They walked through the quiet courtyard of Villa 11. The heavy iron gate locked behind them with a solid click. The house was empty. Aunt Shara was still at the faculty buildings.
Jin stopped in the main hallway. He reached down and untied the small, grey spatial pouch from his belt.
He opened the pouch. He reached his hand inside the pocket of folded space. His fingers brushed against cold metal and smooth stones. He found what he was looking for. He pulled out a handful of glowing rocks.
They were mid-tier Aether cores. They radiated a strong, clean blue light. He counted them quickly. He pulled out exactly thirty stones.
He held them out in his open hands.
Luna stared at the glowing rocks. Her breath hitched. Thirty mid-tier cores was a massive fortune to her. She carefully cupped her hands together. Jin dropped the heavy stones into her palms. They clinked together softly.
"Pay the quartermaster," Jin said flatly. "Get your catalyst."
Luna smiled. It was a real, bright smile. She hugged the glowing stones tightly against her chest.
"Thank you," she said quickly.
She turned around and practically hopped down the hallway toward her guest room. She rushed inside and closed the heavy wooden door behind her.
Jin turned away. He walked to the washroom.
He stripped off his filthy black uniform. The fabric was stiff with dried sweat and the grey dust from Instructor Thorne's dirt arena. He stepped under the iron pipe protruding from the stone wall. He turned the brass valve.
Cold water hit his back. It felt sharp and good.
He washed the grey dust out of his dark hair. He scrubbed the grime off his arms and legs. His muscles still ached deeply from the endless squats and sit-ups, but the cold water numbed the lingering pain. He washed the weakness of the day down the stone drain.
He dried off with a rough towel. He put on a clean set of loose grey sleep clothes provided by the villa.
He walked into his own bedroom. It was quiet and dark. Nyx was not standing in the corner. She was likely outside, scouting the perimeter of the estate. Jin did not need a guard right now. He needed power.
He walked to the center of his hard mattress. He sat down cross-legged. He rested his hands on his knees. He closed his eyes.
He started the Devourer breathing technique.
Inhale sharply. Expand the lungs. Hold the heavy Aether. Exhale slowly through the teeth.
The violent rhythm engaged instantly. The ambient energy of the capital rushed into his body. It flooded his repairing muscles. The dull ache in his thighs turned into a deep, intense heat. His Foundation Level 4 core spun slowly, absorbing the dense fuel. He was not just healing anymore. He was building his strength. He was pushing his body toward Level 5.
An hour passed.
The room was completely silent except for Jin's steady, harsh breathing.
Then, Jin felt something strange.
He did not open his eyes, but his deep concentration broke slightly. A new sensation washed over his skin. It was not normal Aether. Normal Aether felt heavy, warm, and solid.
This new energy felt cold and completely weightless. It made the fine hairs on his arms stand up. It felt like the air pressure in the room had suddenly dropped. The space around his bed felt warped, like he was looking through a curved piece of glass.
The feeling was coming from the stone wall to his right. It was coming directly from Luna's room.
Jin kept his breathing steady. He analyzed the new data.
The Academy logistics system was incredibly efficient. Luna must have placed her order on her Aether-band immediately. The delivery network had already dropped the package at the villa. Her space core had arrived at least ten minutes ago.
The strange distortion in the air meant she was not just looking at the stone. She was already cultivating. She was using the Assimilating Technique from her silver book. She was pulling the raw spatial energy out of the core and bringing it into her own body.
Jin did not get up to check on her. He trusted the process. He let the weird, weightless energy wash over him and focused his mind back on his own heavy, burning core.
Earlier, in the guest room.
Luna dumped the thirty glowing cores onto her soft mattress. She sat on the edge of the bed. Her hands were shaking slightly.
She raised her left arm. She tapped the dark metal Aether-band locked around her wrist. The blue holographic screen popped into the air. She quickly opened the Academy store interface.
She navigated to the rare materials section. She found the exact listing she needed. Space-Attribute Beast Core (Low Grade). Price: 30 Mid-Tier Cores.
