Kael's world shrank to the confines of his own mind. His hands scrubbed floors, his feet walked the long corridors, his body performed its menial tasks on a deeply ingrained autopilot, but his consciousness was elsewhere. It was in a silent, internal workshop, drafting the most ambitious and heretical creation in history.
He didn't need paper or ink. His mind, a vessel that held the memories of a hundred and thirty-eight lifetimes, was his design space. He could visualize the components with perfect clarity, rotate them, subject them to theoretical pressures, and run simulations of energy flow based on the laws he was observing every day.
He began by deconstructing the failures documented in On Unnatural Constructs. The ancients had erred in their ambition, trying to build a new heart. Kael's goal was more brutal, more mechanical. He wasn't building a heart; he was building a furnace. A three-part system, each component a heresy in its own right.
First came the Intake Manifold. The problem with being rootless was the inability to draw in Qi. Kael's solution was not to draw, but to tear. He envisioned a series of microscopic, interlocking runic arrays, not on an external device, but carved with excruciating precision directly onto the surface of his own bones—the ribs, the spine, the sternum. These runes, when activated, would create a violent, localized metaphysical vacuum, ripping ambient Qi from the environment and funneling it into his torso. It was an act of pure violence against the natural order, and only a body forged in the Adamantine crucible could possibly withstand the strain of its activation.
Second, the Forging Chamber. The raw, chaotic Qi torn from the air would be unstable, unusable. It needed to be contained, compressed, and broken down. This would be the physical, external core. For this, he needed a material of unparalleled stability and density. The library's texts spoke of Luminite, but Kael's memory of a long-dead Valerian geologist recalled a rarer variant: Void-Quenched Luminite. Standard Luminite was formed under geothermal pressure; the Void-Quenched variant was created when a Luminite vein was exposed to a pocket of raw, spatial vacuum, collapsing its crystalline structure into a state of hyper-density. It was, theoretically, the perfect containment vessel. He envisioned a fist-sized sphere of this material, hollowed out and etched with compression runes on the inside. Its purpose: to take the chaotic storm from the Intake Manifold and crush it into a singularity of raw, primal power.
Finally, and most dangerously, came the Regulation Matrix. How could he control such a volatile power source? He had no spiritual root to act as a governor. But he had a parasite fused to his heart. The Heart-Stone Parasite was already a part of his biology, a perfect interface between his life force and the world of Qi. He would hijack it. He would meticulously inscribe a final, impossibly complex network of control and conversion runes directly onto the surface of the parasite within his own chest. This would be the most agonizing and perilous act of self-mutilation imaginable. If it worked, the parasite would be transformed from a simple sensory organ into the control unit for his furnace, converting the primal energy of the Forging Chamber into a usable form and directing it through his body.
The blueprint was magnificent. It was terrifying. And it was utterly impossible.
The materials alone were the stuff of legend. Void-Quenched Luminite was a treasure of the Theocracy, controlled by the highest echelons of power. He could not buy it, steal it, or trade for it. Not as a cleaner. Not as a ghost.
The realization settled upon him with the weight of cold certainty. His camouflage had served its purpose. To take the next step, the ghost had to become real. He had to change his station.
The opportunity arrived like a clap of thunder. A decree, posted on every pillar in the Lyceum. The annual Tournament of Novices was to be held. It was a competition for first-year disciples, a chance for the most promising talents to display their gifts.
Kael felt a flicker of interest, but it was the whispers he overheard later that made his blood run cold with purpose. While cleaning the Prefects' lounge, he heard two of them discussing the grand prize.
"...a personal gift from the Archon himself," one said. "A block of uncut Void-Quenched Luminite, recovered from the new deep-level mines. A symbolic gesture, of course. To represent the raw potential of this year's champion."
It was a sign. A cruel, taunting, beautiful sign from the universe he so despised. The key to his entire plan, offered up as a trinket for a child prodigy to put on their shelf.
His path lit up before him, a bridge of fire across a chasm of impossibility. He had to win that tournament.
But entry was restricted to disciples. He was a rootless mortal. He remembered, however, a dusty, leather-bound volume on the Lyceum's history he had "salvaged" from a disposal bin. It mentioned an archaic charter rule, a relic from a more desperate era of the Theocracy. The "Challenge of Worthiness." It stated that any resident of Aeridor, regardless of status, could petition for entry into a public contest if they could first pass a trial of martial and spiritual aptitude before the presiding masters. The rule was an appendix, a fossil from a bygone age, uninvoked for five hundred years. The rigid, arrogant Theocracy of today had likely forgotten it even existed.
The time for hiding was over. The heretic was done scrubbing floors.
The next day, the registration hall was abuzz. Disciples eagerly put down their names, their bright auras flaring with competitive spirit. Lyren was there, a confident smirk on his face, accepting the well-wishes of his admirers. He was the clear favorite.
Then, a figure emerged from the shadows of the hallway. A boy in the drab, grey tunic of a cleaner, his hands calloused, his face impassive. He walked past the stunned and sneering disciples, his path straight and unwavering, stopping directly before the stern-faced Prefect manning the registration table.
The Prefect looked up from his ledger, his eyes filled with annoyance. "What do you want? The mortal refuse bins are out back."
Kael met the cultivator's gaze. The ancient being dwelling behind the boy's eyes looked at the Prefect not as a superior, but as an obstacle. For the first time in this life, he spoke with the voice of his true self, clear, steady, and devoid of fear.
"I am here to register for the tournament."