Three days east from the first entity's Rift.
The Emperor Body's passive read had been extending since the advancement—each day slightly further than the last, the formation-layer depth settling in the way every new capability had settled, becoming available rather than requiring effort. By the third day he could read the substrate below the terrain continuously without initiating Dragon Mode at all. The formation layer ran underneath the eastern scrubland the way the ancient network had run underneath the western terrain: present, readable, requiring no specific attention to maintain the awareness.
New baseline. The King Body's passive read was surface-ambient. The Emperor Body's passive read is formation-layer. Everything he did in the western hemisphere, he was doing from a shallower read than this. Noted.
On the third afternoon Soren stopped walking.
He had his equipment out before the group caught up with him.
