The next morning started off pretty much like all the others. It was quiet and routine, with everything balanced just right. Minjae got there sooner than he normally did. He moved into the empty office floor using that quiet way he always liked. The low hum from the air-conditioning unit filled the air. There was a faint smell of old coffee coming from the break room. His monitor showed a blinking cursor that waited for him. All of it seemed so familiar. It felt predictable in a comforting sort of way.
Still, his screen came on and the first reports appeared. His mind did not switch to work as fast as it usually would. One idea kept coming back to him. It acted like an echo that would not fade away.
It responded. Just once. Why did that happen.
His fingers stayed over the keyboard without moving. He hardly recalled the drive home from the night before. He did not remember the shower much either. The meal he made himself eat was a blur too. His thoughts had stayed fixed on that one instant in the lab. There was a short burst of light that stunned him. Aethra had pulsed through the runes in a raw way. It moved like a spark jumping into dry wood that catches fire easily.
He had looked at the glowing lines cut into the stone. He could not believe what he saw. The soft blue-white glow moved slowly over the surface of the stone. Then it faded away into nothing. That event was real. He did not imagine it at all. It was not some hopeful dream either. It truly happened.
No law from science could make sense of it though. No equation explained the sudden rush that went through those symbols. He had written down all the details. He noted every temperature reading and every change in conditions. He recorded all the variables and the surroundings too. Nothing in his notes led to a logical reason for what occurred.
Something lined up just right in that instant. Then it vanished completely.
He had used the rest of the time in the lab to try bringing it back. He altered the pressure of the ink. He changed the code that set the sensors. He adjusted the air flow and the humidity levels. He even shifted his own position and how he breathed. None of those efforts worked at all.
The one thing that stayed the same through it all was himself.
That fact troubled him in a way he did not want to face fully.
---
The elevator made a chiming sound. It broke through the quiet around him.
Yura came out of it. She looked deep into the light from her phone screen already. She walked with that relaxed sureness of someone who fit right into the office world. She enjoyed stirring things up when she felt like it.
The response rates in the western region went up a lot overnight. She said it in a casual tone without looking up from her phone. Nothing from the campaign should have made that happen.
Minjae blinked a couple times. He pulled his focus back to the world of numbers and normal reasoning. Is the unusual change holding steady. He asked it while his fingers stopped in the middle of typing.
It seems stable for the moment. Yura put her phone down at last. She leaned against the side of his desk. Do you figure it is just random behavior from customers. Or is there something more to it.
Her voice mixed a bit of teasing with real interest. Yura always had a reason when she asked things. She wanted to watch how others handled not knowing for sure.
Minjae kept his face even and calm. Random events can sometimes cover up patterns that we do not know how to spot yet.
Sometimes that is true. She repeated it with a small nod. Her hair shifted a little over her shoulder. Or sometimes the market acts like it has a life of its own.
The way she said the last word stayed in the air between them. Alive.
Minjae looked over at her for a second. She had already turned to walk away. She tapped on her phone once more. A touch of fun showed in her expression.
That remark should not have bothered him at all. Yura liked to poke at people in a light way. But the offhand sharpness in how she spoke it sent a small chill along his back.
Alive.
He did not want to think about what that word might mean yet.
The rest of the day went by in the usual manner. He sat through meetings about predictions. He checked data to make sure it was accurate. He went over proposals from the team. He watched small oddities in the numbers. He pushed away bigger questions about them until he had more proof to share. It was simple to keep up the part he had played for years now.
He finished work right on time as always. He gave a quick half-wave to the person at the front desk. He sent a short note to his mother about dinner on Sunday. He answered Yura's joke about not messing with the western region again. He just used a thumbs-up sign for that.
All of it fit what a good son and solid analyst would handle without issue.
Then as the evening light started to dim, he drove away from the city. He headed to that plain warehouse area he bought years back. He put it under the name of a company that no longer existed. The trip took long enough for the city sounds to die down. But it stayed short enough to remind him of the simple life he acted like he had.
The gate made a soft creaking noise when it swung open. It sounded the same every single time. Nobody kept an eye on this spot. There were no cameras or records of who came by. No one passed through nearby either. Just quiet and dark shapes filled the area.
The inside of the warehouse spread out into a clean lab space. Everything inside stayed arranged with care. It looked neat and useful in a practical sense. His life outside tried hard to seem that way too.
