Adrian and Selena spent days circling the same conversation, weighing idea after idea, but every path collapsed into the same wall. Only he could infuse the ink. Without him, the process stopped.
For now, there was no avoiding it. Adrian returned to the warehouses, where rows upon rows of barrels stood waiting. The sight was familiar, an ocean of dark ink, humming faintly with dormant mana.
The last time he had done this, it had been laborious. Hours of effort, mana drained in torrents, weeks of slow infusion until entire stores were converted.
But now… it was different.
"Last time I did this, I only had basic mana and affinity. I shaped it into source power and used it. But now… now I have liquefied mana. And the seed."
He closed his eyes, feeling the seed pulsing quietly in his core. He willed his liquefied mana into it, and the seed answered. What came back was not mana at all but something higher, purer, essence.
Adrian lifted a hand. A single drop of white-grey, luminous energy fell into the first barrel.
The entire container thrummed. The ink shifted, its color swirling into white-grey sheen. He barely felt the drain.
Adrian's eyes widened. One drop, One barrel.
He moved down the rows, his hand brushing each rim in turn. Barrels flared and settled. The task that had once taken him a month was over in a day.
The efficiency thrilled him, but this was not the solution. If he left Earth, who would do this? No one else could.
Back in the Grand Rune Hall, he paced. "The ink's production is automated. Beast blood for the mana and herbs to stabilize decay. Simple. The factories can make thousands of vials a day."
His footsteps echoed against the marble floor. "But if I always have to infuse afterward…"
Selena frowned. "Then the limit is still you."
He rubbed his temples. "Unless the infusion isn't done afterward. Unless it's an ingredient itself."
Selena blinked. "An ingredient? Like… bake the energy into the recipe?"
"Exactly. If there were something to hold it, we could mix it straight in during production."
His thoughts churned back to the Sentinel's words, to the Abyss core, to the way stones could drink in power over time. Natural treasures formed in the void, crystallizing concepts into physical form.
He continued, "If the void can forge treasures, why can't we forge one deliberately?"
She folded her arms. "Natural treasures take centuries, even millennia, to form. Stones drifting through void storms, bathing in concepts until they crystallize."
Her golden tattoos pulsed faintly as she shook her head. "We can't replicate that."
"We don't need something perfect. Just something to carry a drop." Adrian's voice quickened with possibility. "If I can bind my energy into it once, it can be ground into powder and used like any other ingredient."
Selena's expression tightened. "But it would still depend on you to create the ingredient. If you're gone too long…"
"I know." Adrian's gaze hardened. "But if a single drop can convert an entire barrel, I can prepare enough of these to last centuries."
He turned toward the window, watching Defenders move through the district below. "That buys time, at least."
So they began testing.
Adrian summoned various materials from the Hall's storage vaults. Common stones, refined metals from deep earth veins, even fragments of meteoric stone.
Common stones shattered the moment his essence touched them. The granite crumbled to dust between his fingers, unable to withstand even the gentlest touch of Source energy. Adrian frowned, setting aside the scattered remains.
Metals cracked next. Iron split down the middle with sharp pings that echoed through the hall. Even refined steel from the deepest earth veins buckled and warped under the strain.
"This isn't working." Selena picked up a fragment of twisted copper, its surface blackened where Adrian's power had touched it.
Herbs withered instantly. The moment his essence made contact, vibrant green leaves turned brown and crumbled to ash. Powders dissolved into nothingness, leaving only empty air where precious materials had been.
Adrian's jaw tightened with each failure. Hours passed as they worked through every material in the Hall's vast storage vaults. Nothing held.
"Maybe we're approaching this wrong," Selena muttered, sweeping away another pile of destroyed components.
Then Adrian remembered the pale stones from the Abyss.
He lifted one from their collection, its surface pale with faint veins of white-grey running through like frozen lightning. For years, these stones had lain steeped in the mist of the Abyss, absorbing it in traces.
Technically, these stones already contained a trace of source energy within them. But that was years of drowning in the mist to achieve this.
Maybe it could already be used as an ingredient, but it just had traces, so it would not last long.
He didn't need to create something like these stones now, if these stones could contain his essence, that would be more than enough for now.
He pushed his essence into the stone carefully. The pale rock trembled under the pressure, hairline cracks appearing along its surface, but it held together.
Selena's eyes widened. "It didn't break."
Adrian ground the infused stone into powder. The resulting dust shimmered with contained energy, each grain pulsing faintly with white-grey light.
He mixed it with a vial of regular mana ink. The moment the powder touched the liquid, the ink flared and transformed, taking on the familiar luminous quality of Blackwood Ink.
"One stone," Adrian breathed. "One small stone converted an entire vial."
They scaled up the test immediately. Adrian infused a handful of Abyss stones, ground them down, and mixed the powder with a full barrel of ink. One hundred grams of powder, and the entire container shifted into Blackwood Ink.
Adrian's hands shook, not from exhaustion but from pure exhilaration. "It works."
Selena stared at the shimmering liquid, her golden tattoos pulsing in rhythm with the ink's glow. "Then the Abyss... even ruined, it's full of these stones. There must be mountains of them scattered across the wasteland."
"If I infused my essence into the entire ruined Abyss..." Adrian's voice trailed off as the implications hit him.
"It would be enough for centuries," he whispered. "Maybe millennia."
Selena straightened, her expression shifting from wonder to determination.
For the first time since learning of his eventual departure, the problem of Earth's survival without him had an answer.
Not a perfect one, but a beginning.