Daniel

Getting to their first destination had been more of a negotiation than Daniel liked to admit. The moment he mentioned traveling near a Fifth Ring’s outer border—territory known more for old scars than current oversight—both his father-in-law and Nathan tried to shut it down. Nathan, of course, had immediately offered to go with him, but he was already committed to a seasonal Pairing Circle—one of those heavily sanctioned “social mixers” where noble heirs were expected to perform, flirt, and quietly audition for marriage prospects under the eyes of their elders. Daniel felt horrible for Nathan; trying to make a connection in those circumstances was a daunting task.

Daniel waved it off. “This is training,” he’d said. “If I’m going to honor the Li name, I have to do it on my own. That’s what strength looks like, doesn’t it?” He wasn’t sure Li Zhenhua believed him, but the man had let him go, which meant Daniel had no backup, no chaperone, and no one watching his flank, but the voice in his head. And, despite it being his suggestion,

Ethan didn’t like where they were going either. Go figure.

It took him a couple of days of travel to get to his first destination, a mountainous area in the northeastern region of the Empire. The hike was brutal but strangely cathartic. It took them a while to find what they were looking for despite Ethan being there before. The ridgeline narrowed as they approached the final marker—a jagged pillar of stone half-swallowed by ivy and moss. Daniel brought the field transport to a stop and climbed out into thin mountain air, the silence hitting like a physical presence.

Below them, the slope dropped away sharply, revealing nothing but mist and black pine forest stretching for miles. Wind funneled through the valley, cold and thin, carrying no birdsong. Just emptiness. The path forward was narrow—too narrow for the transport. Daniel adjusted the pack on his shoulder and started down on foot.

Ethan was quiet for a while but couldn’t help but fill the quiet. "You sure you want to do this first?"

"We are here and we need the skyglass," Daniel replied. "If the Framework's going to work, we start here".

A beat passed. "I don’t like this place."

Daniel snorted. "That makes two of us."

The treeline ended like a broken thought. Daniel stepped out onto shattered stone, wind tugging at his coat as the slope gave way to a gaping, lightless scar in the mountain—black rock sheared wide by time, mana, or something worse. There was a distinct lack of signs or markers of the Skyglass mine. It was just quiet. Too quiet. Reflectively, he put his hand on Qinglan’s Silence. The metal of the hilt was comforting.

Eventually he found the entrance.

The mine had no name, not anymore. That, in itself, said everything. He crouched by the opening and ran a hand over the carved threshold. The glyphs etched into the stone were old—deep-channel warding runes, faded with erosion but still faintly resonant.

“Someone tried to seal it,” he murmured.“

"Someone tried to forget it,”Ethan corrected. "The Academy found this by accident. But they buried it because it didn’t make sense. The Academy pretended it was a failed expansion tunnel. It wasn’t.”

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Daniel nodded slowly. “Same thing, in a world like this”.

He placed his palm against the center sigil, channeling a trickle of mana into the groove. The rune shivered, then flashed once—soft white, like a pulse under skin—before dimming. The stone shifted. The ground beneath him trembled faintly as the entrance unsealed—no clang, no rumble. Just a smooth exhale, like the mountain had been holding its breath for years.

Daniel stepped forward. The tunnel swallowed him whole.

The temperature dropped immediately, but not in degrees, but in presence and pressure. That didn’t seem like a good sign. The air was thick with memory. The kind of heaviness that settled in the lungs and stayed there, silent and unexhaled. Every sound he made came back late, softened by spiritual interference.

The walls weren’t stone, not anymore. Veins of mana-stained crystal pulsed just beneath the surface, faint and irregular, like the mine itself had a heartbeat.

“This was an old spirit-channeling site,”Ethan said quietly. “Before refined intent, before mana logic. Miners worked by pure instinct and raw mana. They didn’t even have tools. Just resonance and mana manipulation.”

“Let me guess,” Daniel muttered. “They tuned themselves to the rock”.

"They let the rock tune them.”

Daniel frowned. “What does that even mean?”

“Not really sure honestly.”

The path sloped inward, deeper than it should have. No support beams. No rail paths. Just rough-hewn steps etched into a spiral that wound toward the vein’s heart. Dust coated every surface. Occasionally, Daniel passed collapsed segments of the old skyrail—twisted alloy half-fused into the walls by some long-forgotten discharge.

Ethan guided him gently, whispering turns and side branches best avoided.“

Left fork’s a dead channel. Collapsed after the third year. We sealed it to stop the feedback.

”

Daniel didn’t ask what kind.

Half an hour later, the air shifted again. Finer dust. Sharper resonance. Daniel slowed as the tunnel widened into the first chamber. He paused just inside the arch, letting his eyes adjust. Even in low light, the crystal veins were brighter here—glowing faintly in rhythm. the cavern branched off in a lot of directions.“

"This is where they stopped mining,”Ethan said. "The mana was too strong. It started changing the miners’ heart rates. Their dreams.”

Daniel walked slowly to the far wall. At the base of the chamber, embedded in a ripple of stone like a half-buried fossil, a streak of skyglass shimmered faintly. It was moon-pale, smooth, and cool—not glowing like mana crystals, but catching every light and echoing it softly, without distortion.

Daniel knelt, opened his satchel, and pulled out the sensor stone that he and Ethan had put together before they left their lab in the city. One short shot of mana laden with intent activated the device. The device sent out a pulse of mana like a radio wave that was intense enough that Daniel could feel even if he couldn't see the mana. A reading popped up into mid-air, a set of projections.

Daniel let out a slow breath. “I cannot believe that worked especially since we threw it together so haphazardly. You were right. The signal bounces clean—like it’s hitting a perfect mirror.”

"Only because of skyglass’ unique properties,” Ethan said quietly. "Skyglass doesn’t amplify or distort—it filters. We used to use it in optics and soul-script mirrors. It never lies.”

Daniel nodded. “Makes sense. It's not a battery. It’s a conduit. No noise, no memory. Should be perfect for our hardware component. Something that won't bleed or imprint, but can carry mana and help filter the intent. That and a filtering array on something as simple as black iron should get us there.”

He switched tools, drawing a soft-line mana pen from his sleeve and sketching a small glyph across the shard’s base.“

"This is definitely not my favorite place.” Ethan said. "Let’s get the skyglass and get out of here. We should also look for and think about alternatives if we have to build to scale.”

Daniel pulled the extraction tool free—its prongs etched with dampening runes, its core lined with null-threaded coils. He didn’t cut. He coaxed. Null-aligned mana flowed from the tool, syncing to the skyglass rhythm. The shard shimmered once, then dulled—like it had fallen asleep. Daniel twisted gently.

A perfect shard slid free into the containment sleeve. The chamber exhaled relief. Like something that had been waiting for permission to let go.

Daniel locked the sleeve and stood slowly. “That’s one”.

Ethan didn’t reply right away.

The walls hummed faintly.

Alive and listening.