The first thing I noticed was the silence.
Not the cave's silence—the oppressive, watchful quiet it always carried—but the absence of resistance inside my own body. For the first time since awakening, nothing pushed back when I reached inward. No friction. No bottleneck. No invisible ceiling pressing down on my thoughts and power.
It felt wrong.
And intoxicating.
I stood alone in a vast chamber of the cave, the crystal walls faintly illuminated by veins of pale light that pulsed like a living thing. The air trembled around me, reacting to something it could not understand yet. Reacting to me.
I inhaled slowly.
The breath went deeper than my lungs.
Energy moved.
Not mana. Not just life. Not just death.
Dualflow.