The Academy band had a small physical scanner built into the side of the metal. She picked up the mid-tier cores one by one. She pressed them against the scanner. The device absorbed the physical energy of the stones, converting their massive value into digital Merit Points on her account.
The pile of stones vanished. Her digital balance read exactly thirty points.
She hit the purchase button. A green confirmation message flashed on the blue screen. Delivery dispatched. Estimated arrival: twenty minutes.
Luna let out a long, shaky breath. The money was gone. The order was placed.
She looked down at her hands. She was covered in dirt from the arena. She smelled like sweat and fear. She did not want to touch a pure, magical catalyst while she was filthy. It felt disrespectful to the process.
She ran to her washroom. She took a fast, hot shower. She scrubbed the dirt out from under her fingernails. She washed the thick dust out of her hair. She dried off and changed into clean, soft grey clothes.
She walked back into her bedroom. She looked at the mechanical clock on the wall.
Only ten minutes had passed.
Luna started pacing. She walked from the window to the heavy wooden door. She turned around and walked back to the window. She could not sit still. Her bare feet made soft, rapid sounds on the wooden floor. She was incredibly impatient.
She was a mortal. She had been weak and useless her entire life. She was a ledger keeper who just counted other people's money. Now, the actual key to her own power was literally on its way. Every single second felt like an hour. She chewed nervously on her lower lip. She wrung her clean hands together.
Ding.
A soft, clear bell rang from the small delivery chute built into the stone wall near the front gate of the villa.
Luna gasped. She ran out of her room. She sprinted down the hallway, her bare feet slapping against the stone floor. She reached the brass delivery chute.
A small, heavy metal box was sitting inside the polished opening. It had the Genesis Zenith Academy seal stamped deeply into the iron lid.
She grabbed the box. It was surprisingly heavy. She ran all the way back to her room and pushed the door shut.
She climbed onto the dead center of her soft bed. She sat cross-legged. She placed the heavy metal box in her lap. She took a deep breath to calm her racing heart.
She popped the metal latch. She opened the lid.
Luna stared inside the box.
It was not a normal beast core. She had seen fire cores and earth cores at the bandit camp. They looked like glowing rocks or smooth glass spheres. This core was completely different.
It looked like a tiny piece of the night sky had been trapped inside a jagged piece of crystal. The core was completely clear, but the space inside it seemed to constantly fold and shift. The light from the room bent around it strangely. When she looked directly at the center of the crystal, it felt like she was looking down a very long, dark tunnel. It did not have a fixed, solid shape. The edges blurred into the empty air.
Luna reached into the box. She picked it up.
It felt freezing cold against her skin. It was heavy in her palms, but it also felt like it weighed absolutely nothing. It was a physical paradox.
She set the empty metal box aside on the mattress. She held the shifting, clear core tightly in both of her small hands.
She closed her eyes. She pictured the instructions from the thick silver book perfectly in her mind. She needed to tame this wild energy. She needed to assimilate the raw distance trapped inside the crystal.
She started the breathing pattern for the Assimilating Technique.
She breathed in very slowly. She focused her mind entirely on the cold rock in her hands. She did not try to crush it or force it like a physical attack. She gently coaxed the energy out. She imagined a thin, invisible thread connecting her own beating heart to the shifting crystal.
The core responded.
It pulsed smoothly in her hands. A wave of freezing, weightless energy crept out of the stone. It moved over her fingers. It traveled slowly up her arms.
Luna's eyes snapped open in shock.
She looked down at her hands holding the core. Her fingers were becoming slightly transparent. The space around her own body was warping. The air rippled like water thrown at a wall. The bed underneath her felt both incredibly close and miles away at the exact same time.
The space gene was entering her blood. It was strange. It was terrifying. But it did not hurt.
Luna closed her eyes again. She steadied her breathing. She stopped fighting the weird, pulling sensation. She let the pure spatial energy flow directly into her empty foundation. She pulled the distance into her soul.
Her cultivation had finally begun.