The facility didn't feel alive.
Quinn knew the difference now.
There were no thoughts brushing against his own, no distant consciousness humming behind the walls, no predatory awareness coiled just out of sight the way Rift spaces felt.
Nothing watching him. Nothing waiting.
And yet—
He felt it.
Mana.
Not in violent bursts like combat. Not in wild, corrosive waves like the Rift. This was something else entirely. Controlled.
Disciplined.
Refined to the point it almost passed for architecture instead of energy.
It was everywhere.
The walls didn't just contain mana—they carried it, veins of invisible current running through reinforced alloy.
The floors held it steady, grounding excess like a living circuit board. Even the air felt heavier, denser, as if the space between breaths had acquired mass.
Quinn slowed without realizing it.
His fingers twitched at his side, muscles responding to something they didn't fully understand.
Not pain. Not fear.
Awareness.
The kind that crept up on you quietly, like walking into deep water and only realizing how far you'd gone once your feet stopped touching the bottom.
Beside him, Riley kept walking.
Same pace. Same loose posture.
Same practiced slouch that suggested boredom instead of vigilance. Hands in his pockets, shoulders relaxed, chin up just enough to look confident without trying.
If the building felt different to him, it didn't show.
"You good?" Riley asked, glancing sideways.
"You're doing that thing again."
Quinn blinked, pulled back into himself. "What thing?"
"That thing where your brain checks out and leaves your body running on autopilot. Like you're buffering."
Quinn huffed quietly. "I'm fine."
It wasn't a lie.
It just wasn't the whole truth.
They moved deeper into the facility, past junctions that split cleanly into branching corridors. There were no signs. No labels. No arrows.
Only subtle differences.
To Quinn, each path felt distinct—variations in mana density, flow direction, pressure. One corridor hummed softly, like a restrained current. Another felt sharp, abrasive, as if the air itself had edges.
Each step felt like crossing invisible thresholds.
Riley noticed none of it.
To him, the walls were walls—reinforced composite and steel. Cold. Clean. Quiet. The kind of place that smelled faintly of disinfectant and inevitability.
Normal.
That difference settled between them, unspoken but present. Not a wedge. Not yet.
Just a line.
Agent Vale stopped at a wide intersection where the corridor split cleanly in two.
One path glowed faintly—not with light exactly, but with a subtle distortion, like heat rippling above asphalt. The air there felt warmer, heavier, alive.
The other corridor was darker. Narrower.
It smelled like iron, ozone, and something sharp enough to promise pain.
Vale turned to face them.
"This is where your training diverges."
Riley lifted an eyebrow. "Already? No icebreakers? No trust falls? No deeply uncomfortable team-building exercise where we all cry?"
"No," Vale said flatly.
Riley sighed. "Figures."
She looked at Quinn first.
"You can feel it," she said. Not a question.
Quinn hesitated, then nodded. "The mana. It's… everywhere."
Vale didn't look surprised. "Good. That sensitivity is the foundation of your training."
She gestured toward the faintly glowing corridor.
"You'll be trained majorly on perception, control, and manipulation. Understanding how mana moves through your body, how it converts, how it leaks, and how it responds to intent."
Quinn swallowed.
No weights. No sparring rings. No clear metrics.
Just him—and the thing he barely understood, coiled tight in his chest like a sleeping animal that might wake up angry.
"Power without control is just collateral damage waiting to happen," Vale continued.
"Your growth will be measured by precision, not output."
She turned to Riley.
"Your course is different."
Riley straightened slightly. "Different how?"
"You can't sense mana," Vale said. "And at this stage, that won't change."
Riley frowned—not offended. Not defensive.
Thoughtful.
"So I'm dead weight."
"No," Vale replied immediately. "You're grounded."
That got his attention.
"You don't rely on mana," she continued. "You react. You move. You adapt. That makes you ideal for physical conditioning, high-speed combat drills, and neural-response training."
Her eyes flicked briefly to his prosthetic arm.
"We suspect a speed-based anomaly.
Possibly momentum-related. Time-adjacent, though we can't confirm. Until then, we train what we can measure."
Riley let out a slow breath. "So… gym arc."
"If you want to trivialize it," Vale said, "yes."
He snorted. "Figures. Quinn gets magic meditation. I get pain."
Quinn glanced at him. "You're not bothered?"
Riley shrugged. "I survived worse with less explanation."
The words landed heavier than he intended.
Vale stepped back, giving them space.
"You'll see each other again," she said. "But not during training hours. Your growth trajectories may interfere with one another."
Silence stretched between them.
Quinn felt the mana tug at him gently, like a current inviting him forward. Not demanding.
Not forcing.
Waiting.
Riley felt the faint vibration of machinery beyond his corridor—weights resetting, systems calibrating, something mechanical and unforgiving warming up for him specifically.
They looked at each other.
No jokes this time.
No bravado.
Just a shared understanding forged somewhere between fear and resolve.
Riley extended a fist.
Quinn bumped it.
Not hard. Not dramatic.
Enough.
"Don't get soft," Riley said. "I'll catch up."
Quinn met his eyes. "Don't die."
"Rude," Riley replied. Then, quieter, "I won't."
They turned away at the same time.
Quinn stepped into the mana-lit corridor. The air thickened instantly, pressing against his skin like a living thing acknowledging his presence.
His system stirred—not speaking, not warning.
Watching.
Riley walked toward steel and strain, jaw tightening as his body braced instinctively for what was coming.
Different paths.
Same resolve.
The world had rewritten the rules of strength.
And neither of them intended to fall behind.