The thrum in Kael's chest was a constant reminder of the bargain he had struck. It was the ticking clock of his own life force, being steadily consumed by the parasite now fused to his heart. But as he stood in the dead silence of the necropolis chamber, all he could feel was a cold, electrifying thrill.
He began to experiment. He looked at his own hand, the one he had cut. He saw the wound knitting itself together, a process driven by a faint but stubborn golden aura—his vitality. He saw the crimson web of the parasite wrapped around his heart siphon off a tiny thread of that gold, a wisp of smoke feeding a hidden fire. The price was visible.
He picked up a loose stone. It was dull grey, its energy inert and sleeping. He looked at the sealed stone door. The runes, which had drunk his blood, now held a faint, residual crimson glow, a stain of his own life imprinted upon them.
This was the basic grammar of the world. Life, death, power, and sacrifice, written in a language of light he could finally read.
But there was no time to waste. The drain was constant, a slow leak in the vessel of his life. He had to leave.
He retraced his steps, but his journey out was entirely different. The catacombs were no longer just dark and silent. His new sight revealed them to be a minefield. The Tomb Guardians in their niches were not just armored corpses; he could now see the immense, dormant Qi stored within them, vast reservoirs of power sleeping like coiled dragons. He saw how their dormant state was tied to the ambient Qi of the room. A sudden fluctuation, the active use of a spell, would be like a shout in a silent library, waking them instantly. His own lack of a Qi signature remained his greatest camouflage. He was a blind spot in their spectral vision, a man walking through a room of sleeping tigers, now fully aware of the scale of his peril.
Near the exit of the catacombs, he encountered a danger that would have killed his past self without warning. A shimmering distortion in the air, a pocket of raw, corrosive energy left over from the ancient cataclysm. To his old eyes, it would have been invisible. To his new eyes, it was a swirling vortex of violent black and red Qi, a visual representation of pure entropy. He gave it a wide berth, a cold sweat on his brow. The parasite had already paid for itself.
He emerged from the library tower, climbing back into the oppressive chill of the Sunken Necropolis. He looked up, and for a moment, the sensory input almost overwhelmed him.
The sun was not a yellow orb; it was a blinding, unending torrent of pure, white-hot Qi, a celestial furnace pouring power onto the world. The thin air of the Blighted Sands was a sea of chaotic energy, the corrosive red and black strands swirling in currents driven by a wind he could now see as a river of force. It was magnificent and terrifying. He felt like a man who had lived his whole life in a single room, only to be thrust into the heart of a raging thunderstorm.
He had the sight. Now he needed the knowledge to interpret it. He needed a laboratory. A safe, stable environment where he could study this new world, codify its laws, and begin designing the second part of his heretical path: the Artificial Core.
He needed to create an engine for his vessel. And to do that, he needed to study the finest engines ever made.
His mind sifted through the nations of Veridia. The Wastes were too chaotic. The Empire was a brutal forge, its Qi too volatile. The Verdant Maze was a jungle of life and poison, too complex for his initial studies.
That left one option. The worst, most dangerous place in the world for a rootless heretic like him. A nation built on the ideals of purity, talent, and a rigid adherence to the traditional path of cultivation.
Aeridor, the Sky-Piercing Theocracy.
It was a place where mortals were a shunned underclass, and anyone without a spiritual root was considered impure, flawed, a cosmic mistake. It was also a place where the ambient Qi was at its purest—Light, Ice, and Metal—untainted by the chaos of the other lands. It would be like learning to read in a library where every book was perfectly printed, instead of a tavern full of scrawled, drunken notes.
The danger was immense. If discovered, he wouldn't just be killed; he would be "purified." But the potential reward was everything.
Kael turned his back on the Sunken Necropolis, the monument to his first great victory. He felt the constant, quiet drain in his chest. A reminder to never rest, to never stop. He looked north, towards the distant, unseen peaks.
He would hide in the brightest light, in the heart of the temple that would see him as an abomination. The heretic was going to school.