We walked in silence for another five minutes, descending through progressively older architecture. The white marble of the upper Tower gave way to grey stone, then to dark basalt. The mana-lamps became fewer and dimmer.
Finally, Vasir stopped at what looked like a sealed maintenance hatch. He pressed his hand against the metal, and I felt a surge of his mana—not the surgical precision from before, but a raw, overwhelming flood of power. The hatch didn't unlock; it yielded, the metal softening like wax under his touch.
"Inside," he said.
The workshop was everything the Council chambers weren't.
Where the Tower's upper levels were all flowing curves and artistic runes, this space was functional. The walls were covered in blackboards—real, physical slate covered in chalk equations. Partial differential equations. Thermodynamic models. Crystalline lattice diagrams that looked like they belonged in a materials science lab.
Mana-suspension fields held rotating models of molecular structures—carbon lattices, water molecule clusters, something that looked like a representation of plasma dynamics. There were no gilded decorations, no ceremonial staffs, no flowing banners.
This was a laboratory.
Vasir unsealed my chains with a casual flick of power. The mana-suppression runes dissolved like sugar in water.
"Sit," he said, gesturing to a simple wooden chair at a heavy workbench. "We need to establish ground rules."
I sat, my eyes scanning the room. In the corner, I noticed a chronometer—dual-faced, showing two different time scales. One face showed Avulum's standard hours. The other showed... something else. Slower. Much slower.
"You've already figured out the temporal differential," Vasir said, following my gaze. It wasn't a question.
"Thirty to one," I replied. "Thirty Avulum days per Earth day."
"Close. Thirty-point-four, technically, though the ratio fluctuates as mana bleeds into your world." He pulled out a second chair and sat across from me. "You've been here twenty-four days. Earth has experienced nineteen hours and forty-seven minutes."
The specificity of it hit harder than the general knowledge. Nineteen hours and forty-seven minutes. I could picture my father checking his watch, wondering if dawn would ever come.
"The Council knows about the differential," Vasir continued. "They've always known. It's their greatest strategic advantage. They can spend years preparing an invasion while the target world experiences mere weeks."
"And they were going to send me back within two to six months," I said, the pattern clicking into place. "Six Avulum months. Six Earth days. Right when society is broken but not extinct. When people are desperate enough to accept any help."
"Exactly." Vasir stood, walking to one of the blackboards. "The Tower's colonization model is elegant, in a horrifying way. They don't want to conquer Earth with armies. They want to purchase it with salvation."
He drew a timeline:
Earth Day 1-3: Chaos. Maximum casualties. Infrastructure collapse. Earth Day 4-6: Survivors organize. Resistance forms but remains fractured. Earth Day 7-10: Critical window. Either Earth stabilizes or fractures permanently.
"You were supposed to arrive on Day 6," Vasir said, tapping the timeline. "A savior appearing exactly when hope is dying. You'd be carrying the Vassal-Link—a resonance pattern that would make you a relay node for Tower control. Every spell you cast would broadcast their frequency. Every gate you closed would be replaced by a Tower-controlled portal."
He turned to face me.
"Within a month, Earth would be a client state. Within a year, a colony. Within a decade, your people wouldn't even remember they used to be free."
I felt my jaw clench. "How long can you delay them?"
"That depends on how much treason I'm willing to commit." Vasir's smile was thin and dangerous. "I bought us one month with the contamination story. I can extend that to three months by 'discovering' Sanctification rune incompatibilities. Six months if I fabricate failed launch tests."
He paused, his grey eyes measuring me.
"Or I can give you nine hundred days if you're willing to let Earth suffer for one month while you train properly."
The number hung in the air like a guillotine blade.
Nine hundred Avulum days. Thirty Earth days.
"Why nine hundred?" I asked, my voice sounding distant to my own ears.
"Because that's how long it takes to reach Tier 4 through proper training," Vasir said. He pulled out a leather-bound journal, flipping to a page covered in calculations. "Not the Tower's method—sitting in a meditation circle until you spontaneously compress your core. The scientific method. Calculated compression. Deliberate elemental integration."
