The Oblivious Warden of Ghavary
By @john1208
I didn't mean to make a scene at the Opening Convocation. When my entrance artifact exploded, painting me in glowing black soot in front of the entire High Conservatory of Ghavary, I just smiled, wiped my goggles, and took my seat in the lowest rank. I was simply grateful it hadn't caught fire! I had no idea my cousin Javya had rigged it, nor that she possessed a parasitic System demanding I fail every major Inquest to steal my destiny. The Conservatory is notoriously eerie - corridors shift, spectral horrors roam the courtyards, and the exams are deadly. But to me? It's just a strict curriculum. When Javya locks me in the flooded botanical wing with a shadow-beast, I assume it's a surprise practical exam and excitedly document the creature's diet. I never despair, which means Javya's System is starving. What my cousin doesn't know - and what the parasite never told her - is that her cheat comes with a hidden, irreversible time limit. As I happily study my way to the pinnacle of the academy, Javya's countdown ticks toward zero. But what happens when the desperate parasite realizes its host is out of time?
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The Unweeping Rose of Oskola
By @john1208
The story opens with a desperate deal struck in the shadows: to save her dying mother, a transmigrated girl named Mirella binds herself to the Weeping Fate System, agreeing to harvest the despair of her cousin, Danica Veles. In the mist-choked, eerie city of Oskola, Danica is known for her sharp tongue, her flawless glass-crafting, and her prickly, unyielding pride. Mirella expects an easy target, but she severely underestimates Danica's aggressive optimism. Every attempt to ruin Danica's quiet, daily life - shattered shipments, ruined gowns, vicious rumors - fails spectacularly because Danica refuses to despair. Instead, the proud lead views every sabotage as a thrilling challenge, turning disasters into masterpieces with a stubborn smirk. Her unwavering resilience draws the quiet, enduring love of the enigmatic Lord Casimir and forces her most pompous rival to become a fiercely loyal ally. As the supernatural fog outside their manor thickens, Mirella’s system debt mounts with every failed plot. How long can a parasitic shadow survive when its target simply finds joy in spite of it?
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The Artificer's Stolen Luck
By @john1208
Tavira Morzhan wakes up suspended from the ceiling of a flooded, abandoned clocktower with gravity reversed and no memory of how she got there. Told in alternating third-person perspectives between the hot-tempered tinkerer and her arrogant academic rival, Vadim, the story follows Tavira’s gritty daily life at the Galdurast Institute of Artifice. She only cares about two things: beating Vadim in the workshop and graduating to save her family from the toxic lower-city smog. She is completely unaware she is the protagonist of a novel, or that her transmigrated cousin, Lissea, harbors a parasitic System. To steal Tavira’s 'protagonist luck,' Lissea must physically pilfer her most cherished belongings. But every time Lissea steals a prized hammer or a lucky compass, a furious Tavira simply works twice as hard to forge a better one, inadvertently impressing the academy's masters and instantly unlocking greater opportunities. As the System's failures drive Lissea to desperate, easily exposed acts of sabotage, neither girl realizes the world’s plot has a hidden, unmentioned 30-day time limit before the city collapses entirely. Will Tavira’s relentless hard work be enough to arrest her saboteur cousin and halt the unseen countdown before everyone perishes?
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