Kai couldn’t tell when it happened.

But one moment, he was sparring with Valkyrie and the next moment, he woke up with a heaviness that felt like his entire body was dragging him down. Like something had reached inside and wrung every drop of strength from his limbs.

His eyes struggled to open under the dim lights. There were shapes forming in front of him and voices—they sounded familiar.

Claire, Gareth, Kael.

They hovered above him, faces drawn tight with concern.

It took him a full breath to even remember where he was—what had happened, but it came back, piece by piece. He recalled the conversations he had with Valkyrie during their fight that ranged from philosophies to things about him that he’d barely given any thought to.

And in the middle of it, she’d simply smiled.

“I’ll trust you,” she’d said.

That was all it took for the battle to stop. The soul space faded. And now,here he was.

He pushed himself up slowly, limbs groaning in protest and managed to sit. His throat was dry, and his robes clung to him with sweat.

Claire was the first to speak, her voice soft but edged with urgency. “Lord Arzan… are you okay? What happened?”

Kai rubbed his face and exhaled. “Another trial,” he said hoarsely. “A long one. I’ll explain it later… it just took a lot out of me.”

He paused, suddenly realizing something. “Where’s Adil?” He looked around. “What happened to the tribals?”

Gareth, sitting nearby, spoke, “Adil went with the kids—the ones who were chained. He’s checking on the tribes. We heard fighting for hours… war cries echoing from the cliffs. But it’s been quiet for a while now. I think they won.”

Kai nodded slowly. “Let’s hope that’s true.”

He rose to his feet, a bit unsteady at first, then straightened his back. The space around him had changed.

The battlefield that once stank of blood and flame was cleared of bodies. The orcs were gone. Someone had even swept the stone floor.

He turned his gaze toward the towering podium at the center of the room. The same one that had triggered his descent into the soul space.

“Did you find anything else in the tower?” he asked.

Gareth exchanged a glance with Kael before replying. “We tried to explore. But most of the upper corridors and side passages are blocked magically, I think only you can open them. .”

“I did find something,” Kael said, almost sheepishly. “A sword. It was in a locked box tucked behind one of the pillars on the second level. Looked old.”

“Show me.”

Kael reached to his side and drew the blade with care. The metal was glistering. Kai could feel it. Something in the air around the weapon bent subtly, as if the space itself was leaning in.

He took the sword from Kael and turned it over in his hands. The seals carved into its fuller pulsed faintly.

“Gravity seals,” Kai said.

“Gravity… seals?” Kael repeated, blinking through confusion.

“They’re rare,” Kai said, running a thumb along the etching. “If you use it properly, it’ll feel light when you swing it. But the moment it hits your enemy—every ounce of stored weight comes crashing down. Like hitting someone with a falling boulder.”

Kael’s eyes went wide. His grip tightened slightly around the hilt as Kai handed it back. His eyes shone as if the sword suddenly turned to gold.

The others had clearly caught on too. Gareth and Claire leaned forward to clearly take a look at it.

When Kai looked at Kael, he could clearly see the contemplation in his eyes.

He gave a small smile. “You can keep it,” he said. “I’m pretty sure this tower has more of these artifacts lying around. It will be easy to find them now.”

Claire arched an eyebrow. “What do you mean, Lord Arzan?”

Kai turned his eyes to the podium again. “I mean… I have full control now.”

He stepped toward it. Last time, he had to test out waters to see where he’d be headed. This time, it responded like it was greeting its master.

The moment his palm touched the carved surface, a surge of intense mana poured out. It wrapped around his hand like a ribbon of light and pulled his awareness inward.

And just like that… he saw it.

Every hallway. Every staircase. Every vault, library and hidden chamber. The sealed upper floors. The forgotten basements. Hundreds of rooms at once.

There were guardians too, waiting in silence. Some slept deep beneath the foundations. Others were stationed above in the higher floors. All of them connected to a single will—His.

Kai staggered slightly, eyes flickering as he processed it all.

He could feel that the tower had once been managed by a powerful spirit—likely bound to Valkyrie’s soul or someone she trusted. But that spirit was… resting now. Maintaining this place for years without an heir had drained it to near dormancy.

