Chapter 312: Formation Zone Three
Five days passed.
Anchor thirty-four through sixty-four seated across eleven sessions, three of them evening work with the highland cooling around the zone. The basement rock had its rhythm now — point-match, hold, the entity's slow deliberate re-extension through the undamaged stone paths. Each anchor seated between forty and sixty seconds. Pool cost held at eleven percent per anchor in standard work, nine percent when the entity's energy was particularly close to the surface of the stone.
Soren documented every session. He had, at some point on the third day after Cole's departure, reorganized his notebooks. He did not explain why. He continued writing.
Mira tracked the entity's signal through the vault pair. Its patient watching had not changed — it was simply doing more of it, across more anchor positions as the count grew.
"Sixty-five," Kai said on the afternoon of the fifth day.
"Noted," Soren said.
