Valttair took in the whole table from the head of it, unhurried, letting them feel the pause before he spoke.
"Before I hear what any of you did with the last two years, you will hear what I did with mine." His voice carried without effort. "My seclusion was not a rest, and it was not a retreat. For a long time my progress had crawled. I had reached the point where piling on more mana bought me almost nothing. What I lacked was never power. It was a way to carry that power any further."
No one needed it drawn out. They knew the wall he meant. Valttair had been pressed against the barrier between the eighth core and the ninth for years, and no weight of mana had ever cracked it.
"That wall is no longer there." He let the words hang. "I have entered Paradox."
The hall took a breath to catch up with him.
