Merinth Vallog sat in his office, buried under a chaotic mess of paperwork, yet he held no quill in hand. Instead, he was staring blankly out the window, the image of the ceremony still burned into his retinas.

  He could not believe he had lost his bet. The Aether Stone had been right at his fingertips—a resource so precious it was the foundation for half a dozen of his most ambitious research projects. Now, those projects were nothing but scrapped dreams, all because a fourteen-year-old boy had defied the norm.

  "Damn it!"

  In a fit of uncharacteristic rage, he swept his arm across the desk, sending a cascade of parchment and inkpots flying across the room. He began to go on a rampage, upending chairs and slamming his fist into the stone walls until his knuckles bled.

  Finally, he slumped into his seat, breathing heavily, his chest heaving with exertion and lingering fury.

  Knock. Knock.

  The sound was like an explosion in the quiet room. Merinth’s chest tightened instantly. Is that him? He wasn't ready to face Lucien D’Roselle. He was already halfway out of his chair, eyes darting toward the hidden lever for the secret exit behind the tapestry, when a voice drifted through the heavy oak door.

  "Sir? Is everything alright?"

  It was one of his assistants. Merinth exhaled, the tension leaving his shoulders in a jagged rush. He composed himself, smoothing his robes with trembling hands.

  "Yes... everything is fine," he called out, his voice sounding hollow even to his own ears. "I just had a little accident. A shelf gave way."

  There was a long silence on the other side of the door. Then, the sound of retreating footsteps. It seemed the assistant had accepted the excuse and left. Merinth leaned back, closing his eyes, his mind racing. The real question—the one that made his stomach churn—was how he was supposed to face the boy again.

  Then, he heard another knock.

  "What is it?" he snapped, his voice sharp with irritation.

  No response. Just another steady, rhythmic knock.

  "Leave!" he ordered, his patience fraying.

  Still, there was no response, only that persistent, mocking sound. Another knock followed, and Merinth’s irritation reached a breaking point. He stood to storm toward the door, but then he froze.

  The sound hadn't come from the hallway.

  He turned toward the source, and the sight through the glass held him rooted to the spot. Outside, clinging to the sheer stone masonry of the spire's exterior with the casual ease of a gargoyle, was Lucien.

  He looked utterly ridiculous—and entirely terrifying. His silver-blond hair was windswept, and his uniform was slightly ruffled, but his expression was one of unbearable arrogance. He wasn't struggling to hold on; he was leaning back against the open air, one hand hooked into a stone decorative molding as if he were reclining on a silk sofa.

  He stared through the glass with those storm-grey eyes, a predatory, knowing smirk tugging at his lips. He looked like a king looking down at a subject, despite being perched hundreds of feet above the Academy grounds.

  Lucien tapped the glass one more time, his knuckles sharp against the pane. Then, his lips moved, mouthing a single, silent word:

  "Open."

  The Headmaster felt the last of his dignity deflate. He looked at the boy, then at the sheer drop behind him, and realized that "student rules" had never applied to Lucien D’Roselle. With a heavy, defeated sigh, Merinth crossed the room and unlatched the heavy window.

  Lucien vaulted through the window with the silent grace of a predatory cat, landing on the plush carpet without so much as a ruffle to his uniform. He didn’t wait for an invitation. Instead, he strolled toward the desk, stepped over a stray pile of ruined parchment, and sank into the visitor’s chair with his legs crossed.

  He gestured toward the Headmaster’s own seat with a casual flick of his wrist. "Take a seat, Headmaster."

  Merinth scoffed, a dry, incredulous sound. The sheer audacity of a student offering him a seat in his own office was almost enough to make him snap, but the weight of his defeat—and the lingering ozone in the air—pressed him down. He sat.

  An awkward, heavy silence stretched between them. Merinth stared at his trembling hands before finally forcing himself to look up.

  "Well... I suppose congratulations are in order," the Headmaster said. Each word sounded like it was being dragged over broken glass. It took every ounce of his remaining dignity to admit it.

  "Thank you," Lucien replied smoothly. He leaned back, the image of effortless genius. "To be honest, I think even six months was too much time. I was nearly bored waiting for the deadline."

  It was a blatant lie. Lucien had pushed his body to the absolute breaking point at the inn, barely bridging the connection in time, but the Headmaster didn't need to know that. To Merinth, Lucien looked like a monster who had been playing with his food.

