Two days after returning from the outer ruins, Caine walked through the narrow, rain-slicked alleys of the Sector 7 Black Market. The rain was heavy, washing away the grime of the lower city streets, the neon signs of illegal chop-shops and bio-tech clinics reflecting in the dark puddles beneath his boots.
He wore a plain black hoodie pulled low over his face, his hands shoved deep into his pockets as he navigated the maze of rusted shipping containers and underground tunnels.
He stopped in front of a heavy, reinforced bunker door tucked behind an old fusion-generator station. He reached out and knocked four times in an uneven, rhythmic sequence.
A small optical shutter opened in the steel door. A red scanner light swept over Caine's face before the heavy locking bolts disengaged with a loud, hydraulic thud.
The door slid open, exposing the cramped, ozone-scented workshop of Old Man Silas.
"You're late, kid," Silas grunted, sliding out from beneath a dismantled power-armature on his wheeled mechanic's creeper. He wiped his greasy hands on a dirty shop rag, his single good eye narrowing as he looked Caine up and down. "I heard news from the Upper Ring. Lord Vane Marcus is furious. His eldest son was brought back from the ruins with paralyzed energy channels, and the official report blames a 'wild beast'."
Caine pulled his right hand out of his hoodie pocket, tossing a heavy leather pouch onto the metal workbench. The pouch landed with a dense, metallic clatter that shook a row of precision screwdrivers resting nearby.
Silas picked up the pouch, untying the leather strap and tipping its contents onto a clean felt pad.
Four high-purity, translucent blue crystalline shards tumbled out. They were no larger than human fingers, but they emitted a soft, continuous azure hum that vibrated the air inside the small workshop.
Silas froze. He dropped his rag, reaching for his magnifying visor and pulling it down over his eye. He picked up one of the shards with a pair of fine titanium tweezers, holding it up to a high-density resonance tester.
The digital gauge on the tester spiked instantly, the needle pinning against the maximum threshold before releasing a sharp warning beep.
"By the Ancestors..." Silas whispered, his voice trembling slightly as he stared at the readout. "These aren't standard Dread-Tusk fragments. The structural lattice inside these crystals has been altered... compressed by direct contact with an extreme energy field."
"I harvested them from the beast's secondary node before the Enforcers arrived," Caine explained, leaning his back against the workbench. "Can you use them?"
"Use them?" Silas let out a dry, raspy laugh, his eyes gleaming with professional obsession. "Kid, these shards contain stablized, ultra-dense energy fibers! If I weave these into a conductive internal lining, I can craft a pair of containment gloves that will allow you to channel your compressed density without generating external light or structural recoil!"
"How long will the fabrication take?" Caine asked.
"Three days," Silas replied, already pulling a set of micro-welding tools from his wall rack. "But listen to me closely, Caine. Lord Vane Marcus isn't a fool like his sons. He knows Julian didn't get his core paralyzed by a wild beast. He's already deploying private investigators and Syndicate mercenaries to infiltrate Section 4's records."
"Let them investigate," Caine said, his voice cold and steady. "My official file says CHPower 10. As long as I don't unleash full projection inside the Academy, they have no legal grounds to move against me."
"And when they move against you outside the Academy?" Silas asked, looking up from his workbench with a serious, weathered expression. "When they hire professionals who don't care about Academy rules?"
Caine flexed his right hand, feeling the quiet, immense density stored beneath his skin.
"Then they will learn why Julian failed," Caine said quietly.