It had been nearly a week since the establishment of "Supervisory Board". For Gio, this period felt like a mental endurance test with fluctuating stress graph. He had to survive a multi-domain nightmare: high-school social dynamics, a brutal curriculum, and the Venator's aggressive surveillance protocols.

  This week's rotation:

  Erinn -> Arua

  Lumi -> Gio

  Usually, Erinn and Lumi implemented a stiff schedule. Right after post-school student council or club activities, they would "sleep." More accurately, they rested their physical bodies in the Proteum while their consciousness went on demon-hunting patrols in Ophema.

  But ever since taking on this extra "Supervisory Board" duty, their operational radius got narrowed. For energy efficiency, they relocated their hunting zone around Gio and Arua's boarding house district. Two birds, one stone: the targets were monitored, and their hunting quotas were fulfilled.

  Consequently, their patrol schedule turned into chaos. Not lack of discipline, but rather a deliberate tactical play. They implemented randomized audits. Sometimes mid-lecture, sometimes post-school, occasionally in the midnight, or even at dawn. There was no pattern and notification. The goal was obvious: eliminate any chance for the suspects to predict their surveillance blind spots.

  For Gio, this level of stalking was tolerable. He wasn't planning any subversive activities anyway. His daily loop was strictly around school, studying, household chores, and homework. There were no illegal experiments, nor any secret missions.

  Gio even attempted a new adaptation strategy. He tried to blend into the Venator lifestyle that Erinn and Lumi considered “correct”. In between his Nexus training sessions, Gio went out to hunt his own species.

  Of course, he was selective. He avoided the sentient Demoniacs to prevent any additional problems—he was still a Gehenna fugitive, after all. Gio strictly hunted Fiends, the mindless demons wandering Ophema. The strategy actually worked. Lumi gave him verbal appreciation along with a few points.

  Even so, a discomfort remained. Every time he tried to sleep, shower, or just change clothes, a creeping unease crawled up his spine. He was terrified of committing an unintentional violation. Furthermore, Gio was totally blind to the Association's rulebook. What if activating a Nexus in bathroom was illegal?

  The paranoia forced Gio to develop a passive defense mechanism. Every hour, he would activate his Visual Alter-sense. Just a quick, stealthy sweep to check if his watcher was lurking nearby.

  Meanwhile, Arua was completely unaffected. His daily routine didn't shift an inch. Waking up late, sleeping through class, and working on whatever mysterious project in his laptop.

  Technically, Arua wasn't wrong. The Association only had jurisdiction over supernatural crimes, not lifestyle choices. Being an absolute menace to society wasn't exactly banned in the Association's rulebook.

  However, as his younger cousin, Gio catch a subtle shifts in Arua's routine.

  For instance, location data transparency. Previously, whenever Arua went on his late-night side-jobs, he always hid his destinations. Now, he intentionally dropped exact coordinates in Gio's chat.

  The purpose wasn’t to feed Gio's curiosity. It was to stop the blonde girl from nagging his ear off the next day at school for vanishing without a trace. With exact coordinates, Erinn could just reposition her surveillance zone. The fact that she hadn't dragged him to the Association Court or cops meant Arua's activities were (so far) deemed legal. At least that gave Gio some relief.

  Until that morning.

  Gio was chilling in his classroom, wearing P.E. uniform: a light blue top paired with dark blue track pants.

  The morning bell hadn't rung yet. The classroom was buzzing with overlapping chatter.

  Gio sat at his desk, staring at his phone, double-checking his schedule so he didn't accidentally bring the wrong textbooks. Eyes locked onto the "WEDNESDAY" column. Verification complete, he dumped the phone into his bag and leaned back.

  Next to him, Zaid looked drained. He’d been sitting there for twenty minutes straight, dozing lightly with his head rested on his arms, ignoring the surrounding.

  Seeing the loud but static condition of the classroom, Gio remembered his new security protocol. He closed his eyes for a split second, calibrating his mental focus.

  Eyes opened, the visual overlay of Ophema hit him. He ran a quick visual sweep—keeping it casual, like he was just observe another students.

  Left corner: clear. Right corner: clear. Ceiling: just some random spirit doing 18+ activities. Zero signs of his supervisor, Lumi.

  Gio exhaled a sigh of relief before switching his vision back to the Proteum. At least for now, he was safe.

  Riiiing!!! The bell finally went off.

