Beneath the Gale Citadel, deeper than even the Elemental Crucible's heart, Altan descended into a chamber none of the disciples knew existed. He walked alone, his footsteps barely echoing, as if the air itself refused to disturb the silence here. This was his true sanctum—his forge of futures.
It was not just hidden. It was sealed in time.
Unlike the Crucible and library chambers—where one month above equaled three years inside for the disciples and Stormguards—this place obeyed a far older fracture in reality. One month here equaled ten years beyond. A single breath could stretch to a season of mastery.
This chamber was not designed. It was discovered. A temporal relic unearthed during the Age of Sundering—too volatile to destroy, too dangerous to wield—had been embedded deep into the Chasm's foundation, its pulse locked beneath a lattice of stabilizing glyphs. Altan, with his mastery of rune-threading and qi-flow, shaped the surrounding stone into a usable sanctum. But the risk had never left. The relic's heartbeat still throbbed beneath the floor.
In this place, Altan knelt in meditation, facing sigil-walls alive with memories. He had tested his students. Given them the Codex. The Crucible. Their armors. Their weapons. But now, he looked beyond trials. He looked toward ascension.
A figure entered, silent, stooped, ancient—the Elder Avatar, steward of the Chasm's arcane systems. He served Altan not as a master, but as a caretaker: preparing meals, maintaining records, scribing meditative entries. During the disciples' trials in the Crucible, the Avatar had meticulously kept records and sent data to the steward—the reason their armors and weapons were tailored with such uncanny precision.
"You're overreaching," the Avatar rasped.
"I am preparing," Altan replied.
Together they turned toward the projection of Nyzekh.
The vision shimmered. Nyzekh stood alone in a featureless void, twin sabers drawn, his breath still, his soul taut.
He had begun mastering the Thirty-Second Fold of the Thousand Path.
A fold whispered about in legend. Most warriors stopped at the Sixteenth. The Thirty-Second was not just a technique—it was an unbinding of intention, a dance so complete it blurred the line between path and abyss.
But Nyzekh wasn't walking it with one blade.
He was using both.
His sabers carved mirrored arcs of silence, each movement forming the incomplete shape of the Fold. He had not yet completed the form—but he was close.
Altan exhaled. "When he masters both, the Fold will no longer be an edge—it will be an erasure."
The Elder Avatar's voice was grave. "He is not tracing the Thousand Path. He is devouring it."
Altan was silent. Then he spoke with unusual softness:
"Perhaps we tether him..."
A pause.
"Or we let him choose."
He activated the training sequence. A slow-motion simulation of Nyzekh using the Thirty-Second Fold in dual synchrony unfurled. It was not beautiful. It was terrifying. Each stroke cut not just space—but memory, movement, meaning.
And yet Nyzekh meditated on it constantly. In his quarters, in battle, even during sleep. He was chasing something beyond mastery—transcendence.
Altan's gaze flickered to the other disciples:
—Kael, perfecting his Shadow Blade Domain. He could now control an entire radius around himself, folding light, breath, and intention. In that space, even time lagged behind him. A phantom, fast and deadly. But Altan knew the domain could be shattered—and Kael needed to learn why.
—Bruga, whose twin hammers had begun to harmonize with his heartbeat. He no longer fought like a mere brawler, but moved like a war rhythm given shape—each strike timed with pulse and breath. Yet Altan pondered something deeper. What if Bruga's fists could become weapons, not just his tools? The Thousand Path had many branches—and among them, a hidden limb: the Path of the Empty Fist. "Even the storm must one day learn to strike with open hands," Altan thought. "Perhaps Bruga's next trial will not be the hammer—but the absence of it."
—Ryoku, whose martial rhythm had refined into something elemental—each strike followed the next with such precision that time itself seemed to stutter around him. Even his stillness pulsed with coiled force, a storm waiting to uncoil. But Altan saw further. This rhythm could not remain bound to the sword. Ryoku's path now demanded mastery of every bladed form—sickle, dagger, spear, axe, glaive, even chain-edged whips. "The blade is not a shape," Altan had once inscribed in the steward's scroll, "but an intent guided by breath. If Ryoku learns to feel that, he can wield any edge as if it were an extension of memory itself."
—Wen Tu, silencing the verdant rings of his staff. Learning stillness under stress. Movement without sound. Healing through restraint. But Altan foresaw something larger. "What if he could shape a domain of restoration?" A space not just for mending—but empowering. A radius that could shelter a legion, bolster their strength, deflect despair. "Let him become the breath between battles—the calm that heals, the ring that holds."
Altan turned from the visions. His voice low.
"We gave them knowledge. We gave them weapons. We gave them three years in one. But now…" He placed both hands over the chamber floor.
"…here, in ten years of silence, I will sculpt what even time is unready for."
The Elder Avatar bowed slightly. "Then may the Chasm not break before they do."
Altan said nothing.
He returned to the center of the chamber—where the runes spiraled like a patient heart—and seated himself once more in meditation. The glow of the sigil-wall dimmed to a low pulse, like the slow breath of a sleeping titan.
The old Avatar moved with quiet efficiency.
He prepared a simple meal of steamed roots and pressed herbs, placing it beside the stone dais without a word. Then he took up his reed-brush and parchment, ready to transcribe anything Altan chose to speak. A scribe of silence. A witness of purpose.
He had once been many things: warrior, messenger, judge. But in this chamber, he was none of them. Here, he was a steward of the forge.
Altan's voice barely stirred the air.
"Begin notation."
The Avatar dipped his brush.
"Phase Three," Altan murmured. "Nyzekh's form approaching asymmetry. Dual Fold nearing convergence. Potential rupture in path-to-blade flow…"
The old one wrote.
Outside, the chamber remained sealed—unreachable by time or tremor.
Within, the silence deepened again.
Altan closed his eyes, his breath vanishing into stillness. In this chamber of distorted years, where even thought had time to bloom into thunder, he sank once more into the great current—
not to master time… but to sculpt paths worthy of it.
And the ink flowed on.