Rise Of The Villain

Chapter 10

Before going to sleep, Rhys decided to scroll through his phone and immediately noticed a slew of missed calls and text messages inquiring about his sister's disappearance.

He scrolled through the notifications without opening the actual messages, purposefully keeping them unseen.

Additionally, his channel, launched just an hour earlier, had already attracted 50 subscribers, with five comments on his first vlog which was unusually quick growth for a new channel which he had put no effort into promoting.

Apparently, his sister's disappearance was trending online, and sharing the same surname drove organic traffic to his channel which was fuelling this growth.

Among the comments, three were inquiries about his relation to Violet and her whereabouts, while two praised his content, looking forward to his next update.

After quickly absorbing the online chatter, Rhys set his phone aside to organize his thoughts. With school scheduled from 8 am to 2 pm the next day, he realized just how constrained he was for time and understood the importance of managing it properly.

Given his current workload, completing his routine would take about 8-9 hours, making the balance between this and his school commitments a significant challenge.

After carefully thinking everything through, Rhys decided to complete half his workout before going to bed and decided to complete the book reading tasks during school hours itself.

Since filming would not be possible in school, he decided to just reshoot him reading the book later, but since he would only be acting then, it would not take more than five minutes.

If everything went as planned, he could complete the rest of his workout and editing between 3-7 in the afternoon giving him a buffer time to complete any tasks should things go wrong and also leave time for schoolwork.

Although living like this would make his life extremely hectic, Rhys was committed to completing the system mission daily for the full duration of the 90 day challenge.

As planned, he began with his workout, putting in a good two hours of effort to tire himself out so that he could finally hit the bed.

***

 Next day, Memovile High-school

Just as Rhys expected, from the second he walked into his high school, people began swarming him and asking him about his sister.

Some gave him looks of pity, some took joy in his misery while most just found his situation to be interesting as they craved for some drama.

Since he had awakened yesterday, protocol mandated that Rhys inform his high school at once that he was now a Ascender, which was why instead of attending his homeroom class, Rhys headed straight towards the principal's office to inform her of his awakening.

"Rhys, my boy, I'm so sad to hear about your sister, are you okay my child?" The principal asked Rhys when he showed up in front of her office, however, Rhys showed no emotion before her.

"I'm okay…. Thankyou for asking ma'am," he said, as he concealed his true emotions perfectly.

There were some people who wore their lives on their sleeves as one could just look at their faces and understand everything about their life, however, Rhys was not one of those people.

Ever since he was a child, Rhys rarely showed emotions to outsiders and was fake and cold to most, however, ever since he lost his parents, his personality became even colder as he only gave measured and calm responses to everyone.

"One mistake-, one mistake is all it takes to lose everything in this world for middle class people like us Rhys. Always remember my words.

One mistake is all it takes-" His father would repeatedly tell him as a child, as he taught Rhys the importance of always being in control of his emotions.

One wrong tweet that hurt someone's sentiment.

One wrong slur spoken out of anger

One wrong street fight picked against a thug

One wrong insult to someone in power

These were small things that could catch a man off-guard, however, had the power to ruin their entire life and Rhys's father always reminded Rhys to never slip for such pitfalls.

While as a kid, Rhys could not understand the gravity of his father's words, as he matured and saw the ugly side of the world, he realized that displaying emotion was perceived as nothing but weakness and hence he learnt how to conceal his true thoughts well.

Even though he was agonizing internally, feeling angry, frustrated and on the brink of a mental breakdown, he maintained his composure in public and acted his usual self while interacting with everyone.

"How can I help you today, my child?" Mrs CatKaela, the principal, said as Rhys informed her about his awakening.

"I'm here to register as a Ascender. My birthday was on 1st January where I turned 18 and also underwent my awakening." Rhys said as Mrs Caterina gasped in disbelief.

"The same day as your sister got kidnapped?

Isn't this what happened to Violet as well? Awakening the same day as experiencing the tragedy of losing your parents?" Mrs Caterina said as she tried to form a pattern between tragedy and awakenings.

Rhys said nothing regarding her hypothesis and chatted politely with her while she registered him as a Ascender and completed the necessary procedure.

Since Rhys was not a trouble child, the principal gave him the ' No Objection Certificate' to become a Ascender on the spot, however, had he been a notorious troublemaker then the school was supposed to give him disciplinary classes before sending him to behavioral analysis bureau who would determine if the student was eligible to enter the tower or not.

This was only a rule applied recently as cases of Ascenders becoming criminals were on the rise and the government wished to curb any early signs of dissent to eliminate future criminals from attaining power.

However, all that did not affect Rhys as his registration went smoothly, which meant that as long as he graduated, he would attain his license to become a Ascender and enter the tower.