So the responsibility passed to him.

And for the first time since setting foot in the desert, Kai understood the scale of what he had inherited.

He sifted through the tower’s internal map—corridors, chambers, sealed vaults—moving through them like thoughts in a dream. His focus narrowed.

There.

Just beside the chamber they stood in. Hidden in plain stone. A sealed door, its presence completely undetectable from the outside unless one had access to the tower’s core.

Kai commanded it open.

The room beneath them gave a small shudder, vibrating beneath his feet. Dust spilled from high beams, and from the left wall, a quiet grinding sound began—stone moving against stone. A slab of wall sank inward and slid aside, revealing a dark corridor behind it.

Kai removed his hand from the podium and turned toward them. “Let’s go,” he said. “The true inheritance lies there.”

None of them questioned it. They all nodded.

He took the lead and walked inside. The corridor ahead was wide, the walls etched with the same faint sigils found all across the tower—flowing script from an older time, glowing softly now that the path was active. They walked in silence, the sound of their boots echoing against the polished floor, until the corridor opened into a chamber far larger than the main hall.

Kai stopped as he entered, breath catching in his throat.

It was a library. A part of him thought he would come across a throne room or a treasure vault but no, this was a grand archive of power.

Bookshelves reached all the way to the high-vaulted ceiling—twisting wooden towers reinforced with metal braces, each shelf neatly filled with tomes. Hundreds, no—thousands. Magic theory, beast studies, elemental laws, planar rituals. He couldn’t even read the titles fast enough, but the aura around each book hummed with preservation magic.

This was more knowledge than a royal academy would dare dream of.

But it wasn’t just books.

Fitted between the towering shelves were vertical display cases—glass panels set into the wall, each holding a single weapon. Spears with silver tips, hammers laced with embedded crystals, twin daggers with edges so thin they glowed. Artifact weapons.

Kai stepped closer, eyes narrowing as he studied them. Not all were enchanted—at least not visibly—but every one of them was crafted from mana-conductive materials. Steel alloyed with moon ore, enchanted aethum. He could feel it in the air. The entire chamber hummed softly, like the sound of mana breathing.

Claire moved behind him, whispering, “This is…”

“A vault of a Mage general,” Gareth finished, barely keeping his voice steady.

But Kai’s attention wasn’t on the weapons anymore. Or the books. Or even the runes carved into the ceiling.

His gaze locked on the far end of the room.

There, suspended behind a tall panel of enchanted glass, was a robe.

It stood upright on a polished stand. Threads of red and blue ran through it in elegant spirals, catching the chamber’s light with a metallic shimmer. The sleeves were reinforced with plates of subtle runic armor, and the hem was etched with a border of ancient symbols he didn’t recognize at a glance—but instinctively knew were protective spells.

It was majestic.

A part of him ached to reach out and study it. To inspect its threads, trace the runes hidden beneath the fabric, and feel the mana it pulsed with. But he didn’t. Not yet.

Instead, he turned away, scanning the vast chamber. His mind was focused on something more important than relics or robes. Something Valkyrie had mentioned during their fight-turned-conversation. She had said the medallion was somewhere in the tower. She hadn’t told him where. Only that he would know it when he found it.

And now… he did.

After five minutes of combing through shelves, bypassing the coruscating weapons and decorated tomes, Kai finally stopped in front of a smaller podium tucked against the far wall.

There it was. The medallion.

At first glance, it looked underwhelming. It was a simple disc of aged copper, worn smooth at the edges. No shine. No enchantments flaring to life. Just an old insignia—House Lancephil’s crest—engraved into its center.

Kai picked it up.

He turned it over in his palm, fingers tracing its outline slowly. This was what he’d been searching for—proof of Arzan’s inheritance. A token tied directly to Valkyrie’s bloodline.

Just beneath where the medallion had rested, he noticed a folded piece of parchment. A note.

Curious, Kai lifted it, unfolding it with care. The words were handwritten in gossamer, flowing ink:

“Whatever you do with it, I’m proud of you and would always support you.”

