AIISA mornings had a particular cadence: the clack of heels, the low static of conversation, the hush of minds already three steps ahead. That day the hum carried a sharper note—rumor turned weapon, sharpened and tossed through the quad like shrapnel.
"Steven Blake? Gone."
"He couldn't even survive week one."
"Probably dropped out. That restaurant kid didn't belong here anyway."
"I heard Veronica finally dumped him—he ran home crying."
"Let's be honest, he wasn't on her level."
Laughter, condescension, superiority—they hung thick in the air like polluted smoke.
Even the elite heirs chimed in: "No ambition." "No background." "No future."
Lucas Vandenhall smirked every time his name was brought up, riding the wave of regained confidence after his humiliating auction defeat.
"He ran because he knew he couldn't compete," Lucas declared to his group.
"Veronica is realizing he's nothing. Give it a month—she'll come to her senses." His friends laughed sycophantically.
"But we shouldn't mock him too much," one said. "Poor guy. Imagine thinking you belonged here." Those around him nodded. Because according to every rumor—Steven Blake had vanished. Completely.
Inside the serene white-marble dormitory of Selene's Paradise, Veronica sat on her bed, elbows resting on her knees, hair falling softly over her shoulders. Her phone screen glowed with a single message:
Steven: I will be back tomorrow. J
ust a short sentence. But it was enough to unravel the knot inside her chest. Still—the whispers she'd endured for weeks…
Rumors that she had dumped Steven.
Rumors that she bankrolled Steven.
Rumors that she regretted being with a "nobody."
She clenched her fist.
One girl had even whispered loudly near her locker: "Poor Veronica. She must be feeling embarrassed." Veronica slammed her locker shut so hard that the hallway fell silent.
If Steven had been there, he might've stopped her temper. But he wasn't.
And that absence created pressure she had bottled for days.
He better come back with fireworks," she muttered under her breath.
On the other side, Leon leaned against the wall outside Solaris Tower, Mira beside him. "He's seriously been gone too long," Leon grumbled. "People keep asking me where he went. I'm this close to punching someone."
Mira rolled her eyes. "And ruin your reputation on day ten? Please."
"I don't have a reputation yet."
"You have anger issues," Mira corrected gently.
"Same difference."
She smacked his arm. He softened immediately.
Mira looked toward the road. "Do you think… he has changed?"
Leon snorted. "He's Steven Blake. Of course, he changed. That guy wakes up different every week."
But even he had worry behind his smirk.
The next morning, the sun was just beginning to climb when a black SUV approached the ancient stone archway of AIISA.
Steven had read none of the rumours circulating on the campus forum. But he could guess what kind of gossip people like Lucas will cook up when he is absent for weeks.
When the black SUV eased through the stone archway, he stepped out like he had stepped into every other room of his life since he'd learned how to keep his own pace: calm, precise, unreadable. Jeans. A simple jacket. Coffee in hand. Behind him—Noah Vale and Lila Rowan: two tired, fierce young people with ink-stained fingers and code in their veins.
They looked like survivors of a storm, tired but spirited for the day ahead.
"Let's go," Steven said, and the plaza bent around them.
Veronica saw him from halfway down the walkway and broke into a run. The crowd parted and then closed, phones up, breath held—expectation crowding curiosity.
She collided into him, and he caught her without effort. Her hands curled in the fabric of his jacket. For a second, the world narrowed to the small warmth between them.
"You're back," she whispered. Her voice was relieved and something fiercer—relief gilded with anger withheld.
"I told you." He leaned his forehead to hers. "I don't break promises."
She pulled back slightly, eyes wet, but full of fire. "You have no idea how many people I didn't punch this week."
Steven smirked. "You can punch them tomorrow."
Leon and Mira came up the steps, Leon with his trademark grin that never reached the eyes when he was worried. He clapped Steven's shoulder so hard the coffee sloshed. "Don't you ever do that again. I aged ten years."
Mira made a face. "You owe us ramen."
Noah and Lila exchanged a look that read as both apology and triumph. Lila's expression was the most dangerous kind of proud—calm, contained, and ready.
The plaza had become a ring. Voices doubled. Lucas Vandenhall, smelling opportunity as anyone smelling prey, pushed forward with his group, a practised smirk already in place.
"Well, look who crawled back," Lucas drawled. "Did the Adams princess take you back? Or did you finally beg enough?"
Veronica stepped forward, fury rising—but Steven shook his head once.
Lucas smirked wider, sensing an audience.
"So tell me, Blake—where've you been hiding?" Lucas asked loudly. "Crying? Packing? Realizing this place isn't for small-town strays?"
Murmurs rippled.
Steven tilted his head slightly. Calm. Patient. Dangerous.
"I wasn't hiding," Steven said. His voice carried easily. "I was working."
Lucas barked a laugh. "Working? On what? New recipes for your little restaurant? Please. You disappeared for weeks—more like licking your wounds after the auction."
"Oh! Did you cook rumours about the auction too? Or did you forget who really lost face at the auction?"
A few students snickered.
Lucas stepped closer, lowering his voice just enough to seem intimate—but loud enough for everyone to hear.
"You know what the funniest rumor was?" he whispered theatrically."That Veronica dumped you because she realized you're nothing without her."