He set the journal on the table.
"You're currently Tier 2. Your core holds approximately one thousand units of mana, which is incredible. To reach Tier 3, I think you need to compress that core until it can hold two thousand units at the same density. To reach Tier 4, you need four thousand."
"And nine hundred days gets me to Tier 4?"
"If you don't die during the compression process, yes." Vasir's tone was matter-of-fact. "Tier transitions are dangerous. Most mages spend decades at each tier, letting their bodies slowly adapt to higher pressures. You don't have decades."
He pointed to a chart on the wall—a training timeline marked with milestones:
Months 1-6: Master existing affinities (Fire, Water, Earth)
Months 6-12: train more affinities for my blank slate ( begin with Air then Lightning)
Months 12-18: Tier 3 transition (compress to 2,000 units)
Months 18-24: Advanced combat techniques
Months 24-30: Tier 4 transition (compress to 4,000 units)
"This assumes you survive," Vasir added. "The failure rate for forced Tier transitions is approximately forty percent. But if you succeed, you'll return to Earth as a powerful Tier 4 combat mage. You could close the gates. Kill the invasion leadership. Maybe even challenge the Demon King's lieutenants if any have crossed over."
I stared at the timeline. At the brutal mathematics of it.
Thirty Earth days of war. Nine hundred Avulum days of safety.
If I left now, I'd be Tier 2 with half-functional spells. I'd die in the first real fight, and Earth would lose both their "Hero" and any chance of the Tower's plans being disrupted.
If I waited the full nine hundred days, I'd be powerful. I could actually end the invasion instead of just dying in it.
But thirty days. Thirty days of my parents struggling. Thirty days of cities burning.
"What if I aim for Tier 3 instead?" I asked. "Cut the timeline in half. Four hundred fifty days. Fifteen Earth days."
Vasir shook his head. "Tier 3 isn't enough. By day fifteen, Earth's mana saturation will be around point-one percent—enough for mid-tier monsters to sustain themselves indefinitely. You'd be fighting Tier 3 and Tier 4 creatures while you're barely Tier 3 yourself. The power gap would kill you."
He leaned forward, his presence suddenly heavy—a reminder that I was talking to an Archmage, a being who could level cities.
"I can delay the Council for nine hundred days," Vasir said quietly. "But you need to promise me you won't waste it. No shortcuts. No reckless core hunting. No desperate gambles. You train properly, following a structured progression, or you're just another corpse with good intentions."
I looked at him. Really looked.
He was in his sixties, maybe seventies by Avulum standards. His face was weathered but sharp. His eyes held the particular weariness of someone who'd spent decades watching institutions he believed in rot from within.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked ,again. "You're risking your seat. Your reputation. Maybe your life. For a world you've never seen."
Vasir was quiet for a long moment.
"Because I'm a scientist," he finally said. "And scientists are supposed to pursue truth, not empire. The Tower used to be a place of learning. Now it's a machine that turns knowledge into chains."
He gestured to the equations on the blackboards.
"You're attempting something I've theorized for forty years—running Avulum magic on a mana-dead world's physics. If you succeed, you'll prove that magic isn't a gift from some cosmic hierarchy. It's a tool that anyone can learn if they understand the principles."
His smile was bitter.
"The Council can't allow that. If Earth develops its own mages using your methods—mages who don't need the Tower's 'guidance'—the entire colonial model collapses. You're not just a threat to their invasion. You're a threat to their philosophy."
I understood then. Vasir wasn't helping me out of altruism. He was helping me because I was a weapon aimed at everything he'd grown to hate about the Tower.
"When do we start?" I asked.
"We already have." Vasir stood, walking to one of the blackboards. He erased a section of equations and began writing new ones. "First lesson: You've been trying to cast your techniques like they're spell formulas. They're not. They're frameworks. You need to understand the underlying principles, then derive your own implementations."
He drew a simple diagram—a circle with radiating lines.
"Tell me what you know about Fire-aspect magic."