  Fifteen minutes later, the entirety of 10-G was gathered at the East volleyball court. They sat cross-legged on the already warm concrete under the morning sun.

  Standing in front was their P.E. teacher. An unmarried dude in his twenties who likely had just fresh-graduated with Sports Education degree.

  Gio sat in the back corner, hugging his knees. Mouth clamped shut. He tried to filter the teacher's audio feed, but the signal kept getting jammed by the noisy political chatter next to him—a topic he had zero understanding of.

  Out of thirty-five kids, maybe five were actually paying attention. "Well, this is it..." Gio thought, staring at his classmate’s back. "I'm keeping my distance until I figure out how to be a normal teenager. Sigh..."

  The theoretical lecture continued. Meanwhile, the back row had officially switched topics from politics to local gossip.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  "Dude's an absolute freak, huh..." Student A whispered.

  Student B replied, "Gio... He's so unpredictable, weird, and clueless. He doesn't know how to open class window. When told to grab a gym mat, he brought a basketball instead. I mean, what has he been doing his whole life!?"

  "My theory," Student C chimed in. "He's a car crash victim suffering amnesia."

  "What if..." Student B lowered his voice. "He’s an alien spy disguised as human. Gathering information about our race's weaknesses...!?"

  "Nah, you're high, dude," Student A argued. "The most logical explanation, he's a time traveler from 1945 experiencing culture shock."

  "Lmao."

  Gio couldn't hear them from where he sat. But he knew damn well he was the topic.

  It reminded him of Zaid's recent warning. "You look like a caveman discovering civilization for the first time, totally clueless. But you're way too hyped and confident. It only highlights your stupidity, you know? Keep this up, some people definitely going to bully you soon."

  Gio just learned the term 'bully' recently, but as a demon, he deeply understood the depravity of humanity. Oppressing the weak was one disgusting form of entertainment. Not just for humans—demons, spirits, every sentient race did it.

  Gio glanced over at the guy. Zaid sat in the front row, absentmindedly tossing pebbles around. So far, Zaid was the only classmate who qualified as a "conversational partner". Even then, it was strictly surface-level small talk. Perhaps he tolerated Gio's "foolishness" not out of care, but pity.

  His thoughts drifted to his older cousin. Since day one—back when Giou was desperately fleeing from his own kind—Arua treated him like an old friend. Even a boring topic like atomic structure could be turned into a fascinating discussion. Arua, Riku, Ki Rojo... Gio just get along with them easily.

  But why? Was it because they were all outliers—people living outside the normal curve of social distribution?

  Practical session started.

  One thing he noticed while playing volleyball was his body’s reaction time. Gio's demonic soul possessed cat-like reflexes and sharp spatial awareness. However, this human body had hardware limitations. There was an input lag.

  Brain says, "jump right!" But the electrochemical signals traveling through human nerves felt slow. Thigh muscles contracted with a multi-millisecond delay. Result? Slight desync between intent and motion. He really needed to recalibrate.

  Mid-adaptation, Gio's eyes landed on an idiosyncratic figure cornering the court. A girl standing alone, frozen stiff, far away from the chaos.

  They shared the same class, but Gio felt unfamiliar with her. She was basically an NPC with disabled dialogue. Always camping in the back corner desk, face permanently sealed behind a medical mask—even during P.E. where oxygen was priority.

  "I thought I was the most isolated student here. Turns out I have competition," Gio thought.

  But that passive observation quickly turned into red alert.

  Two other girls approached the masked student, carrying a volleyball. Their body language looked friendly enough, seemingly inviting her to join the match.

  But the very next second, the atmosphere flipped. One of the girls snapped. Gio couldn't catch her voice over the court's background noise, but it was aggressive. She pointed her finger right in the masked girl's face, while her friend gave a condescending glare.

  Brief interaction. The two girls spun around looking pissed, leaving the masked girl staring miserably at her own shoes.

  "Weird..." Gio felt a sudden knot of discomfort.

  He thought about walking over, simply to ask "You good?"—but the opportunity vanished. The girl suddenly speed-walked off the court, heading straight for the restrooms. She never returned for the rest of the P.E. period.

  The second recess bell rang. Skipping all the mandatory social small talk, Gio immediately left the classroom and headed straight for his secret "base": back alley of the East Building.

