They worked in near silence as dusk crept through the windows. Scrolls were cross-referenced, maps unrolled and weighed down again, annotations added.
Herb fields were marked first - species, yield, suspected layer. A lot of rare layers, the one accessing dimensions attributed with higher numbers.
Then hunting grounds: locations where beasts appeared with unusual frequency, their species logged, their numbers estimated.
The real asset ledger. But why? So why did it leave him so uneasy?
But how did this differ from normal farming? Why should it differ at all?
Because what was being harvested was not flesh, but energy? Because that energy was connected to the higher dimensions?
These were plants and animals, after all. Roots and leaves. Fur and bone. They did not harvest - people…
Fengyu rushed through the remaining papers, a sudden, almost desperate need to be alone tightening in his chest. He wanted a moment for himself - but forced himself to continue, to work until it was finished, until they finally called it a day.
Only then did he retreat to one of the bedrooms at the back of Ashen's abode.
From the window, he could see the woodshed where they kept Ashen now. Before it, sprawled on a low, worn chair, lounged one of the guardians, posture loose but eyes alert even in repose.
The night was cool, but the air still carried a lingering warmth.
Fengyu moved back from the window. He lay down on the bed, but sleep did not come. He turned from one side to the other, irritation building with every passing minute.
At last, he got up.
He reached for the beast dictionary and began flipping through it again, pages turning absent-mindedly.
And then the thought struck him.
This book was not compiled by the Guild… no Guild insignia on the cover, no stamp inside… but…
He closed the tome, resting it face-down on his knees. The back cover came to sight.
After a moment's hesitation, Fengyu drew a knife and slid the blade into the seam, working it carefully along the edge. The leather resisted, then gave with a faint, tired sigh.
There was another booklet hidden inside… It slid free with obscene ease, as though it had been waiting.
Fengyu set the thick tome aside.
The booklet lay on his knees, light to the point of flimsiness. Its cover was plain, unmarked, the paper edges trimmed with almost obsessive precision.
He turned it over, searching for a title, a symbol, anything. There was nothing. No warning. No ownership mark. Not even a date.
His fingers prickled as he held it. A faint pressure built behind his eyes, as if his thoughts were being gently nudged aside to make room for something else. The sensation was subtle enough to doubt, and strong enough to be impossible to ignore.
Disgust rose in him, unearned and unexplained - the kind that came from standing too close to something deeply unclean.
He opened the booklet.
The first lines were neat. Clinical. Almost gentle in their phrasing.
By the third paragraph, understanding slid into place.
By the fifth, his stomach turned.
It was a manual.
A step-by-step method for extracting life force from a living, mythical creature – creating essence.
The instructions read like a butcher's manual – steps of dissecting a creature of legend were no different than brewing a tea. But still, the scroll's sterile language could not mask its cruelty.
"Target must remain conscious; sedation reduces yield."
"Physical contact required (skin-to-feather/fur/scales) to establish conduit."
"Practitioner channels energy through grasp, forcibly separating life force from corporeal form. Subject exhibits rapid physical inward collapse (no external wounds; internalized trauma)."
"Practitioner's hand glows with concentrated white radiance (stabilized essence). Essence can be directly channelled into objects/rituals without intermediary steps."
"Life force remains contained within practitioner's grasp. No spectral manifestation occurs when performed correctly."
"When practitioner loses control during extraction process, life force escapes containment, manifesting as a spectral apparition of the subject. It retains subject's form and consciousness temporarily. Exhibits distress and resistance to recapture. There is high probability of volatile energy discharge (risk of backlash)."
"There is, however, an enormous benefit of an increase in essence potency at the cost of shortening the time of its usability."
There was even a margin note in jagged script: "Yield increases if subject vocalizes pain."
"Soul-Snare Gesture is a skill to recapture the spectral apparition. Practitioner forms a clawed hand posture, fingers vibrating at a frequency to match escaping essence (depending on the species of the subject). This comes at physical cost - each second of hold burns nerve endings (visible smoke rises from fingertips - self-inflicted wound matching the creature's death injury)."
"There is a way for less experienced or talented practitioners - Soulglass Vials. Small bottles forged from magically-tempered glass, capable of temporarily containing escaped essence."
"Must be shattered near the targeted artifact but still close enough to the apparition during its unstable phase. Shattered pieces draw the apparition toward the targeted artifact."
And the scribbled note here read: "It causes excruciating pain to the captured subject, further enhancing the potency of the essence."
The instructions went forward: "It is not suitable for creating new artifacts, as the vial will not recognise the targeted object as an artifact."
Now, all Ashen's the actions while reopening the gates of Firme were clear. And the horrifying cruelty of them was as clear as a cloudless blue sky.
But that was not the end of the instructions. It was also possible to store the extracted life. For that the Spiritual Stones were used - special kind of marble, rare and difficult to find.
"Press essence-laden palm firmly against the stone. Recite: 'As blood to vein, as breath to lung, be bound.' Hold until the glow fully absorbs."
"Successful transfer - Stone pulses faintly, warmth retained. Failure - Essence beads on surface (reapply pressure and repeat chant)."
"A sealed stone keeps for centuries. A weeping stone must be used within days."
