The Vileth Archive was a place of dust and forgotten glory. It was a sprawling, subterranean wing of the estate, filled with floor-to-ceiling shelves of moldering parchment and leather-bound tomes. Because the Vileths were a "martial" clan, the library was rarely visited. To them, the path to power was found in the training yard, not in the silence of ink.
This made it the perfect sanctum.
As the newly appointed Junior Archive Guard, Azrakar's duties were simple: ensure no rats ate the scrolls and keep the lamps lit.
"Perfect," he whispered, locking the heavy iron-reinforced door from the inside.
He moved to the very back of the Archive, behind a shelf containing the genealogies of extinct vassal houses. There, he had cleared a small stone table. He placed the lead-lined jar of Star-Silt on it.
He needed to create the Trinity Solvent.
The Star-Silt was the base, but it was too raw. In its current state, the energy it contained was chaotic—a mix of stellar radiation and earthen minerals. To make it useful for the Trinity Circuit, he had to "filter" it through his own body without actually consuming it yet.
He sat before the jar and opened the lid. A faint, ghostly blue glow illuminated his face.
Azrakar closed his eyes and began to circulate his energy. This was the most dangerous part of his current plan. He extended a "bridge" of Qi from his Dantian into the jar. Simultaneously, he drew a "thread" of Mana from his heart.
The two energies met inside the Star-Silt.
The jar began to vibrate. The blue dust inside started to swirl, forming a miniature vortex. Azrakar's brow beaded with sweat. His small body was acting as a transformer, taking the ambient "pressure" of the room and forcing it into the silt to stabilize the particles.
Slower, he told himself. This body is a porcelain cup trying to hold a mountain spring.
The Star-Silt began to change color. The angry blue softened into a pale, iridescent violet. This was the "refined" state—energy that could be absorbed by the veins, the heart, and the Dantian simultaneously.
Suddenly, a sharp pain flared in his chest. His heart skipped a beat. The Mana flow had stuttered.
The violet dust flared brightly, threatening to explode.
Azrakar didn't panic. Panic was for the short-lived. He immediately redirected a burst of Aura from his veins into his heart, using the physical energy to "jumpstart" the rhythmic pulse of his Mana. It was like using a hammer to fix a delicate watch, but it worked.
The vortex settled. The violet glow dimmed into a steady, pulsing light.
He slumped back against the stone wall, breathing hard. His clothes were soaked. He looked at his hands; they were shaking.
"The efficiency of this era is staggering," he laughed quietly to himself. "In the Decay, refining this much silt would have taken months of gathering the meager scraps of the world. Here... it took an hour. But my vessel... my body is still the bottleneck."
He took a small pinch of the refined silt and placed it under his tongue.
The reaction was instantaneous. It didn't taste like dust; it tasted like lightning. The energy bypassed his digestive system, flowing directly into his Trinity Circuit. He felt his Dantian expand by a fraction of a millimeter. He felt his veins thicken. He felt his heart grow stronger.
It was a slow burn, a steady accumulation of power that no one else in the clan would be able to detect. To them, he would still look like a "Bronze" rank disappointment.
"Let them look down," Azrakar said, his eyes reflecting the violet glow of the jar. "The higher they think they are, the more room I have to move beneath them."