Veronica's eyes blazed. "Lucas, I swear—"
Steven didn't look at her.He took one step toward Lucas.
"Say that again," Steven said softly.
Lucas blinked, confused for half a second—because the softness wasn't weakness. It was precision. A blade sheathed.
"Oh?" Lucas smirked. "Did I hit a nerve? Come on, Blake, tell us—"
"You're awfully invested in my life for someone who insists I'm irrelevant," Steven said calmly."Tell me, Lucas… did my absence hurt you that much?"
Gasps. Lucas stiffened.
"What—?"
"Did you miss me?" Steven continued."Or were you just hoping the one person who humiliated you would stay gone?"
The crowd erupted.
Lucas flushed crimson, teeth grinding. "You—! You think you're impressive? You vanished like a coward! What could you possibly have done all week that matters?"
Steven smiled.
"You want to know?"
Lucas scoffed. "Yes. Enlighten me. What can a Soft Rice King possibly do?"
Steven slipped his hand into his backpack.
Lucas grinned triumphantly. "Going to show me your grocery receipts? Or maybe the bills Veronica paid for you—?"
But Lucas stopped mid-sentence. Because when Steven brought the object into the light, time did something small and private: it slowed.
The crowd leaned in.
"What's that supposed to be?" Lucas demanded.
Steven lifted the object slowly, deliberately—
A device that shimmered like liquid glass.Invisible at first glance—Then glowing softly with its own internal light.
Gasps tore through the courtyard.
"What—what is that?"
"Is that a PHONE?!"
"No way—no way this is real—"
"I've never seen that UI—what the hell is this?!"
Students surged forward.Even Lucas's friends froze.
Steven held the phone lightly, like a painter presenting his first stroke.
"This," Steven said, "is what I did while I was 'gone'."
The interface unfurled in gold light. Text glided across the translucent screen: Eclipse Note X01.
And then within minutes, every campus feed lit up. The AIISA notification ticker—normally a sleepy line of club notices and exam schedules—turned into a newswire. Griffin Tech's logo floated onto the student apps: Founder & Majority Shareholder: Steven Blake. DeltaElectro acquisition confirmed. Griffin Tech announces its next product—Eclipse Note X01.
The change in the crowd was perceptible and swift—mockery collapsing into re-evaluation. Those who'd cursed him in the morning now crowded closer to see the thing in his hand.
Lucas flushed with a dangerous mix of fury and shame. He had wanted a spectacle of humiliation; he had not planned on being the spectacle.
"You built that?" he managed.
Steven's answer was small, precise, and generous in the terms he used: "We built it. Griffin Tech. At DeltaElectro. As a team."
Small words—"we built it"—and the shape of the story shifted: ownership moved from the single person to a collective team. Noah and Lila smiled proudly. The image of a boy propped by a rich girl stuttered and fell. It was replaced by a different, harsher truth: a young man creating leverage and calling allies to his side.
Veronica laughed then, a bright, incredulous sound. "You didn't have to come back like a parade."
"I didn't want to explain," Steven said, watching the device turn light into information. "I wanted to make an answer they couldn't argue with."
By noon the story had escaped the campus. Local tech writers pinged AIISA for statements. Analysts sketched first impressions: light-field privacy, on-device AI prowess, radical battery claims. The phrase "Eclipse Note X01" started to trend beyond the school's borders.
"After Eva OS, Griffin Tech drops Eclipse Note X01 — what does the future look like?"
"Market Disruptor? Experts call it a work of art."
"Can Apple and Samsung keep up with Griffin Tech?"
"Griffin Tech reveals its mysterious CEO: Steven Blake — the boy genius behind Eva OS and now Eclipse Note X01."
And somewhere in the background, the system chimed in Steven's mind once, with the cool impartiality of code recording consequence:
[Side Quest Completed: Silence the Noise]
Progress: 18% → 46%
Rewards Delivered: 15 × Automated Manufacturing Belts (linked to DeltaElectro), +18,000 SP.
Around him, AIISA shifted from gossip to calculation. A thousand little lights blinked with new hypotheses. Hushed conversations turned into full-throated discourse.
"Is that real?" a sophomore whispered near Solaris Tower.
"It's not just real. Look at the specs," another replied, pulling up the spec breakdown mirrored across feeds: transparency illusion through light-field engineering, an NPU optimized for on-device AI, battery tech that ranked in whitepapers as "near paradigm-shifting," and privacy features that made shoulder-surfing obsolete.
The boy from Charlestown had stopped being a small nobody; he had become a storm everyone now had to consider.
In just a week, the forums exploded. Industry commentators debated whether Eclipse Note X01 would be a boutique luxury object or the beginning of a serious market shift. Big-tech watchers tweeted worried questions:
"If Griffin Tech can produce at scale, Apple and Samsung have a real competitor on their hands."
"Eclipse Note X01 introduces hardware that could push the entire industry forward by decades."
"Who is Steven Blake? The kid from Charlestown just became the face of a potential new giant."
Steven looked out of the window and smiled to himself. And for the first time since he'd opened the first system menu, he felt the future moving in step with him—no longer only in his head, but in the slow, inevitable arc of the world outside.
And somewhere in a thousand screens across the country, the question for google searches had shifted. "Who is Steven Blake? And what will Griffin Tech do next?