The procedure seemed simple but the scribbled note stated very low success rate. "Requires a lot of experience!!!"
The later pages abandoned any pretence of restraint. They listed refinements – optimizations - methods to ensure the "failed extraction" and the appearance of the spectral apparition. Delay the moment of separation to allow the subject to register loss. Interrupt extraction mid-process, then resume once panic peaked. Apply pressure to nerve-dense regions to provoke panic. Adjust grip rhythmically to prevent unconsciousness without fully destabilizing the essence. Each method was catalogued, compared, annotated with marginal notes on effectiveness and variance by species, and diminishing returns. Pain was not incidental here; it was engineered, measured, perfected.
Fengyu could not stop reading. His stomach tightened.
This was not the curiosity of scholars pushing boundaries. It was instruction, passed down, refined by use. Someone had done this often enough to know exactly how long terror could be stretched before collapse.
His fingers trembled, and he realized with a sickening clarity that the text never once questioned whether these methods should be used - only how to perform them more reliably. This was cruelty, practiced until it became routine.
Then the methods followed how to refine the Soul-Snare Gesture to avoid the physical cost to the practitioner. The free ride depended on the previously used methods to provoke manifestation of the apparition – preparation to subdue the backlash.
Only one final annotation, that could be fitting as a warning: "Remember - essence never forgets its origin. The cleaner the extraction, the longer the usage or storage. Silent extractions last centuries. The screaming ones? They always find a way back. A sobbing essence in your vault is like storing an armed bomb."
Fengyu stared at the words.
What that was supposed to mean? Is the essence still conscious?!
Tortured extractions produced inferior, unstable results. Dangerous ones. And yet, line after line, it meticulously documented how to prolong pain, how to refine it, how to extract more.
Because suffering increased potency. Because stronger artifacts justified everything.
Ashen might be ignorant but this was not. This was a choice.
The Guild knew. The Guild had done this.
The language was unmistakable: their terminology, their classifications, their obsession with yield, stability, efficiency. This was not the work of a rogue practitioner or some fringe cultist operating in shadow. It bore the fingerprints of revisions, trials and protocols refined over years.
And yet -
Fengyu looked down at the booklet again.
This copy was not stamped. Not signed. Bore no mark. Any mark.
It was hidden.
Hidden inside a book of the Temple.
That made no sense.
The Guild and the Temple were not allies. Their cooperation was careful, conditional, always watched.
A quiet, nauseating thought surfaced.
What if the Temple did not merely know? What if it used the same methods?
After all, the rules of magic were the same for everyone.
The thought that had surfaced before now deepened, curling into something far more disturbing: this knowledge was old. It was foundational.
This was part of the very structure of how magic had been practiced - how life force had been extracted, refined, and weaponized - for generations.
The cruelty was not an anomaly. It was baked into the system.
This was how it worked. How everything worked.
But why?
Life for life. He had killed to survive before. Everyone had. Hunters, soldiers, mages - none of them pretended otherwise. And these were only beasts. Animals. Creatures of fang and scale.
So why did this feel different?
Was it only the cruelty? The deliberate prolonging of pain, measured and refined until suffering became a tool?
That was bad. Disgusting. But it still should have been… comprehensible.
Unless-…
Unless the essence remembered.
The words echoed back at him.
Essence never forgets its origin.
Fengyu's breath caught.
Awareness.
The extraction did not merely take power - it carried something with it. Fear. Pain. The last moments of a living being, preserved, compressed, made useful.
Was the essence still conscious? Or - conscious enough.
Fengyu's stomach twisted once again as the thought came unbidden.
Not just beasts. Not just animals. Humans.
It had been tried. Someone had applied the same method to people.
He remembered - Master Gun had admitted there were records. No description of the results.
Was that that made him so uncomfortable?
Fengyu turned the booklet over in his hands.
Hidden, and yet not hidden. Accessible to anyone who knew where to look, yet trapped within the cover of a different book. Knowledge preserved, yet carefully obscured.
What else had the Temple buried beneath the ages of dust?
What else had been recorded… and what had been deliberately left untold?
And the things left unspoken - the secrets carefully ignored or erased - might be far worse.
The Temple. The Guild. The artifacts. The laws of magic themselves… all built upon cruelty, on measured suffering, on the conscious exploitation of life.
His own blindness seemed almost unbearable. How had he not seen it before?
Solirae had chosen to cut off the magic. All that machinery of power. Why? What had Solirae covered under the ages of dust?
Fengyu sank back on the bed, breath shallow, a bitter taste coating his tongue.
The knowledge that he had been blind to it. And in that knowledge, he felt small. Pathetic. Less than he had ever allowed himself to admit.
But the ignorance was gone now.
And he did not know if he could bear the weight of what he had finally seen.
He lay on the bed, eyes open, staring at the ceiling that offered no comfort. The night stretched long and still, carrying the weight of his thoughts, until the faintest shift of light began at the edge of the window.
A crimson dawn crept across Firme, slow and deliberate, spilling over the horizon like molten copper. Shadows in the room bent and lengthened as the first rays touched the wood and stone, painting the walls in a glow both beautiful and accusing.
Fengyu's chest tightened at the sight. The dawn did not chase away the darkness inside him. If it is possible, it illuminated it.