Virel Hold did not feel hostile.
That was the problem.
As Kael walked deeper into the city, he felt the Convergence Engine's influence everywhere—not as pressure, not as suppression, but as dilution. Strong emotions softened. Sharp intentions rounded off. Even ambient cultivation lost its edge, spreading evenly like heat through thick stone.
Nothing here was allowed to peak.
Nothing here was allowed to linger.
Kael felt the stillness inside him strain—not from opposition, but from dispersion.
Archivist Lyr led him through layered districts where disputes resolved themselves before escalating, where breakthroughs were recorded and immediately normalized, where no single cultivator was permitted to stand apart long enough to become a reference point.
"You see stability," Lyr said, watching his expression. "Most people do."
"I see amnesia," Kael replied.
Lyr did not deny it.
"Memory creates hierarchy," she said. "Hierarchy creates collapse."
They stopped at the edge of a wide chamber overlooking the Convergence Engine itself. From here, Kael could see the rings rotating—each one representing a different system, a different logic, constantly exchanging burden.
Failures entered.
Outcomes exited.
Nothing stayed whole.
"This city has never fallen," Lyr said quietly.
Kael studied the engine.
"And it has never changed," he replied.
Lyr's gaze sharpened. "Change is overrated."
Kael felt the stillness inside him tighten—not aggressively.
Precisely.
"Change is how wounds close," he said. "What you're doing is preventing scars by reopening them everywhere."
That landed.
Lyr turned to him fully now.
"You left a scar behind you," she said. "One that will be revisited. Studied. Copied."
"Yes."
"If you do that here," Lyr continued, "it won't become precedent. It will become contagion."
Kael nodded slowly.
"I know."
The test began without announcement.
The Convergence Engine adjusted its rotation.
Not to target Kael.
To include him.
The air shifted subtly as his presence was indexed—not as an anomaly, but as a variable to be amortized.
Kael felt the stillness inside him pulled outward—not violently, but persistently—spread thin across overlapping systems.
For the first time, his stillness did not settle cleanly.
It frayed.
Not breaking.
Thinning.
This place did not oppose him.
It erased focus.
Kael exhaled slowly and stepped forward.
He did not push against the Engine.
He did not resist inclusion.
He chose where to stand.
The stillness inside him condensed—not expanding, not dispersing.
Localizing.
A single point.
The Engine stuttered.
Just once.
Lyr inhaled sharply.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Choosing memory," Kael replied.
The localized stillness did not reject the surrounding systems.
It gave them something they could not redistribute.
A reference.
The rings slowed.
Not stopping.
Synchronizing.
For one breath—only one—Virel Hold remembered itself.
Not as a mechanism.
As a place.
People across the city paused, confusion flickering across their faces as emotions sharpened briefly—regret, pride, resolve.
Then the Engine corrected.
The moment passed.
But it did not vanish.
It registered.
Alarms did not sound.
Instead, Lyr laughed softly—once, surprised.
"You didn't scar us," she said.
"No," Kael agreed. "I marked you."
Her expression turned serious.
"That's worse."
"Yes."
They stood in silence as the Engine resumed its rotations, now subtly altered—its amortization no longer perfectly smooth.
A flaw.
A reminder.
Kael felt the stillness inside him settle again, exhausted but intact.
"You can't keep me here," he said.
Lyr nodded. "No. And we won't try."
She looked at the Engine once more.
"But you've made this place… aware."
Kael turned to leave.
Behind him, Virel Hold continued to function.
But now, somewhere deep within its neutral heart, a question persisted.
And questions, once introduced, were very difficult to distribute evenly.