The hum of Nexus Spire's systems had settled into a reassuring thrum. In his personal study and meditation chamber, bathed in the soft, fluctuating glow of holographic displays, Elias Vance sat suspended mid-air, not in meditation, but in an almost predatory stillness. Kaelen, observing from a nearby console, had long since grown accustomed to his sudden shifts in focus, but the intensity emanating from him now felt different. It was a coiled spring of intellectual hunger.