The rhythm of the deep had become Elian's second heartbeat. Clack . Pause. Breathe. Clack. He stood at the far edge of Section 4-B, his Mana-Siphon pickaxe moving in a perfect, synchronized arc. To any wandering guard, he looked like just another broken child-slave, but beneath the caked obsidian dust and the sweat, Kaito's mind was operating with the cold precision of a diamond-cutter. He wasn't just striking stone; he was playing a symphony of structural weaknesses. He had found a "Sweet Spot" where the vibrations of his tool echoed back with a hollow ring, signaling a pocket of air or a dense mineral deposit.
As he worked, Elian noticed a shift in his own physiology that was becoming harder to ignore. His vision, once limited by the dim, flickering cyan of the Aether-lamps, was sharpening with every passing day. It wasn't just that he was getting used to the dark; it was as if his eyes were beginning to perceive the world in higher resolution. He could see the microscopic eddies of Aether-dust—the "glass in the lungs"—as they swirled in the stagnant air. He could see the faint, hair-thin fractures in the obsidian walls before his pickaxe even touched them.
My perception, Kaito mused, his silver-grey eyes narrowing. It's expanding. Is it the Aether-saturation of this pit, or is the click I keep on hearing?
Suddenly, he froze. A few meters away, in a jagged crevice that the rest of the unit had ignored, he saw it: a strange, localized gathering of Aether-dust. Unlike the usual drifting clouds, these particles were spinning in a slow, hypnotic vortex, drawn toward a specific point in the dark stone like iron filings to a magnet.
It was intriguing. More than that, it was an anomaly that his analytical mind couldn't leave alone.
Glancing back, he saw Talin busy helping Baraq steady a heavy basket, and Kaelen was lost in his usual, eerie mechanical trance. Taking advantage of the shadows and the distance, Elian drifted away from the group. He slipped into the narrow crevice, the humid heat of the mine pressing against his skin like a wet shroud.
He began to mine. He didn't use the heavy, shoulder-cracking swings he used for the quotas. Instead, he used short, precise taps, peeling away the layers of "Slag" rock with the surgical care of an archaeologist.
One hour passed. Then two. His muscles screamed in protest, the Mana-Siphon pickaxe pulling at his marrow, but the vortex of dust only grew tighter, more frantic.
Then, the stone gave way.
A shard of rock fell, and a light erupted from the wall that made Elian flinch. It wasn't the weak, flickering cyan of the Outskirts' low-grade ore. This was a brilliance that felt "heavy" on his retinas—a deep, sapphire glow that seemed to vibrate with its own internal power.
Elian reached into the cavity and pulled out a crystal the size of a small bird's egg. It was perfectly translucent, pulsing with a dense, honey-like energy that made the air around his hand feel warm.
Mid-Grade, Kaito realized, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. Talin said these shouldn't be here. This is ten times the energy of a common shard. Maybe more.
In that moment, a dark, primal flash of greed flickered in his silver eyes. He looked back toward the Crows—his "unit," the people he had spent weeks with. But Kaito's core remained that of a man who had climbed the high mountains of Earth through cold calculation.
The Crows are a tool for survival, he thought, his fingers tightening around the warm crystal. But this... this is a ladder. If I turn this in, the guards take the credit. If I give it to Talin, we eat better for a week. But if I keep it? I could use this to buy my way out of the pits. I could survive.
Without a second's hesitation, he tucked the glowing stone deep into the hidden lining of his ragged tunic. The light bled through the fabric slightly, so he smeared a thick layer of wet mud and soot over his chest to dampen the glow.
He didn't stop there. If there was one Mid-Grade stone, there were likely more. Greed, once sparked, was a fire that refused to be put out. He turned back to the hole, his movements frantic, his analytical mind replaced by a desperate hunger for more. He began to claw at the stone, his breath coming in jagged hitches.
More. I just need one more, and I can—
A hand, massive and caked in the grime of a thousand beatings, suddenly clamped down on Elian's small, dirt-stained wrist.
The grip was like iron. Elian's heart stopped. He looked up, his blood turning to ice.
Towering over him in the cramped crevice was the butcher-build guard—the one with the heavy metal baton and the eyes of a man who enjoyed the sound of breaking bone. The guard's face was twisted into a slow, terrifying grin, his eyes dropping to the mud-caked lump in Elian's tunic where the sapphire light was fighting to escape.
"Found something shiny, did you, runt?" the guard rumbled, his voice like grinding stones.