Lucien didn't wait for the dust from the soldiers' horses to settle.
He grabbed Nyx's hand and Elara's wrist and pulled them straight back into the shack, the portal ripping open before the door even clicked shut.
The silver grass and endless flat light swallowed them whole, the clean mana smell hitting like cold water after breathing village rot all night.
"Need time to think," he said, voice rough from the wind outside.
"You two need time to breathe without looking over your shoulder every five seconds."
Elara stumbled a step on the grass, eyes wide again like the first time.
"Every time I think I've seen the weirdest thing you can do, you just open another door."
Nyx laughed and flopped backward into the grass, arms spread, tail swishing through the blades.
"He collects doors the way other people collect debts. Get used to it, princess."
The first weeks blurred into something almost comfortable.
Training wasn't desperate anymore. It had rhythm.
Nyx took Elara aside and taught her basic illusions—not the scary kind for fighting, just the quiet ones that let you disappear when you wanted.
"Not to win a war," Nyx said, ears perked, "but to walk past someone who wants to own you and make them think you were never there."
Elara tried.
Her first attempt created a shadow that looked more like a confused pig than anything stealthy.
She stared at it, then burst out laughing, the sound bright and surprised.
Lucien watched from a few paces away, copied the messy shape with the Devourer's Gaze, and let the Greed Bloodline twist it until the pig-shadow became something useful—a vague blur that could hide a whole person if you weren't looking too hard.
"See?" he said, making the illusion flicker around Elara until she vanished from sight.
"Even your mistakes have value if you know how to eat them."
They sparred until sweat stuck their clothes to their skin and the artificial sun felt too warm on their necks.
Lucien's body kept sharpening—muscles tighter, movements smoother, the golden scar on his eyebrow glowing faintly when he pushed.
Elara stopped flinching every time Nyx surprised her.
Nyx just got more playful, her illusions turning into little games that left the other two cursing and grinning in the same breath.
One artificial night they lay on the grass together, the sky above them a soft silver nothing.
Elara shifted closer without asking and rested her head on Lucien's chest, her hair spilling across his tunic.
The weight felt warm and solid.
She spoke into the quiet, voice low enough that the grass almost swallowed it.
"You never ask what I want. You just… take up space like it already belongs to you."
Lucien ran his fingers through her hair, slow, the strands catching slightly on the calluses he'd grown from training.
"Asking is for people who aren't sure. I'm sure."
Nyx lay on his other side, tail curled loosely around his leg, golden eyes half-lidded as she watched them.
"She's falling for you slow," she murmured, almost to herself.
"Me? I was gone the second the seal cracked and I smelled your greed. Jealousy tastes weird when it's warm instead of sharp."
The words carried layers.
A little sting, but mostly possession that felt more like claiming than fighting.
Elara didn't pull away. She just breathed against Lucien's chest, the rise and fall steady now.
Conversation drifted after that.
Nyx told old stories about primordial foxes hiding entire forests inside illusions before the big seals locked everything down.
Elara talked about the suffocating boredom of noble life—endless balls that felt like cages with better music, her father treating her like a line item in a ledger.
Lucien listened more than he spoke, the Greed Bloodline humming quietly while his mind turned over plans, multipliers, the way power could grow roots without anyone noticing until it was too late.
"Cages aren't the problem," he said at one point, staring up at the silver sky.
"Wrong owner is. Get the right one and the bars start looking like walls that keep other people out."
The three of them laughed together when Nyx tried to demonstrate an old illusion and accidentally made the grass look like it was dancing the samba.
Elara's laugh came easier now, less guarded.
Nyx's tail kept brushing Lucien's leg, a constant reminder of who had been there first.
Three months passed inside the pocket universe.
Lucien felt it in his bones—the mana flowing smoother, like blood that finally knew the right veins.
His level had climbed again, the Greed Bloodline purring with satisfaction every time he copied something and made it better, stronger, more his.
Elara moved like someone who had stopped waiting for permission.
Nyx looked more primordial, her power bleeding through the cute fox-girl act in small flashes of starlight and smoke.
When they stepped back through the portal, the shack looked untouched.
Same sagging roof, same faint damp smell.
Outside, only three hours had passed in the real world.
The sky still carried the same bruised color of late evening.
But the village felt different.
They walked toward the square and found most of Eldoria already gathered there.
People stood in small groups, talking low, faces turned toward the cracked fountain where Lucien had planted the mana seed.
Someone—probably the old lady—had placed fresh flowers around the spot.
Bright petals that shouldn't have been blooming this early swayed gently in the breeze.
The air smelled sweeter, alive in a way the tired soil had never managed before.
Villagers noticed them approaching.
Heads turned. A few nodded.
The old lady waved with her wrinkled hand, a small basket of the new fruit resting at her feet.
No fear this time. Just quiet expectation, like they'd been waiting for the guy who changed the math to show up and explain the next line.
Elara slowed beside him, green eyes scanning the crowd.
"They're looking at you like you already own the dirt under their feet."
Nyx pressed against Lucien's other side, tail curling around his waist.
"Because he does. They just needed time to taste it."
Lucien kept walking, that familiar crooked smile pulling at his mouth.
The Greed Bloodline stretched inside him, warm and hungry, already calculating how much more the village could grow if he fed it right.
He stopped at the edge of the square, the mana seed's faint pulse reaching up through the ground like a quiet heartbeat only he could feel properly.
"Looks like the roots took," he said, voice carrying just far enough.
The villagers waited, the evening air thick with the smell of new flowers, fresh bread, and the slow, careful hope of people who had just realized the old rules might not apply anymore.
Lucien rolled his shoulders once, feeling three months of training settle into his new body like it had always belonged there.
The night was still young.
And the village had already started learning whose hand held the leash.