The Weapon Tuning Lab was a cavernous, sound-proofed hall in the Academy's East Wing, smelling of ionized ozone and industrial coolant. While the High-Tier students were upstairs practicing with "Sun-Forged" rapiers and mana-rifles, the D-Ranks were relegated to the basement—a graveyard of rusted scrap and third-generation kinetic blasters.
"The General is looking for a ghost, but he's forgotten about the shadows," Supervisor Vane said, her voice echoing off the metallic walls. She stood over a workbench, her mechanical eye whirring as she disassembled a standard-issue Imperial pulse-pistol.
I sat in my hover-chair, my head tilted back, watching the flicker of the overhead fluorescent lights. To any passing proctor, I was a student too weak to even hold a wrench.
"The Dungeon Drive was a filter, Vane," I murmured, my voice barely a thread. "The High Priest didn't find the Void-residue because I collapsed the singularity before it could leave a signature. But he's not satisfied."
"He shouldn't be," Vane replied. She slammed a heavy, matte-black component onto the table. It was a Void-Inductor, disguised as a simple heat-sink. "The Emperor has authorized a Rift-Analysis Sweep. They're bringing the portable scanners into the labs this afternoon. If they pass that beam over your chest, Cassian, the Void-Core will ring like a cathedral bell."
I pushed myself out of the chair, my movements slow and deliberate. I walked to the workbench, my hands hovering over the disassembled pistol.
"Then we don't hide the core," I said. "We tune the weapon to match it."
I reached into the air, and for a second, the light in the lab seemed to warp. A thin, needle-like shard of Void-Glass materialized between my fingers. I began to slide it into the pulse-pistol's firing chamber, weaving it into the mana-circuits.
"What are you doing?" Vane whispered, her eyes widening. "If you link the core directly to the weapon, the feedback loop will—"
"It will create a Phase-Shift," I interrupted. "When the scanners hit me, the Void-Core won't show up as an anomaly. It will look like a 'malfunctioning' power cell within the weapon I'm holding. A 'Dud' with a broken gun is a tragedy. A 'Dud' with a forbidden heart is a target."
I closed my eyes, feeling the tether between my chest and the steel in my hand. The Void-Core pulsed, a cold, rhythmic thrum that synced with the pistol's internal clock.
Thrum. Thrum.
Suddenly, the heavy blast doors of the lab hissed open.
Aurelian Inquisitors marched into the room, their silver armor clattering. At their head was a senior Proctor, holding a long, brass-rimmed staff topped with a Rift-Analyzer.
"Cease all work," the Proctor commanded. "By order of the High Tower, we are conducting a sweep for 'unstable energetic signatures.' Hold your primary weapons out for inspection."
Vane stepped back, her face a mask of subservience. I stood there, leaning heavily against the workbench, the modified pulse-pistol clutched in my "trembling" hand.
The Proctor moved down the line. He scanned a D-Rank girl's staff—Clean. He scanned a boy's kinetic knuckles—Clean.
Then, he stopped in front of me.
He didn't just point the staff at the gun. He pointed it at my heart.
The Rift-Analyzer began to hum, a low, ominous vibration. The crystal at the tip flickered from white to a pale, ghostly violet. My heart—the real one—skipped a beat. The Void-Core began to growl, hungry for the light of the scanner.
"Easy," I thought, projecting the Architect's calm into the core. "Shift the frequency. Feed the gun, not the room."
The violet light on the scanner suddenly intensified, but it didn't center on my chest. It bled downward, centering on the pulse-pistol. The device let out a sharp, digital shriek, and a puff of acrid black smoke drifted from the pistol's barrel.
"Gah!" I dropped the gun, let out a wet cough, and collapsed back into my hover-chair.
The Proctor jumped back, his lip curling in disgust. He looked at the smoking weapon, then at the "frail" boy shivering in the chair.
"Faulty power-cell," the Proctor muttered, checking his readouts. "The boy's core is so weak he's over-drawing from the hardware just to prime the trigger. It's a miracle the thing didn't explode in his hand."
"I... I'm sorry, sir," I wheezed, wiping my mouth. "I was just... trying to tune the... the resonance."
"Don't bother," the Proctor snapped, waving his team toward the exit. "You're wasting Imperial scrap, Valerius. Mark him as 'Incompatible' and move on."
As the doors shut behind the Inquisitors, the "smoke" from the pistol didn't dissipate. It crawled back into the barrel, vanishing into the Void-shard I had planted.
Vane let out a breath she had been holding for three minutes. "That was... insane. You turned your own heart into a 'glitch' in their system."
"The system only sees what it expects to see, Vane," I said, standing up and retrieving the pistol. It felt cold, balanced, and perfectly lethal. "They expect a failure. So I give them a malfunction."
I looked toward the ceiling, toward the High Tower where the Emperor sat in his throne of light.