His breath caught in his throat. Obviously, he knew it wasn’t written for him but for Arzan, the owner of his body, as a message from a mother to her son—a goodbye wrapped in love, trust, and maybe even grief. But, the realisation was… heavy.

The boy had died long before getting to hear these words. And now Kai was the only one who ever would.

He held the medallion tighter, jaw clenching for a moment before a voice cut through his thoughts.

“Lord Arzan?” Claire said, voice soft and steady. He turned to see her standing near a shelf, a few books in her arms. “What should we do with the rest of this? There’s a lot more here than we expected. Books, artifacts… some of them look like they’ve been untouched for centuries.”

Kai looked around once more, grounding himself in the present.

“We make a registry,” he said. “Catalog every book and artifact in here. I’ll go through them personally once we’ve secured the space.”

Claire nodded, but he wasn’t done.

“For now,” Kai added, stepping forward and placing the medallion into a pocket inside his robe, “our main priority should be ice-aspected spellbooks. Valkyrie was a Fifth-Circle Battle Mage, and most of her power was built on that domain. If she kept anything truly dangerous—or valuable—it’ll be in those.”

Claire nodded.

Kai thought about this place, again. The medallion was one of the reasons he came here, sure. But there was another reason he wanted this inheritance. Ice magic.

He had so little of it apart from the basics. One third-rank spell, barely enough to call himself competent. And after fighting Valkyrie… he knew just how far behind he was. The precision of her spells, the raw destructive power, the sheer variety—that was what mastery looked like. Brute force or reckless casting meant nothing if there was no control.

But to control the element efficiently, he needed higher-circle spells.

Books, scrolls—anything that could help him understand how to wield ice properly. And this tower? It had to have them. He could feel it in his bones. If he could combine it with his flame and wind aspects, he could become something far more dangerous than a mere dual-caster.

He could fly. Strike from multiple ranges. Control terrain. The possibilities felt limitless.

Kai gave the podium one last glance. That part of his search was over. Now he needed to comb the rest of the inheritance.

The chamber stretched out before him was boundless and overflowing. His footsteps echoed against stone as he passed rows of towering bookshelves. With each step, he let his hand brush across the spines, occasionally pulling one out and reading the titles.

And what he found shocked him. The diversity of knowledge here wasn’t just broad. It was absurd.

There were thick tomes on basic mana theory, the kind taught to beginners. But right next to them, ancient leather-bound volumes on rare aspects—blood, space, gravity. Topics most Mages only heard about in legend.

His fingers paused on a deep green volume. The title was “A Study of Knights Born from Dust.”

He opened it.

Inside were detailed charts—family trees of tribal lines, annotations on bloodlines, and pages upon pages describing how Sand Knights manipulated the desert to their advantage. Battle techniques unique to the dunes. How different tribes approached the mana organs. Even insights on beast-taming rituals.

Kai smiled and slid the book into his satchel. If he was going to maintain good relations with the tribes, understanding their culture was the first step. And this book? It would help with that.

He moved on.

A dwarven blacksmithing manual caught his eye next. Seals, forging diagrams, details on alloy blending. Another find. He didn’t have time to study it now, but Balen would kill to get his hands on it.

And another—an old, worn journal titled, “Trials of the Minotaur.”

Kai flipped it open. It was more personal than scholarly. The pages chronicled the rites of passage that young minotaurs underwent—physical challenges, tests of loyalty, forging their own weapons. A tribe’s culture captured in ink.

Kai kept walking, eyes shining now.

Gareth even found one book on the Elder Tree, its bark said to hold the secrets of ancient life magic. There were others too—books on underground races long forgotten, and cults that had risen and fallen throughout history. One in particular caught Kai’s attention: a thick tome with a stitched cover that read “Cults of the Southern Era, The Spiral Paths.” He tucked it under his arm. Maleficia had been a mystery too long. Maybe he would find some mention of it in there.

Time slipped by unnoticed.

They continued strolling through the chamber, scanning shelves, cataloguing books, and collecting anything of interest. The flickering light of enchanted torches overhead gave the place a timeless feel—like they had entered a world untouched by years.

