Theo's vision blurred, as if his brain only fully rendered the frame where he sat down at his stand and then the frame where he somehow grabbed Tesh's hands by her wrists, dragging her up and then slamming said wrists against the wall.
Everything in between?
Just a Hive-AI-born projection, fake frames, generated strictly by the AI's protocols.
Normally, back when this tech was first implemented to cheat-boost the performance of the graphics cards, this was only a slight problem. After all, with the native frames still reaching way above the perception of a human eye, any flaws the generated frames would come with would be simply lost in the process.
Right now, however, the change between Theo's two points of reference was simply far too great for the hive to accurately create any sort of sight that made sense, thus filling in the void with just a bunch of blurry nonsense.
And it was exactly because of this effect that by the time Theo realized what was going on, he was already dragging the girl up the wall by her wrists, her arms stretched above her head while a pained expression twisted her face so much, he could see it even with her face-mask on!
A set of red letters sparked up right before Theo's eyes, occupying the prime spot in the middle of his vision while anchored to his pupils so that he couldn't simply look away.
And a warning of this level…
A cold wave moved down Theo's spine just in time for the text to change, to grow larger.
The hive shot Theo's eyes with one line of text after the other, all of it in the single fraction of a moment Tesh took for a pained groan to escape her mouth.
"Aa…aargh…"
Initially loud, the girl quickly muffled her voice, pulling the bottom of her jaw up to muffle her own, pained scream, effectively adding yet another piece of a puzzle that this whole situation was turning out to be.
A puzzle so nonsensical, even Theo's hive was struggling to properly process it.
<
- Rating Partial Expression: Fear [73%], Surprise [48%], Guilt [23%]
- Rating Updated Partial Expression: Fear [78%], Shock [57%], Guilt [11%], Excitement [17%]
- Vector Assessment: Accidental Threshold Breach
- Posture Analysis: Non-hostile [82%], Defensive [- 38%], Desperate [71%]
- Judgment: Accidental entry
- Logic Flaws: Outfit mismatching lack of intent
>
In the end, it took the hive a good two seconds to spit out the results of its processing, an astonishingly long period of time given just how many nanites coursed through Theo's blood along with loads of energy they could freely access.
'So she entered by accident, huh?' Taking Hive's word for it, Theo squinted his eyes as he looked at the girl with open hostility.
Nevertheless, even with the processing of the situation done, the hive didn't release the quasi-seal on his movements, keeping him voluntarily restrained while taking back the control of his body from the haywire hormonal glands.
How did they go haywire?
Heck, how did he get to move so fast neither his eyes could register the in-between frames nor his brain could process them even if they did?
And how, in that same instant, did he manage to stand up, grab Tesh's wrists, slam her back against the wall and then even drag her up by her hands, all within that single moment his eyes couldn't even register?
'Shit.'
Torn straight out of his cultivation, Theo didn't have the time nor the mental capacity to instantly assess the situation. Not even with the hive's analysis popping up in his brain could he take proper stock of the situation.
And throughout all of his hesitation, the pain on the girl's masked face continued to grow bigger and more profound, to the point her entire body was starting to squirm against the wall of Theo's room.
<
Abnormal change notice: Posture Analysis: Non-hostile [80%], Defensive [12%], Panicked [93%], Excited [37%]
'Huh?'
Theo's eyes twitched.
'Restrained?' he thought, his attention instantly switching away from the change in the girl's body language to the weird phrasing of the hive. 'Not under control?'
POOF!
A wave of heat struck Theo's face, adrenaline exploding in his veins and only accelerating the already peaking cultivation of his. And with the rapids of energy rushing through his structure, they only amplified the effects of the adrenaline, making Theo crave nothing more than a destructive release.
For the first time in his life, he felt such a power in his hands, power that desperately pushed for him to release it.
Yet, right as it was in the middle of getting to Theo's head, a single thought formed in his mind.
'If that's the already restrained effect…'
Theo couldn't even finish forming this single thought before his emotions took over.
The anger at this stupid girl daring to intrude into his room again, even after the stern warning he left her with the last time.
But there was more than just that.
The way her skin-tight black bodysuit did as well of a job at obscuring the general outline of her body as it did at putting an emphasis on her well-developed curves, the way she squirmed powerlessly in his hold, unable to do anything to disobey him anymore…
This momentary excitement, however, nigh-instantly transformed into something else.
A self-directed disgust.
'She's just a damn student, you damned pervert!'
With the anger receding to make way for Theo's self-loathing, he finally managed to regain the proper control over his body, one that was steered by the power of his will rather than the whims of his dysregulated, hormone-powered emotions.
And with this disgust now taking the primacy over Theo's face, he looked down into Tesh's eyes…
"There won't be a third warning."
His voice but a low growl, a voice one could expect from a dog showing the signs of aggression and possessiveness.
Rather than keeping the girl to himself, however, Theo brought his right leg half a step to the back, before twisting his body at his hips and lowering his arm just far enough for the tips of Tesh's feet to touch the ground, giving her but a brief moment of relief…
Before twisting his body at his hips again, pulling at Tesh's wrists and, without any ceremony to it, throwing her out of the doors she opened herself a mere moment earlier.
The girl flew, then crashed into the wall only to fall down to the floor of the corridor and then have her momentum carry her as she stumbled only to end up crashing into another wall.
'Huh?'
The sight of Tesh's trajectory caught Theo off guard.
'Since when was I that…' his eyebrows moved up half an inch, only to then lower back down as the realization dawned on him. 'Right, I'm no longer but the unfortunate mortal that I was just before today,' he thought, shaking his head as he turned back to the doors before slamming them closed with a single pull of his hand.
Now that Theo was a cultivator, even if of a relatively low rank for now, his strength… It grew beyond any reasonable limits!
'Is that why my hormones overreacted too?' he thought, trying to form some sort of understanding of what happened just now. 'But why… that would make a lot of sense actually,' Theo gulped his saliva down, only for his chest to starting to hurt in a weird, although not alarming, way.
And as Theo's eyes instinctively gravitated towards the remaining half of the pot of his rich-tasting soup… He realized the obvious.
'I'm about to break through? Just from this silly encounter alone?'