  A visible vein began to throb in the Headmaster’s temple.

  "Well, I guess if you are as talented as I, taking advantage of the situation is only right," Lucien continued, his voice dripping with faux-modesty.

  Merinth’s hands began to tremble. He was being mocked. He had been hustled, played like a novice gambler by a boy who hadn't even reached his fifteenth birthday. Just as the Headmaster looked ready to explode in a fit of righteous fury, Lucien leaned forward, his expression turning sharp and businesslike.

  "It’s a shame you lost the bet," Lucien said, his tone shifting to something more conciliatory. "And it's a shame to lose something as precious as that Aether Stone. All those projects... gone."

  Merinth froze, his breath catching.

  "But," Lucien said, a predatory glint returning to his eyes, "I am willing to let it go. You can keep the stone."

  The Headmaster stared at him, his mouth slightly agape. Hope is a dangerous thing, and Lucien knew exactly how to wield it.

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  "For a price, of course," Lucien added.

  “What do you want?” Merinth asked.

  "More engravings," Lucien said, his voice dropping into a smooth, respectful tone that felt entirely practiced. "The only reason I could reach my Origin Vein so quickly was that a man as talented as yourself made the path so clear for me."

  Merinth leaned back in his chair, his eyes narrowing. He knew exactly what Lucien was doing—the boy was sucking up to him, layering on the flattery to soften the blow of the upcoming demand. But, despite himself, Merinth didn’t entirely dislike it. To have his genius acknowledged by a "monster" like Lucien offered a small, needed salve to his bruised ego.

  "So," Merinth began, his voice regaining some of its scholarly weight. "You are willing to give me the Aether Stone in exchange for me engraving your Foundation Vein?"

  Lucien’s face immediately shifted into a mask of pure shock. "Sir... you surely don't think an Aether Stone is that cheap, do you?"

  The Headmaster’s irritation flared instantly. He gripped the arms of his chair, the wood creaking under his hands. "Then what is your price?"

  "I want you to handle my engravings up until the 6th," Lucien said, his casual tone returning. "And not just for me," he continued, holding up a second finger. "I have someone else I want you to engrave on the 6th as well."

  Merinth’s jaw dropped. To engrave two people to the 6th Tier—essentially crafting the blueprints for future Masters—was a task that required months of meticulous work and a staggering amount of resources and labor.

  "I don't think that's a good deal at all," the Headmaster snapped, his face reddening. "The labor alone—"

  "Well," Lucien interrupted, standing up and dusting off his trousers. He held his hands up in a gesture of finality. "I guess that’s that, then."

  He turned on his heel and began walking toward the door.

  Merinth sat frozen. He expected a negotiation—a back-and-forth, a compromise. But Lucien was simply walking away, taking the future of his research projects with him. The image of the empty pedestal where the Stone should be flashed in his mind.

  "Dammit! Fine!" Merinth yelled at his back. "I'll take the deal!"

  Lucien spun around with an almost predatory speed. Before Merinth could even blink, Lucien had pulled the Aether Stone from his tunic and set it firmly on the desk.

  The crystalline ore pulsed with a deep, rhythmic violet light, casting long shadows across the trashed office. Merinth couldn't help but lean forward, his eyes wide and his mouth practically salivating at the sight of it. The stone was more than just energy; it was a masterpiece of nature.

  "Now, let’s begin fulfilling the deal," Lucien said, his voice cutting through the Headmaster’s trance.

  Merinth’s head snapped up from the glowing stone. "Now? You mean right now?"

  "Yes. I have already met the requirements for the second vein, so it’s better to do this now than later."

  The Headmaster looked back at the Aether Stone, his fingers twitching with the urge to begin his own experiments. He was caught between his professional exhaustion and his obsessive greed.

  "The faster you get this done," Lucien added, his voice dropping into a low, tempting hum, "the faster you get to be alone with the stone."

  Merinth let out a sharp, frustrated breath. "Dammit," he muttered, his resistance crumbling. "Fine. Let’s go."

  The change in the Headmaster was instantaneous. The defeated, slumped scholar vanished, replaced by the frenetic energy of a Master Engraver. He practically glided across the floor toward his private laboratory, his robes snapping behind him like a sail.

  Lucien jogged behind him, a small, satisfied smile playing on his lips. He had the leverage, he had the Master, and now, he was about to unlock his path forward.

