Timeline: TC1853.03.15 (Two weeks after first defense)
Location: Seven Peaks Territory, Eastern Valley
Word spread faster than Raven had anticipated.
The Guild observers' reports were supposed to be confidential—technical assessments for internal review, not public consumption. But when five Master-rank specialists all filed documentation claiming they'd witnessed "architectural impossibilities that defy current cultivation theory," confidentiality became impossible.
Someone leaked. Probably multiple someones.
Within a week, every major sect in the Empire was requesting permission to visit Seven Peaks. Federation researchers wanted to study the living architecture. Even Wild Confederacy elders sent diplomatic inquiries about "the Technomage who builds with forgotten knowledge."
Raven had declined them all.
But the recruitment announcement she'd posted through Guild networks? That was deliberate. Carefully worded. Designed to attract a specific type of cultivator:
