He should have left the body where it fell. But the body was gone—dissolved into those violet sparks—and in its place, the mana crystal pulsed in his pocket like a second heartbeat.
Blaine stood at the edge of the floating island, the Severing Edge sheathed across his back, the threads on his wrist pulsing quietly. Below him, the bottomless sky stretched into violet infinity. Ahead, the next island drifted closer, its pale stone surface dotted with twisted trees and scattered boulders. And in the distance, the spires of the city he'd seen glowed brighter now. Watching. Waiting.
They know their scout is dead. They'll send more.
He jumped.
The lighter gravity carried him further than he expected. He landed in a crouch, the pale stone cracking slightly under the impact. The analyzer lens recalibrated, Void Sense expanding outward. The mana density here was higher. The air practically hummed with it.
Then the system flagged movement.
[Multiple Signatures Detected]
[Count: 4]
[Classification: Mana-Based Sentients]
[Intent: Hostile — Search Pattern]
Four. They're hunting me.
He didn't wait. He moved into the twisted trees, the violet leaves rustling as he passed. The Severing Edge stayed sheathed—he needed information more than bodies. The crystal in his pocket was still pulsing, still unreadable. The system needed more data before it could adapt to mana. Killing two scouts wouldn't give it what it needed. He needed to capture one. Question it. Learn.
The hunters emerged from the far side of the island.
They were similar to the scout—tall, robed, masked with pale bone. But these four moved in formation, their staffs held at identical angles, their violet-trailed movements synchronized. A hunting party. Two hovered at the edges, scanning the terrain with pulses of mana that washed over the trees like sonar. The other two advanced toward the center of the island, where Blaine's landing had cracked the stone.
He pressed himself against a tree trunk. The mana pulses washed over him—and stopped. The flanking hunters had felt something. Not his presence. Something else. The threads on his wrist? The Origin Scar? The mana in the air was brushing against his connections and recoiling slightly, the way the silence had once recoiled from them.
They can sense it. They don't know what it is, but they know something's wrong.
The lead hunter raised its staff. A sphere of violet light erupted from the tip and expanded outward—a detection spell, more powerful than the pulses. This one wouldn't just graze him. It would expose him.
He moved.
The Severing Edge came out in a silver blur. He closed the distance to the nearest flanking hunter before the detection spell could fully form. One strike. The staff shattered. The hunter reeled. He caught it by the collar of its robes before it could dissolve and slammed it against the tree trunk. The other three pivoted instantly, their staffs leveling toward him.
"Call them off," he said. "Or I break more than your staff."
The hunter stared at him. Its mask was pale bone, featureless except for narrow eye slits that glowed faintly violet. When it spoke, its voice was distorted—translated through the system, rough and imperfect.
"You are not of the Spire. You are not of the Veil. What are you?"
"I'm the one asking questions. Your scout attacked me without warning. Now you're hunting me. Why?"
"The disturbance. Your arrival. The Font felt it. The Archmagus demands all anomalies be brought to the Spire—or destroyed."
The Spire. The Archmagus. The Font. Three names I need to understand. "What is the Font?"
The hunter hesitated. The other three were shifting, their staffs still aimed at Blaine's back, but they weren't attacking. They were waiting. Orders. Protocols. There was a hierarchy here.
"The Font is the source," the hunter said finally. "The wellspring of all mana in the Expanse. It gives us power. Purpose. The Archmagus protects it. The Veil opposes him. You are neither. You are—other."
"I'm a climber. Nothing more."
"Nothing more does not defeat a Spire scout. Nothing more does not carry relics that make the mana recoil." Its violet eyes flicked to the threads on Blaine's wrist. "You carry old things. Things that predate the Expanse. The Archmagus will want to study them."
"The Archmagus can wait."
He released the hunter and stepped back. The other three tensed, but he didn't attack. Instead, he drew the mana crystal from his pocket and held it up.
"Your scout dropped this when it died. What is it?"
"A catalyst shard. The crystallized essence of a mage's power. It contains the spells they knew, the mana they wielded. When a mage dies, the shard remains. We return them to the Spire. The Archmagus uses them to strengthen the Font."
Spells. The crystal contains spells. And I can't absorb it yet because the system doesn't understand mana. But if I can get the system to understand it—I can devour spells directly.
He pocketed the crystal again. "Go back to your Spire. Tell your Archmagus there's no anomaly. Just a traveler passing through."
"The Archmagus does not permit travelers."
"Then he'll be disappointed."
The hunter stared at him for a long moment. Then it raised its hand, and the other three lowered their staffs. They retreated slowly, backing toward the island's edge. The lead hunter paused at the precipice.
"You have made a choice, traveler. The Spire will remember."
"I've been remembered by worse."
The hunters leaped, violet light trailing behind them as they arced toward a distant island. Blaine watched them go. The system was still processing the encounter—recording the structure of their spells, the resonance of their mana, the way the catalyst shard had pulsed when he held it up.
[Data Acquisition: Mana — 12%]
[Frameworks Analyzed: Detection Spell, Arcane Flame, Catalyst Shard Composition]
[Additional Samples Required for Mana Core Integration]
Twelve percent. I need more encounters. More crystals. More spells.
He looked toward the distant spires. The city glowed violet in the twilight. The Archmagus was there. The Font was there. The answers were there. But so were the hunters. The scouts. The Spire's full strength.
He sheathed the Severing Edge. The mana crystal pulsed in his pocket. The threads on his wrist hummed.
Not yet. I need to understand this world before I walk into its center. Find a neutral ground. Someone who isn't Spire or Veil. Someone who can teach me what the crystals can't.
He jumped to the next island. The violet sky stretched endless above him. Somewhere in the distance, the two moons were rising. And beneath them, out of sight but never out of mind, the Mana Expanse waited to be understood.