This place did not belong to the company at all. It served as his safe haven instead. These were the leftover pieces of Valmyros. They hid inside what Minjae had become.
A stone slab sat in the middle of the room. It looked old even though workers made it just a few months earlier. Loops of runes covered its surface. They mixed the lost language of dragons with the clear rules of human math.
The symbols rested still in the low light. They gave off a weak pulse. It felt like they recalled the burst from the previous night.
Minjae went over to the slab. He sat down in front of it. His elbows rested on his knees. He pressed his fingers together under his chin. He breathed in deep and slow.
Life force. Vitalia.
The word felt odd when he said it out loud. It seemed too ancient for his human voice. Yet it also felt too new for the old memories trying to come back. He let out his breath. Tension built up more in his shoulders.
But humans cannot control it the same as dragons did. Not in a direct manner.
His eyes followed the paths of the symbols. The one right in the middle caught his attention. That was the ignition symbol. It held a tiny glow that he could hardly see. But it was there without doubt. He touched it lightly with his finger. A small tingle ran through his skin.
He shut his eyes for a moment. Aethra.
The word came out like a memory rising up again. The flame that came from pure will.
Dragons had used that spark long ago. They did not force it to control things. They used it to bring life awake.
Minjae opened his eyes once more. "You turned on for some purpose." He said it in a low whisper. "Why will you not do it again?"
---
As he steadied his breath, another thought intruded—softly, like a gentle knock on a closed door.
Seori's voice from that morning.
"You looked a bit pale today… are you okay?"
She'd said it lightly, but her eyes had held genuine warmth. She stood near the break room, holding two coffees, offering him one with that small, quiet smile she reserved for moments she didn't want the whole office to notice.
He had answered with a simple nod.
He wondered now why the memory lingered. Why her concern still warmed something in him long after the moment had passed.
And then Yuri's gentle caution.
And Yura's probing curiosity.
And the way all three women—each in their own way—tethered him to this life.
Human threads.
Fragile, vibrant… and deeply grounding.
He set a hand over the glyph again.
"Do I lack the human part?" he whispered.
Or was it the opposite?
Did he possess something too old, too primal, too different—making it impossible to grasp how this world's energy truly flowed?
He shook the thought away. Overthinking would get him nowhere.
---
He placed the tip of his index finger on the center glyph. The rune felt cool, almost indifferent.
He inhaled deeply.
He steadied his spine.
He narrowed his focus until the room blurred.
"Aethra."
A surge.
Like a heartbeat echoing from beneath stone.
The glyph flared—white, blue, electric—and the entire rune pattern ignited across the slab, light rippling in arcs like veins catching fire. His breath hitched. The glow radiated outward, expanding for a brief, crystalline moment.
Two seconds.
Maybe three.
Then the light collapsed in on itself.
A silent implosion.
And darkness.
The slab returned to stillness.
Minjae staggered back, pulse hammering.
"It worked," he whispered.
Not imagined.
Not random.
Real.
His hand trembled. He stared at the now-dormant slab, breath coming unsteadily. The echo of the power still tingled at his fingertips.
But the next four hours yielded nothing.
Not a flicker.
Not a spark.
Not even a warm pulse of recognition.
His muscles ached. His head throbbed. The air in the lab felt heavier by the minute.
He slumped into the nearby chair, rubbing his face with both hands. "It's not replicable," he muttered. "Not yet."
He leaned back, staring up at the ceiling. The harsh overhead lights blurred into indistinct shapes. His chest tightened with equal parts frustration and resignation.
Whatever spark he had ignited—it had required something beyond calculation. Beyond technique. Beyond the logic he clung to.
A threshold of presence?
A perfect alignment of thought and feeling?
A moment of clarity he couldn't force?
Chance? Instinct? Will?
No remaining dragon insight had an answer for him.
And that truth stung more deeply than he expected.
He exhaled slowly, letting the tension bleed out.
"Maybe…" he murmured, barely audible even to himself, "…maybe I need to stop thinking like Valmyros."
His eyes drifted shut.
"And start seeing the world through human eyes… fully."
Not only to understand Aethra.
But to understand himself—this version of himself, the one bound by human limits and lifted by human connections.
For the first time, he wondered if Vitalia wasn't simply ancient power waiting to be wielded…
…but something that required him to be truly present in this life, in this body, in this world—with all the human ties he kept at arm's length.
The thought scared him.
And steadied him.
Both at once.