Kaelen closed his eyes and let the words settle.
Emotional integration.
He almost laughed.
The system made it sound like a calculation, another percentage beside efficiency reports and resource allocation. As if years of fear, abandonment, and loneliness could be measured by a number quietly climbing toward one hundred.
It was absurd.
Yet he knew it was true.
Something inside him had shifted.
The numbness he had relied on for so many years had cracked. The emotions were no longer distant observations. They belonged to him.
He rolled onto his side, drawing the blanket closer as dawn's pale light slipped through the curtains. Every breath carried the faint taste of mana. It no longer felt foreign. It moved with his heartbeat, weaving through muscle and bone like another circulatory system that had always existed, waiting to awaken.
It responded to him.
Not to commands.
To feelings.
