Sanya tilted her head, confused. "If not a nation, then some person? A secret organization? A cultivator like Xin Xuan?"
The Heart clone's lips curved in a faint, mysterious smile. "No one will—"
He paused mid-sentence, eyes flicking to the screen.
Every feed erupted simultaneously.
BREAKING NEWS: ASTRUO ENERGY ANOMALY VANISHES
Live satellite overlays showed the massive Magic Energy signature—once a blazing crimson bloom over the continent's central ice sheet—simply wink out. No explosion, no dispersal, no movement detected by radar, infrared, or magic energy scanners. One frame it pulsed brightly; the next, nothing.
Anchors stammered in disbelief. Military spokespersons appeared pale, confirming no hostile action, no extraction observed.
"It just… disappeared."
The family stared in silence.
Sanya's mouth hung open.
Kamal exhaled slowly. "You knew."
The Heart clone shrugged lightly, the mystery fading into quiet satisfaction. "Not knew. Felt. The threads shifted."
Neelam glanced at him. "Then where did it go?"
The clone's gaze returned to the stars. "Somewhere none of them can follow."
The Heart clone's quiet words—"None of them follow"—still echoed in the main hall as the family watched the news feeds explode with confusion. Anchors repeated the same stunned phrase: the Astruo anomaly had vanished without trace. Military spokespersons looked lost. Satellite replays showed nothing.
Heart clone's gaze drifted toward the forging chamber, a faint, knowing smile on his lips.
He said nothing more.
*****
In the forging chamber, five minutes after his prediction, solar clone silently appeared.
The Solar clone returned from the somewhere. No one saw him—no family member, no puppet sentinel.
He turn his gaze at his hand.
In his hand rested the compressed-space pearl, no larger than a marble. Inside, the captured marvel pulsed gently: a perfect miniature web of glowing sapphire-blue crystalline veins, branching like living arteries across frozen bedrock. At the center hovered the unnatural lotus-shaped crystal heart—now reduced to a few centimeters—radiating waves of pure, unaligned essence flow.
The forge around him responded immediately. Every furnace, array, and artifact in the room began absorbing the amplified essence leaking from the pearl. The air grew thicker, richer—raw essence flow drawn in from the surroundings, filtered through the veins, and released in denser, higher-quality streams.
Solar clone sat at his workbench, eyes fixed on the pearl.
Five days earlier, the Heart clone had quietly informed him: something immensely beneficial waited on Astruo—perfect for his work. Busy with a critical batch of items, he had replied he'd retrieve it later.
Heart clone had simply said, "Don't worry. No one else will take it."
Now, holding the prize, Solar clone understood why.
He had arrived at the continent amid the chaos—armadas converging, satellites scanning, special forces dropping onto ice. Ignored them all. Slipped unseen through layers of patrols and formations, diving hundreds of kilometers beneath the surface via spatial folds.
There it lay: the vast natural structure, veins spanning hundreds of kilometers, the lotus-heart core towering 50 meters high—silently channeling essence from stellar alignments, deep vents, and planetary ley lines. Rapidly amplifying surrounding flow, upgrading raw particles into refined, high-potency streams.
A single compression of space claimed it entirely.
Five days of solitary analysis followed—isolated in this very room, undisturbed.
Now he knew.
This was a natural spirit vein, straight out of xianxia novels. A heaven-and-earth treasure: concentrating ambient essence, enhancing density by 10–20 times, refining quality for cultivation, forging, or growth.
Likely one of many the awakening world would reveal.
He turned the pearl slowly, watching veins pulse.
A fitting name came from his online research dive.
Essence Artery Grid.
Perfect—for its artery-like structure, its beating heart-core, its lifeblood role in essence circulation.
A quiet excitement stirred. If he could fully reverse-engineer this Essence Artery Grid, replicate its natural filtration and amplification, then fuse it with his own Vyuhas—especially the Essence Well Vyuhas he had designed—the fortress could become a true haven. A self-sustaining, ever-upgrading, capable of supporting breakthroughs far beyond current limits of this world.
But it would take time. Undisturbed focus.
He reached out mentally to the Heart clone.
"Install the new defensive Vyuhas around the fortress. I'm going into deep analysis on the Grid. No interruptions."