The Commercial District of the Academy was a assault on the senses. It wasn't the organized hum of a server room or the rhythmic clatter of a factory; it was a chaotic symphony of arrogance.

  Julian walked along the edge of the cobblestone street, keeping to the shadows. In the center of the road, students from the Noble Houses paraded in silk robes. Their staffs glowed with unnecessary, ambient mana—a wasteful display of leakage that made Julian’s engineer brain twitch in annoyance.

  "Inefficiency," he muttered, adjusting his glasses. "They treat energy like an infinite resource. On Earth, a circuit that leaked this much power would be considered a fire hazard."

  Here, it was considered a status symbol.

  The shops lining the street were grand, displaying enchanted swords and glowing armor that cost thousands of Credits. Julian ignored them all. He didn't need a sword that relied on brute force; he needed a tool that relied on precision.

  He stopped in front of a narrow, dusty shop tucked between a potion store and a bakery. The sign above the door creaked in the wind: *Old Kael’s Curios & Bric-a-Brac*.

  The bell above the door jingled with a dull, cracked sound as he entered. The air inside smelled of old paper, rust, and cheap incense.

  "We’re closing," a raspy voice called out from behind a pile of broken lutes.

  "I need to buy something," Julian said, his voice calm. He walked to the back section, where musical instruments lay gathering dust.

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  Old Kael, a man whose face looked like dried bark, squinted at him. He saw the grey F-Grade robes. He saw the lack of a magical aura. "F-Grade? You barely have enough mana to light a candle, boy. Don't touch the expensive lutes."

  "I don't want a lute," Julian said. He reached into a wooden bin filled with discarded metal parts and pulled out a slender, silver rod.

  It was a tuning fork. It was about eight inches long, made of low-grade Star-Steel, with a handle wrapped in worn leather.

  [Item Identified: Apprentice Bard’s Tuning Fork]

  [Grade: Common]

  [Material: Star-Steel Alloy (Impurities detected: 12%)]

  [Resonance Factor: High]

  "How much?" Julian asked.

  Kael snorted. "That old thing? A bard sold it to me three years ago for booze money. It’s useless as a weapon. 5 Credits."

  "Deal." Julian placed five generic coins on the counter.

  "You planning to sing for your supper?" Kael mocked as he took the money. "Maybe play a sad song about being talentless?"

  Julian paused at the door. He looked back at the shopkeeper, the light catching on his glasses. "Music is just math that we can hear, old man. And math is the only absolute truth in this chaotic world."

  He left before Kael could think of a retort.

  ***

  Back in the F-Grade dorms—a damp, stone building that smelled of mildew—Julian sat cross-legged on his narrow cot.

  The room was tiny. A single window overlooked the garbage disposal area. It was a far cry from his sterile, high-tech apartment in Neo-Seattle. But Julian didn't mind. Silence was free.

  He held the tuning fork in his hands.

  "12% impurities," he whispered. "Structural flaws in the alloy lattice. If I pour mana into this blindly, it will shatter."

  Most cultivators forced their mana into weapons, overpowering the material. Julian took a different approach. He closed his eyes and pinged the fork with a tiny pulse of mana.

  *Hummmm.*

  He listened. Not with his ears, but with his [Acoustic Mind].

  He could 'see' the sound waves traveling through the metal. He saw where the waves slowed down (impurities) and where they sped up (pure steel).

  "I don't need to fix the metal," Julian realized. "I just need to route the signal around the noise."

  He began to channel his mana again. This time, he didn't flood the fork; he threaded his mana through it like a fiber-optic cable, weaving it through the microscopic gaps in the steel alloy.

  It was mentally exhausting. Sweat beaded on his forehead. It required the focus of a surgeon and the calculation speed

  Author's Note:

  And thus, the "Sonic Lancet" is born! I wanted to show that Julian doesn't just "get" strong items; he engineers them.

  Next chapter: We test this bad boy out. Don't forget to Follow if you are enjoying the daily updates!