The Energy Deficit
Leo Maxwell's apartment felt less like a home and more like a spiritual ICU. He had successfully cleared Gate 17-C and acquired the Iron Guard, but he was paying for it. Lying flat on his back, staring at the ceiling, he hadn't moved in ten hours. His spiritual well remained a desolate void.
[Spiritual Energy Reserve: 0.8% (Critical)]
[Recovery Rate (Natural): 0.1% per hour.]
At this rate, full recovery will take 41 days, Leo calculated with detached annoyance. The conceptual complexity of the Law of Aegis rewrite was equivalent to four full weeks of baseline energy accumulation. This ratio is unacceptable for a primary strategist. I need a bypass.
He needed a spiritual energy supplement—a concentrated source that could rapidly refill the reservoir. Most Archivists relied on Grade C mana potions, but those were slow and inefficient, designed to top off minor skirmish losses. Leo needed a catalyst, a nuclear battery, and his historian's memory offered only one route: the black market.
He remembered the old, coded reports from the early Breach era: whispers of Soul Shards or Crimson Vials, derived from the concentrated essence of high-grade monsters and trafficked by rogue Archivists. The Guild strictly prohibited them because they caused catastrophic long-term spiritual degradation.
The degradation is an error, Leo rationalized, sitting up. A conceptual flaw in the consumption process. If I can analyze the flaw, I can write a patch.
His new identity as Prof and his direct link to Vance gave him the necessary leverage. He didn't use the Guild's secured channels. Instead, he logged into an encrypted, pre-Breach forum he'd used for translating esoteric runes, leaving a single, coded message: Exchange of Law schematic for high-grade temporal catalyst.
The Shadow Broker
The reply was swift and utilized a sophisticated spiritual obfuscation technique Leo instantly recognized as originating from the collapsed realm of Xylos. The meeting was set for midnight in a derelict dockyard warehouse, a space outside Guild jurisdiction.
The contact, known only as Rook, was not a rogue Archivist, but a broker—a slender, middle-aged woman whose eyes darted with professional paranoia. She wore a heavy cloak that hid every spiritual signature.
"You're the professor," Rook stated, her voice dry as dust. "You don't look like a buyer of this material. You look like you should be grading papers."
"I require a full charge," Leo replied, getting straight to the point. He refused to waste energy on small talk. "The Arcane Focus Vial. The highest concentration available."
Rook raised an eyebrow, impressed by his precise terminology. "That will cost you five million credits, or a conceptual trade of equivalent value. And you, Archivist, look like you couldn't scrape together a single credit."
Leo reached into his mind, ignoring the gnawing spiritual vacuum, and mentally projected a schematic toward Rook's consciousness—a complex, layered design for the Law of Aegis. It wasn't the Law itself, which was conceptually bound to him, but the perfected blueprint for a defense technique so stable and efficient it would instantly make all current Guild shielding obsolete.
"This is the Perfected Law of Resilience," Leo stated, his voice flat. "It is a defense concept that accounts for all known kinetic, elemental, and spiritual stresses by proactive energy redirection. It is worth more than your entire network's inventory."
Rook froze. Her darting eyes stilled, fixing on Leo as she processed the conceptual data. Her hands trembled, not with fear, but with greed. This was true knowledge—power that transcended mere physical resources.
"Accepted," she hissed, her voice barely a breath.
She produced a small, airtight container. Inside, nestled in a bed of dry ice, was the Arcane Focus Vial. The liquid within was a startling, pulsating crimson, almost thick enough to be oil. It radiated a raw, intoxicating energy that made Leo's empty spiritual core throb painfully.
"One caveat, Archivist," Rook warned, her eyes narrowed. "This material is unrefined. It will overload your system. You will feel a surge, followed by a systemic crash and likely, permanent damage to the structural integrity of your core. You have about three minutes to find somewhere to crash before the backlash hits."
"Three minutes is acceptable," Leo said, snatching the vial.
Rewriting the Price
Leo retreated from the dockyard to a secluded alley. He tore open the vial and consumed the thick, metallic-tasting crimson liquid in one desperate gulp.
The effect was instantaneous and agonizing. It was not a smooth flow of power; it was a detonation. His spiritual core, the cracked cistern, was violently flooded. It felt like being struck by lightning, only the thunder was internal. The energy spiked from 0.8% to a blazing 100% in less than two seconds.
[Spiritual Energy Reserve: 100% (OVERLOAD!)]
[Aetherial Comprehension Core: ALERT! Analyzing Contamination.]
The Core immediately went into diagnostic overdrive, analyzing the foreign energy.
The spiritual source is pure, but the transfer Law is chaotic, Leo thought through the blinding pain. It introduces Spiritual Entropy—unstable, uncontrolled energy fragments that cause core degradation.
This was the flaw, the conceptual bug that turned the supplement into a spiritual poison. But now that the energy was inside him, Leo could access it, break it down, and rewrite it.
He plunged the entirety of his focus into the Aetherial Comprehension Core, using the vast new reserve he had just acquired. He didn't need to save energy; he needed to use it all, now, to save his life.
He initiated the rewrite, conceptually isolating the chaotic fragments (the Spiritual Entropy) and imposing a new conceptual Law upon them.
[Analyzing Law of Unstable Energy Transfer...]
[REWRITE INITIATED: Law of Purity (Principle: Orderly Filtration and Structural Stabilization).]
The pain intensified as the Core worked, a grinding, internal storm as chaos was forced into order. He was using the power he had just gained to immediately purify and stabilize itself.
The process took fifteen seconds.
When it finished, the blinding pain receded, replaced by a profound, smooth calm. The energy in his core—the energy that should have caused him to crash—was now stable, clean, and perfectly usable.
[Aetherial Comprehension Core: REWRITE COMPLETE.]
[New Law Created: Law of Purity (Conceptual Filter)]
[Spiritual Energy Reserve: 48% (Stable)]
Leo slumped against the brick wall, sweat plastering his hair to his forehead. He had successfully recharged, but it had cost him 52% of the total energy to perform the rewrite and stabilize the system.
The loop is established, Leo observed, taking a long, ragged breath. I can use the forbidden energy source, but every time I charge, I must immediately spend half the charge to perform the Conceptual Filter. The cost of power is purification.
He was now armed with an army, perfected knowledge, and a source of power that put him firmly outside the Guild's law. He wasn't just an anti-hero; he was a self-sustaining conceptual criminal. His army was ready, and he finally had the energy to perfect them.