Then Kael’s voice broke the silence.

“I found a door!”

Kai immediately turned toward him, the others not far behind. Kael stood between two towering shelves, hand on a patch of wall that was slightly ajar. It wasn’t just a wall—now that Kai looked closer, it was a door painted the same color as the stone, almost indistinguishable if not for the thin seam where Kael had nudged it open.

“No wonder we missed it,” Claire muttered, brushing her hand over the surface.

Kai narrowed his eyes, tracing the layout of the tower in his mind. His brows furrowed. Then his eyes widened.

“It leads down,” he said, already stepping forward and pulling the door open.

A spiraling staircase lay beyond, steep and shadowed.

“Follow me.”

No one questioned it.

The descent took time. The air grew cooler the further they went, the walls damper, the light dimmer. Even with the enchanted crystals glowing overhead, the stairs felt heavy—like the tower itself was pressing down on them. They paused often to let Claire catch her breath, but none complained.

And finally, after what felt like a descent into the earth itself, they reached a landing. A door stood before them, marked only by a silver seal above the handle. It pulsed faintly with mana.

Claire, sitting on the last step, looked up.

“What’s behind the door, Lord Arzan?” she asked, breathy.

Kai stood still, his palm just inches from the seal.

“You’ve all wondered,” he said slowly, turning his head slightly, “how the tower has such vast reserves of aethum, haven’t you?”

Gareth scratched his chin. “Magus Valkyrie was… rich?”

Kai couldn’t help the chuckle that slipped out. “That’s part of it.” He turned back to the door. “But no. The true reason—this tower was built over a mana vein. Probably the only one in this desert. And I still don’t know how it formed here. But Valkyrie built the tower around it. That’s what fuels everything—the defenses, the enchantments, the golems.”

“And the mana vein,” Kai added, stepping closer to the door, “is also a mine. One that holds the most important magical resource in the world.”

The others froze. Claire blinked. Gareth’s eyes widened. Kael straightened, stunned into silence.

Before any of them could speak, Kai pushed the door open. A wave of pure, dense mana surged out, washing over them like a crashing tide. They stepped into the cavern—and stopped.

It was massive.

The space stretched far beyond what their eyes could reach, a colossal underground vault carved beneath the desert. Crystalline veins pulsed through the walls like glowing arteries, and strewn across the cavern floor were countless stones—some fist-sized, others larger than a man’s head—each one radiating with mana.

Aethum. It was everywhere.

Kai stood in silence for a moment, taking it in. The glow reflected in his eyes, bright and eerie. He’d seen aethum before—mined it, even—but nothing like this.

Unlike before, he could tell that there were no beasts crawling the walls here. No growls echoed from the dark. This mine… was quiet.

He remembered the layout of the tower he had seen when he linked with the podium. This mine… was nearly twice the size of the one back in his territory. That meant twice the supply. Twice the output.

Mana cannons. Enchanted arms. Constructs. The production possibilities shot through his mind like fire—but he quickly pulled himself back.

“Relocating the materials is going to be a nightmare,” he muttered under his breath. “Unless… I move production here.”

But that was for later.

He turned around to face his team.

They were already wandering, eyes wide, bending down to inspect the stones. Claire brushed her hand over a cluster still embedded in the rock. Kael had a broad grin on his face.

“Looks like we’ll return to Veralt several times richer,” Kai said, a small smile curling his lips.

Gareth laughed. “I believe Administrator Francis is going to faint when he hears how much work he has to do to get this mine running.”

“We won’t start right away. There’s too much going on. For now, I just needed to confirm it myself.”

He bent down, fingers closing around a piece of raw aethum. Its glow danced across his palm, pulsing softly like a heartbeat. He turned it once. Then slipped it into his pouch.

“And now,” he said, standing up and brushing dust off his robes, “it’s time we check on the battle outside.”

The others looked at him.

“After that,” he added, eyes narrowing as if already seeing the road ahead, “I’ll make my way to the capital. The assembly is approaching. And I’m sure there are people waiting for me to appear.”

***

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