The morning air in the Tower didn't just feel cold; it felt sharp, like the edge of a freshly honed blade. As Akhtar led me through the winding corridors of the Apprentice Wing, the usual bustle of students was gone. Instead, there was a heavy, suffocating silence, broken only by the rhythmic clack of boots and the low, predatory hum of the guards' mana-sensing spears.
Every few yards, a guard would eye me—the "Blank Slate," the fragile "Hero" who looked like he was one bad cough away from a casket. I kept my shoulders slumped and my eyes down, playing the part of the dying man perfectly. Inside, however, my mind was a high-performance engine running at redline.
My "Speed of Thought" allowed me to see the world in layers. I wasn't just looking at stone walls; I was thinking about my plans. The "Resonance Scan" wasn't some mystical judgment. It was a simple test of an echo.
Think of it like this: if you strike a tuning fork, it begins to vibrate. If you bring that vibrating fork near another one that is tuned to the same note, the second one will start to hum all on its own. It's a sympathetic reaction.
The Tainted Chimera Core I had stolen was like a massive, screaming bell. By touching it and absorbing its energy into my abdominal core, I had "caught" its rhythm. I was currently ringing with the exact same energetic "note" as the stolen core.
The Resonance Crystal in the Great Hall was the master tuning fork. It was vibrating at the "note" of the stolen core. If I walked past it, my own core would react. I would start to glow, the energy inside me leaping to answer the crystal's call. I would be caught, not by a witness, but by my own internal vibration.
To survive, I had to be silent. I had spent the entire night in my room, using the Library to "tune" my supercritical core.
Instead of trying to stop the vibration—which was impossible—I was trying to "fight a scream with a scream." I forced the mana in my core to move in a counter-rhythm. It was like noise-canceling headphones. When a loud noise comes in, the headphones produce a sound that is the exact "opposite," creating a pocket of silence.
But this wasn't free. Creating that "opposite" rhythm within my own body was like trying to hold back a flood with my bare hands. The friction of the mana fighting itself was generating a terrifying amount of internal heat.
This was where my "scars" came in. I directed that heat into the Obsidian Dead Zone of my left shoulder. The dense, black matter acted like a sponge for the excess energy. It was a biological heat-sink. If I stood in front of the crystal for too long, my shoulder would eventually start to cook from the inside out, but for a few seconds, it would keep me invisible.
The doors to the Great Hall creaked open. The space was cavernous, illuminated by high windows and the eerie, violet pulse of the Resonance Crystal resting on a marble pedestal.
A row of High Lords sat on a raised dais, their white and gold robes shimmering with defensive enchantments. They looked bored, yet dangerous—like lions watching a line of ants. To them, this was a political clean-up. They had already decided that a "Master Saboteur" was responsible. They just needed the crystal to confirm it or find a convenient scapegoat.
"Next," a voice boomed, echoing off the vaulted ceiling.
I stepped forward. Akhtar was behind me, and I could hear his shallow, nervous breathing. He didn't know I was the thief, but he knew that if I—the "Messenger"—tripped or failed, his neck ,as my overseer, was on the line too.
As I approached the crystal, the violet light grew more intense. I could feel the "tug" in my stomach. My core desperately wanted to answer the crystal's hum. It wanted to vibrate. It wanted to scream.
"Hold the phase", I told myself, my teeth clenched so hard they ached.
I focused on my mana. I could see the violet waves hitting my body. I watched them bounce off my abdominal core, finding no "echo" to grab onto because I was manually canceling the signal.
The High Lord at the center, a man with a beard like spun silver, leaned forward. "This is the Messenger? The one from the other world?"
"Yes, My Lord," Akhtar replied, his voice a bit too high. "He is still adjusting to our atmosphere. His pathways are... unstable."
The High Lord looked at me with a mixture of pity and calculated greed. To him, I wasn't a person; I was a bridge to Earth's resources. Looking at his eyes I understood something very important. To the tower's higher ups, the survival of earth held no importance they didn't feel any guilt, they only authorized the plan to bring me as the messenger , only for their selfish reasons. I remembered a sentence Akhtar once said "The Higher ups authorized me to bring you here, you should be the bridge between our worlds but they also told me to teach you our culture and our ways." I didn't pay it too much thought at the time I now understood that their plan was to bring me to their side to facilitate their plans.
"A shame. Ensure he is ready for the departure. The Research Wing is nearly finished calibrating the coordinates. We cannot have our 'Hero' dying before he "saves" his world."
I stood directly in front of the crystal.
The violet light washed over me. For a heartbeat, the crystal flickered. A tiny spark of pink—the color of the taint—threatened to flare.
My heart stopped. My obsidian shoulder began to throb with a dull, stinging heat. I was reaching my limit. I pushed harder, forcing the counter-rhythm until my vision blurred. I turned my left side slightly away from the crystal, using the mass of the obsidian arm to physically block the "sight" of the sensor.
The spark died. The crystal remained a steady, calm violet.
"Clean," the High Lord droned, marking a scroll. "Next."
I walked past the pedestal, every muscle in my body trembling with the effort of not collapsing. It wasn't until we were back in the cool, dim hallway of the Apprentice Wing that I allowed myself to breathe.
The moment the doors closed behind us, I felt the "counter-rhythm" in my stomach snap. The pressure released all at once, and I had to lean against the stone wall to keep from falling. My left shoulder was radiating heat like a furnace.
"You did well," Akhtar whispered, wiping sweat from his brow. "You looked like a ghost, but you passed. The Council is satisfied. They've moved on to questioning the Masters of the Thermal Wing."
"When...?" I rasped, my throat dry from the internal heat. "When is the departure?"
Akhtar looked around to ensure no one was listening. "Soon. The device is recharging. They've locked onto a cluster of 'metal-dense' coordinates. They think it's a capital city on your world. They want to send you back within the week."
I nodded, pretending to be relieved.
But as Akhtar led me back to my room, my mind was already running a new set of simulations. The High Lords thought they were sending a "Messenger" back to Earth to act as their puppet. They thought they had confirmed I was a "Dud", and even if my pathways were to be healed , I would only have below average talent.
They were wrong.
The "Resonance Scan" hadn't just proven I could hide; it had proven that my theory of Atomic Engineering worked. I had successfully manipulated the fundamental building blocks of magic using logic and physics.
I wasn't going back to Earth as their bridge, a puppet. If I was going back, I was going back as a true bridge of hope. And I had a lot more "plating" to do before that bridge was ready.
"One week," I whispered to myself as the door to my room clicked shut. "I can do a lot of damage in a week."