Night had fallen over Thares by the time Kael finally reached the family hotel. His legs barely held him up. Each step on the wooden floor echoed hollowly through the empty lobby. The air smelled of accumulated dust and burnt morning coffee.
He closed the door carefully, as if the outside world might slip in behind him.
The tenants he'd seen earlier were gone. Only faded posters remained on the walls, and the echo of his own footsteps as he climbed the stairs. Darling's words still rang in his mind:
"Southern valley. Tomorrow at dawn."
His room was small — barely enough space for a bed and a wobbly desk. He collapsed onto the mattress without bothering to turn on the lights. The springs creaked. For a moment, he just lay there, staring at the cracked ceiling, feeling the residual tremor in his hands.
Emergent spatial perception, Darling had said.
Kael closed his eyes — and felt it again.
That strange awareness of the space around him. Not visual, not tactile — knowledge. He knew exactly how far he was from each wall, each piece of furniture. As if his mind had built a perfect three-dimensional map of the room.
And beyond. He could feel the hallway. The neighboring rooms. The entire building stretched through his awareness like a ghostly structure made of distance and geometry.
He sat up sharply, heart racing.
It's not my imagination. It's real.
With trembling hands, he turned on the old holographic terminal. A blue beam flickered to life, casting ghostly light across his palms — the same hands that had reached toward the falling beam, the same that had felt space bending.
He needed answers.
He opened his archive of personal notes — years of self-taught research on Resonance. Diagrams copied from public books. Forum debates with other Latents about which Field was "best." He'd been so sure he'd be Mechanical — or maybe Electromagnetic. Those were common. Safe. Documented.
But what he'd felt today was… something else.
He opened a saved document from the Institute of Resonant Studies:
"Each Resonant connects to a Scientific Field during Awakening: Mechanical, Biological, Electromagnetic, Quantum, Spatial, Chemical. The Field is not chosen; it reveals itself according to natural affinity."
Kael froze on one word.
Spatial.
He searched frantically — "Spatial Field – early Awakening signs."
Results were scarce. Much scarcer than for any other Field.
"Spatial Field: the rarest of the six. Only 0.3% of all Resonants belong to this domain. Data incomplete due to low population."
Zero point three percent.If only three percent of humanity were Resonants… that made him part of a rarity within a rarity.
He kept reading:
SPATIAL FIELD: Control over space-time. Practitioners can perceive and manipulate distances, create portals, eventually fold space or influence local temporal flow. Extremely difficult to master due to its abstract nature.
Early latent signs:
Distorted perception of distance (common)
Sense that space feels "wrong" or "bent" (common)
Objects "jumping" short distances (rare)
Involuntary teleportation (extremely rare — indicates imminent Awakening)
Kael's heartbeat thundered. He had all of those signs — especially the last one.
He opened the forums. Found an old thread:
"Spatial latent — any advice before Awakening?"
The replies were a mix of warnings and awe:
"Spatial Field is brutal for beginners. Most start as Empirical Initiates and can't do anything useful for months. Too abstract.""If you're really Spatial, GET SUPERVISION. Uncontrolled Awakening can kill you. Or worse.""Worse than dying?""You can teleport inside a wall. Collapse a local space fold. Fragment your own body and never reassemble it."
A chill crawled down Kael's spine. That's why Darling had insisted on training. It wasn't just an offer — it was a warning.
He found a technical article on Spatial progression:
"Unlike other Fields — where basic understanding (Empirical Initiate, Conceptual Apprentice) allows simple but safe manipulation — the Spatial Field requires at least Minor Theorist level before conscious manipulation. Latents with strong spatial signs must register immediately."
Minor Theorist. Level 8. The level where you truly grasped the principles behind the formulas — where you could manipulate simple variables.
How long would that take? Weeks? Months?
He stood and reached toward an empty cup on the desk. Closed his eyes and sought that feeling again.
The space between his hand and the cup — three meters. He could feel it. Not visually, but innately. Like knowing where your arms are without looking — but extended outward into the world.
Understand, he thought. Not push. Not pull. Understand.
He focused on the geometry of that space — visualizing coordinates X, Y, Z. The cup at (3, 0, 1), his hand at (0, 0, 0.5).
What if those coordinates… got closer?
The cup trembled. Just a millimeter — but it moved.
Kael's eyes snapped open, breath catching. It had worked — clumsy, minimal, but real.
And nothing had exploded.
A metallic chime startled him. The terminal flickered.
But what appeared wasn't a normal message. The hologram distorted, code lines twisting, forming… something else. A presence. It had no defined shape, but Kael felt its weight — something immense watching him through a dimensional slit.
Then it spoke. Not with a voice — but directly in his mind:
"KAEL THORNE. YOU HAVE BEGUN TO UNDERSTAND."
The air thickened. Kael couldn't move.
The display shifted, showing data surrounded by that impossible presence:
SPATIAL LATENT CONFIRMEDProbability of imminent Awakening: 87%Signs detected: Spatial perception, rudimentary manipulationStatus: Scientific curiosity – StableWARNING: Unsupervised Awakening in Spatial Field poses critical riskRecommendation: Immediate supervision by certified Spatial Resonant
The presence spoke again:
"Space has recognized you. Soon you will recognize yourself within it. Not all survive that mutual recognition."
And then it was gone. The hologram returned to normal.
Kael sat frozen, cold sweat on his forehead. That had been the Universal Consciousness — the entity that regulated all Resonance. Some called it the Neutral Administrator. Others, the Truth of the Universe.
And it had spoken to him. A mere latent.
87% probability of imminent Awakening.
Tomorrow at dawn. Darling would be waiting in the southern valley. A Level-1 Spatial Resonant. The Shadowless Swordsman.
The supervision he needed.
Kael looked out the window. Thares slept beneath a gray sky, the distant city lights shimmering — guild towers, training complexes, a world he had only studied from afar.
Now, that world was calling to him.
He closed his eyes and felt the space again — the room, the building, the distances between everything. So clear. So real.
Spatial Field, he thought. The rarest. The most dangerous.
And apparently… mine.
He didn't know whether to feel euphoria or terror. Probably both.
Resonance = Knowledge.All his life, he'd studied physics, dreaming of understanding the laws of the universe — and now, those very laws were becoming his power.
If he survived the Awakening.
He forced himself to lie down. He needed rest. Tomorrow at dawn would decide if he truly had what it took to master the most abstract Field of all.
Or if space would shatter him before he could comprehend it.
He closed his eyes, but sleep didn't come easily. The spatial perception lingered, constant — reminding him that something fundamental had changed within him.
Southern valley. At dawn.
The words echoed in his mind like a mantra.
His destiny waited in those ruins — and with it, the answer to the question that had haunted him his entire life:
Which Scientific Field would resonate with him?
Now he knew.
Spatial Field.
The rarest.The hardest.And potentially — the most powerful.
If he lived long enough to master it.