  It was dead end. Nobody ever bothered walking through here because it led to nowhere. Just a moss-slicked paving block path, located between the school's towering outer wall and the back of Physics Lab, whose windows were always drawn shut by curtains.

  A neat row of Madagascar Almond trees formed a natural canopy overhead, blocking out the sun, maintaining relatively high humidity and low light saturation.

  Gloomy, desolate, and perfectly hidden. Best spot to leave a lifeless meat-suit behind.

  After feet-sweeping away the dry leaves and sharp pebbles from a spot near the wall, Gio dropped down. He leaned back against the concrete, straightened his legs, and interlaced his fingers over his stomach.

  Gio closed his eyes. Consciousness transfer sequence initiated. Abyssal Lobe cleanly cut the Proteum sensory input. Reality Awareness shifted to Spiritual Awareness. Shortly later, Astral Projection complete.

  His demon form stood up next to his resting human shell. First order: gear up. Gio grabbed his compacted black Nisaga cloak, locked to the anchor key in his pocket. Ten seconds later, the anti-aura fabric was fully equipped.

  Recess was short, and Gio wasn't about to waste it. He quickly scaled the Physics Lab wall, vaulting onto the roof to expand his FOV. His sharp eyes scanned the perimeter. Unlike his human eyes and their terrible render distance, his demon optics ran on ultra-high resolution. He easily locked a dwarf, avian-headed demon camping on a roof over a hundred meters.

  But he ignored it. Gio knew his own Astral Projection was still entry-level. He hadn't unlocked Sense-Switching yet.

  Without a neural and psion-based alarm system, his Proteum body was incredibly vulnerable. Gio wouldn't even realize if his human vessel got destroyed. Therefore, he had to limit his operational radius.

  So he chose something closer. A Fiend. Arachnid-like morphology but with ten-leg and a 45-centimeter wingspan. Thick red mucus dripped from its jaws. It was just camping on the school's perimeter wall.

  Gio dropped down. Slow movement so he wouldn't trigger the spider's seismic senses. He stopped exactly fifteen meters away from the target.

  This wasn't just a simple execution. Gio intended to test the accuracy and energy conversion efficiency of his new long-range weapon.

  Gio squared up, raising both hands straight forward at chest height.

  He pressed his palms together, then interlaced his thumbs, ring, and pinky fingers. Twisting his hands forward, the hand-sign morphed into a flesh-and-bone gun barrel. He pulled his palms apart, leaving a three-centimeter gap while keeping his fingers structurally locked.

  Next up: material transmutation. He converted the dirt Spiria below into a pure metal.

  Along the insides of his index and middle fingers, a solenoid copper coil materialized, acting as electromagnetic inductor. Hovering in the coil center was two projectiles: sharp ferromagnetic electrode needle.

  Two strands of flexible, highly conductive copper wire hooked from the base of the needle, connected into Gio's wrists.

  Hardware preparation completed, time to power up. Gio flooded his skin with electrical Nexus. For the launch phase, he utilized a DC configuration with specific parameters: low voltage, high amperage.

  He didn't route the energy straight to his fingertips, he gated it at the elbows. His entire upper body turned into a massive capacitor bank, charging up potential energy while he concentrated.

  Gio exhaled a slow breath, modulating his Nexus with a steady, rhythmic pulse.

  Thirty seconds had passed. The spider demon remained still, totally clueless that it was sitting in the crosshairs of a living electromagnetic cannon.

  And then... Zhing! Gio released the charge with microsecond precision. Thanks to Ampère's Law, the current passing through the solenoid created a massive, instant magnetic field. Lorentz force dragged the ferromagnetic projectiles forward with insane acceleration.

  The needles tore through the air, trailing a thin wire behind it, fast enough to out-scaled the spider's dodge reflexes.

  Jab! The metal sank deep into the spider's back.

  Immediately, Gio flipped his electrical properties: high voltage, low amperage. Pulse still active. Classic taser mechanics. The current spiked out of Gio's right hand (positive anode), traveled through the first wire, straight to the spider's body, routed back through the second wire into Gio's left hand (grounded cathode). A closed-loop circuit was formed.

  The spider demon's body—acting as a literal resistor—couldn't withstand the thousand-volt load. In a fraction of second, its muscles stiff up in violent tetanic spasms.

  The voltage was so intense it triggered an arc flash between the two closely-embedded electrode needles. Blue fire sparked up, roasting the demon from the inside.