The morning after the academy's renaissance felt like standing at the edge of something vast and transformative.
Ethan traveled through the mountain passes toward what would become the Light Guardian's final major facility, watching the sunrise paint snow-capped peaks in shades of gold and crimson.
The alchemy laboratory's location had been chosen with the same careful precision as the forge and formation academy—isolated enough for dangerous experiments, accessible enough for supply networks, and most importantly, positioned where someone with complicated moral history could work without constant scrutiny from neighbors who might ask uncomfortable questions.
The abandoned silver mine they'd purchased sat in a valley that locals avoided, partly due to legends about strange vapors that had driven away the original miners, and partly because the last alchemist who'd worked here had disappeared under circumstances that bred the kind of folklore that kept treasure hunters away.
