The room's air was thick with iron and salt. Candles burned low, their flames dulled by the faint shimmer of a containment seal traced in ash.
Kaelric sat within the circle, cross‑legged, facing the result of weeks of preparation.
The Vitalis Amplifier pulsed faintly.
It was wrong. He felt that immediately, not as fear, but as instinct. The refinement had forced together things that resisted coexistence. Reagents that devoured vitality. A heart that had once driven a beast to charge through saplings like reeds. Essence that did not wish to be still.
The final product crouched before him.
And for the first time, Kaelric's aperture was completely dry from the refinement. Carefulness had a cost.
The Amplifier's body was translucent red, threaded with dim veins of blue light.
Overlapping plates folded over its back, flexing in a slow rhythm. Beneath them, thin tendrils rested against the stone floor. Their cilia stirred at the faintest movement of air.
It was no larger than his forearm. Warm. Breathing visible through a thin membrane.
Too warm. Like standing beside something that burned without consuming itself.
Kaelric studied it in silence. One tendril lifted slightly when he leaned closer, as if sensing the pulse in his throat.
Elsewhere in Heartspire, Elder Orven stood beneath the eastern archways, hands clasped behind his back as a junior instructor finished reporting.
"I said no," Orven replied evenly.
The rank-two cultivator hesitated, eyes narrowing out of habit. "Elder Orven, Irondusk has issued a public bounty. The man practices demonic methods. Allowing hunters to act would ease tensions, not worsen them."
Orven's gaze shifted to him.
"Murder is murder in Stoneheart," he said. "We do not outsource justice to vendettas. He has violated no clan law. Until that changes, he remains under our protection."
The cultivator inclined his head, though dissatisfaction lingered in his posture.
Orven watched him go.
The town was already buzzing. A four-antlered deer, appearing after nearly a year. Traders whispering. Patrol captains fielding questions they could not answer.
Orven frowned faintly.
"Strange," he thought. "Even for a demonic path traveler."
Then he turned away.
In Kaelric's room, the Amplifier stirred.
"Fifty-five stones," he thought. "Even with everything I saved before, and stopping cultivation for weeks… the cost emptied me. Using Relics and buying the Fat Toad Relic has made my savings go to zero."
The expenditure had been brutal. But his circulation remained stable.
This was why he was able to get through here with the stone limitations.
"So this is what I made," he muttered. "Something that eats life and gives it back."
The words sounded steadier than he felt.
He reached out. His hand hesitated a finger's breadth from its surface. Some part of him urged destruction, an old reflex when facing something alive but not right.
A filament uncurled and brushed his boot.
Kaelric froze. His muscles locked, jaw tightening, but he did not retreat. The creature tilted as if curious, then began to climb. Heat soaked through his robe, prickling his skin with every measured movement. His body screamed to recoil, to tear it off and crush it against the floor.
He stayed still.
It reached his shoulder, paused, then continued to his neck. The weight settled there, light but present, wrapped around him, light but unmistakable against his skin.
For a fraction of a breath, his aperture shifted. The ash-colored squirrel stirred first, scorched fur rippling in the faint white fog of his aperture, as if pressed inward by unseen walls.
A heartbeat later, the Azure Grasshopper tensed, its translucent limbs drawing tight, blue light flickering once along its body. Neither surged. Neither submitted. Then the amplifier's influence followed the vitalis inside, not as heat or force, but as compression. Space itself seemed to fold. The squirrel flattened beneath the pressure, embers dimming along its spine.
The grasshopper's glow dulled to a muted sheen. Their wills were not aligned, only forced downward beneath something heavier.
Essence bled into him.
Not violently. Not gently. Steadily.
His breath faltered as the rhythm threaded into his veins. Heartbeat answered heartbeat. Pressure built behind his eyes, a dull hum spreading through his skull, not pain, but awareness.
He closed his eyes and endured it.
Warmth flowed through his limbs, leaving faint trails beneath his skin. The exhaustion from overused essence dulled. The constant drag of the Second Sphere eased, not shattered, not suppressed, but absent, as if something had simply stepped aside.
Kaelric exhaled, slow and controlled.
"So that's the price," he said quietly. "Life. Wild. Unclean. And obedient, if handled properly."
The Amplifier folded in on itself, settling along his spine. Its glow dimmed to a faint pulse beneath his hair, alive but still.
He remained seated long after the candles burned lower, letting the tremor in his hands fade. When it did, a thin smile touched his lips.
"Then we will learn to live with each other."
By the time he rose, the Relic's presence had woven itself into his circulation, heat threading through him, slipping along the channels of his aperture. The Second Sphere no longer pressed against him like a closing wall. For this rank, at least, the imbalance had quieted.
A tremor followed the relief.
Not pain. Misalignment.
His vision thinned at the edges, light smearing faintly across the room as if the world had shifted half a step out of place. The warmth threading through his channels faltered once, then surged again, too quickly. His stomach tightened. Breath came shallow. For a moment his body could not decide whether it was recovering or collapsing.
Kaelric's fingers tightened against the chair. He did not stand. Moving felt wrong, like stepping onto ice before it settled. He remained seated, letting the pulse along his spine stabilize, feeling the Amplifier adjust itself within his circulation. The fatigue came in a slow wave, heavier than before, as if the Relic had borrowed strength and was now collecting its balance.
Time had been purchased. Nothing more.
Kaelric let the Amplifier's pulse settle fully before standing. He felt lighter than he had in months, yet the stillness carried the tension of a drawn blade. Relief was dangerous. It dulled urgency.
"The pressure is waiting," he thought. "Not gone."
He accepted that without frustration.
Six months. That was all he needed to reach rank two. The Amplifier was no gift, no safeguard, only a method. Invasive and demanding.
Kaelric welcomed it.
One month marked the first day of the Frostyard Trials. And for the first time since sensing the Second Sphere, his path forward was clear enough to walk without slowing.