  Once again, Lucien stood at the center of the Neutral Shrine’s inner sanctum. The air here was thin and hummed with the dormant power of the Academy’s foundations.

  Merinth’s assistants filed in, their faces strained as they hauled massive pillars of treated, high-density steel. They moved with practiced desperation, erecting the monoliths in a wide hexagonal formation around the central altar. Each pillar was etched from base to crown with jagged, interlocking sigils that pulsed with a restless, silver light—the ancient geometry of the Storm.

  "Lie down," Merinth commanded. His voice had lost its hesitation; in this room, he was no longer a cowardly administrator, but a Master of the Craft. "And show me your back."

  As Lucien complied, the sky above the sanctum’s open oculus began to churn. Heavy, charcoal clouds swirled into a localized vortex, turning the afternoon to an artificial midnight. Veins of hot lightning branched across the heavens, responding to the magnetic pull of the steel pillars.

  One assistant brought forward a velvet-lined box. Merinth opened it to reveal a needle no longer than a finger, forged from Void-Iron. It didn't rest on the silk; it hovered, vibrating with such intensity that the air around it blurred. The Headmaster guided the floating needle until it hovered directly over the junction of Lucien's spine, where his first engraving was.

  Then, the dance began.

  Merinth seized a massive, runic hammer—the Sunder-Smith’s Gavel. As a bolt of lightning shrieked down from the clouds and struck the first pillar, Merinth swung, his hammer meeting the steel a fraction of a second later.

  CLANG.

  The sound was a physical blow. He moved with a terrifying, rhythmic fluidness, striking each pillar exactly as the sky discharged its fury into them. One by one, the pillars ignited, venting arcs of electricity that crawled toward the center like reaching fingers.

  The hammer itself began to glow with a blinding, incandescent white light. The air in the sanctum became a pressurized vacuum of static. When the final pillar was saturated, Merinth let out a guttural roar, pivoted on his heel, and brought the full, catastrophic weight of the hammer down upon the tiny, hovering needle.

  BOOM.

  The explosion was silent, a vacuum of sound that sucked the air from Lucien's lungs. The hammer didn't crush the needle; it transferred the kinetic energy of a thousand lightning strikes into it. The needle barely moved a fraction of an inch, gently tapping against the skin of Lucien’s back.

  The agony was instantaneous and absolute.

  It wasn't the heat of fire or the sting of a blade. It felt as though his very soul was being threaded through the eye of a needle. The lightning trapped within the pillars surged through the Void-Iron, bridging the gap between his physical flesh and his metaphysical core. The raw, wild energy of his Origin Vein was being forcibly hammered into the rigid, disciplined shape of the Second Engraving.

  Lucien’s vision went white. His muscles locked so hard his bones threatened to snap. He could feel the needle "stitching" the lightning into his nerves, carving a permanent circuit of power that burned with the cold intensity of a dying star.

  After a couple of hours, the agonizing heat finally faded into a dull, rhythmic thrum. Lucien breathed a ragged sigh of relief, his forehead pressed against the cold stone of the altar, before he finally pushed himself up.

  The sanctum was empty. The massive steel pillars stood cooling, their glow reduced to a faint, dying ember. The old coot must have bolted back to his office the second the final stitch was set, likely already burying his nose in the Aether Stone.

  Lucien stood, the movement no longer carrying the stiff, heavy burden of his previous injuries. He reached around, tracing the new lines on his back. They felt like raised welts of frozen energy. He flexed his sigils, and instead of the jagged, unpredictable sparks from before, a steady, pressurized hum of lightning coursed through his limbs.

  Before, he had simply "felt" the lightning. Now, he felt as if his very marrow had been replaced by it. His muscles didn't just move; they reacted with the instantaneous velocity of a strike. That was the purpose of the Vein of Foundation—to turn the fragile human vessel into a conductor capable of housing a storm.

  Lucien flexed once more, watching the faint blue arcs transition from his skin back into his pores with perfect fluidity. He had taken another step forward. He was reclaiming his old self.

  He retrieved his shirt, the fabric feeling strange against his sensitized skin, and slipped out of the shrine. He didn't head for his dormitory. Instead, he made his way back toward the inn.

  His body was humming, the new connection demanding to be tested against a real force. He wanted to see if he could finally force Dame Seraphine to get a little serious.