if the patterns themselves were alive, whispering some hidden meaning only he could grasp.
Oliver ran his fingers over the paper, feeling an odd weight behind them, though he knew they were just ink and cheap printer paper. Still, something about them made his skin tingle.
"Don't lose them," Ren said, his voice light but carrying an edge of seriousness. "You'll need these if you really want to dive back in."
Oliver gave a short nod, slipping the papers into his bag before leaning back in his chair. His eyes lingered on the ceiling for a brief moment as thoughts churned in his head. If the dream ritual really was just a trick to heighten brain activity, then what he had experienced shouldn't have felt so real. And yet…
He shook the thought away. Now wasn't the time to dwell on it.