Mornings in the Maya district are never sunny. Only dark, red, magical exhaust fumes rise from the upper levels and condense into a sticky 'industrial dew' on the cold rock, which stings the face when it drips.
Huddled in a corner of the repair shop, Aaryan could barely breathe in the thick, almost brittle air. The old magical machinery creaked as it cooled and his co-workers coughed violently, their coughs laced with phlegm. The air reeked of cheap lubricant and coolant, as well as the acrid stench of hundreds of unwashed bodies. In this environment, the smell of food was amplified.
His stomach no longer cramped; instead, he felt a hollow, cold, sinking sensation. It was as if a red-hot iron bar was lodged in his abdomen, absorbing the last of his body's heat. His mouth was filled with a bitter, metallic taste. Subconsciously, he licked his chapped lips, only to taste the cooling powder that had splashed onto his face the previous day. In the shadows before him lay a row of magical components known as 'T-44 High-Pressure Pistons'.
These components formed the core of the Maya District's lower-level elevator system. Each one weighed forty pounds and was coated with dark green 'etheric anti-corrosion grease'. Aaryan's task was to clean off the grease and inspect the internal tuning markings.
His hands trembled.
The back brace had become inflamed again, and the burning pain robbed him of his last shred of focus. The wrench slid across the greasy metal surface with a sharp, crisp clang that made Aaryan's heart stop. The delicate, silken internal etheric sensor needle had snapped the instant the piston hit the ground.
The surrounding noise ceased abruptly.
The overseer — 'Steel Fang' Mok, with his protruding belly and half his face covered by a mechanical mask — appeared behind Aaryan like a vulture that had smelled carrion.
'You broke a T-44's sensor?' Mok's voice was like grinding sand. 'Do you know how many ether injections that thing could be exchanged for? You crippled piece of trash?"
Mok held a black leather whip in his hand, cracking it through the air, but he didn't strike. In the Maya District, physical punishment was far less effective than 'survival deprivation'.
'Three days' rations deducted,' Mok said, crossing out a mark in the ledger. 'If you break anything again tomorrow, you'll end up in the scrap heap.' Three days.
In the Abyss Mines, where the average temperature was only 5°C and 12 hours of intense labour were required daily, three days without food was tantamount to a death sentence.
After the end-of-work whistle sounded, the other miners received a greyish-white 'ether mixture cake', an energy block made from a mixture of magical plant residue, sawdust and trace amounts of low-purity ether crystals.
Aaryan leaned against the wall, watching his 'neighbour' — an old demonic man with only one eye — struggling to eat a rock-hard piece of bread with his rotten teeth.
'Hey, kid from the Heavenly Vein,' the old man suddenly said, pulling something from a dirty burlap sack and tossing it at Aaryan's feet.
It was a small, palm-sized piece of bread, its edges covered in bluish-purple mould. Due to its age, it emitted a musty smell like rotting wood and contained a few grains of unground sand.
'This fell into the ditch last week. Those overseers didn't see it,' the old man chuckled, revealing his blackened gums. 'It's mouldy, but at least it'll last you until tomorrow.'
Aaryan stared at the mouldy bread.
In the Celestial Vein Royal Family, such a thing wouldn't even appear on the plates of the lowest-ranking servants. But now, his pupils dilated, his Adam's apple bobbed and his "dignity" defence looked utterly ridiculous under the sharp teeth of hunger.
Trembling, he reached out his oil-covered hand and grabbed the cold, mouldy piece of food. Without hesitation, he opened his mouth and bit down hard, feeling as if he were biting into a piece of dried-out cowhide. The taste of mould exploded on his tongue — bitter and spicy.
His hand trembled as he reached out and grabbed the cold, mouldy piece of food with his oil-covered fingers. Without hesitation, he opened his mouth and bit down hard, the texture reminding him of dried-out cowhide. The bitter, spicy taste of mould exploded on his tongue, accompanied by the earthy aroma unique to fungi. His stomach roared the moment the food touched it, almost forcibly sucking the dry, hard crumbs down his oesophagus.
A trace amount of impure etheric energy from the pancake began coursing through his body. Due to its extremely low purity, this energy was like clumps of thorny weeds, tearing at his meridians.
But he couldn't care less about the pain. Compared to the hunger that seemed to drain his soul, this tearing sensation gave him a strange sense of 'fulfilment'.
He closed his eyes and leaned against the cold cast-iron pipe, letting the mouldy etheric cake digest slowly in his stomach.
In that dark sea of consciousness, he seemed to see the mysterious figure in the rain again, and the 'Reversed Tuning Seal' shimmering with an eerie light.
'Want new wings?'
The voice echoed in his mind, intertwining with the cramping pain in his stomach.
Aaryan opened his eyes and saw that the eerie purple malevolence in his golden pupils seemed to have deepened under the influence of the mouldy energy.
In the lower levels of the Maya district, food is not just a source of energy, but an inefficient and toxic form of 'fuel'. Aaryan leaned against a condenser; the mouldy cake he held emitted an eerie, faint bluish fluorescence in the darkness — a sign of highly concentrated etheric fungi. This so-called 'crushed cake' was known in industry as a 'Standard Magical Waste Compactor Block (Model B)'.
It was primarily composed of ground magical grain husks and industrial wood pulp. To increase satiety, 5% bentonite was added. This substance rapidly absorbs stomach acid and expands in the stomach, producing a false sense of fullness that is powerful enough to rupture internal organs.
The bluish-purple mould spots were not ordinary biological mould, but 'etheric scavenging fungi'. These fungi parasitise discarded magical cores or leaked etheric fluid specifically.
Ingesting this mould causes 'etheric spots' (visual overload) to appear on the retina and triggers severe intestinal spasms over the next six hours.
During its metabolic process, the fungus concentrates trace amounts of primordial crystalline energy. For an individual with depleted spiritual energy, such as Aaryan, this is akin to a poison with barbs — it can prolong life, but also sever the intestines. Aaryan didn't wolf it down, knowing that his fragile oesophagus could not withstand the friction of dry, hard pulp.
He closed his eyes and channelled the last trace of 'Heavenly Vein Spiritual Energy' in his body to his throat.
He forced his salivary glands to secrete excessively, soaking the small piece of mouldy cake until it softened slightly.
The moment he bit down, his teeth scraped against the grit in the cake, producing a crunchy sound. The pungent taste of mould filled his mouth, mingling with the smell of rusty iron and the earthy scent of an old cellar.
The crumbs slid down his oesophagus and appeared as an irregular fireball in his ethereal perception, burning as they travelled along his digestive tract. The mouldy ethereal energy began to seep into his bloodstream, violently reacting with his once noble golden bloodline. "Hmm…"
Aaryan dug his nails deep into the rotting flesh of his thighs. The metal frame in his back sensed the chaotic energy and began to tremble uneasily. Blood mixed with blue mould seeped from the bolt connections and, as the mouldy substance was digested, Aaryan entered a semi-conscious, hallucinatory state.
Within that cloud of bluish toxins, his body's 'tuning circuits' were forced to activate their most primal self-preservation mode.
He didn't try to expel the toxins because he had no excess spiritual energy to waste. Instead, he attempted a method considered taboo in royal textbooks: 'impurity assimilation'.
He guided the mouldy, foul energy directly into the C-shaped metal frame in his back, bypassing vital organs such as the heart.
Under the influence of the impure energy, a thin, rust-like protective layer formed on the surface of the steel frame.
It felt as though a rusty saw blade were being dragged back and forth across his spine, but the light-headed exhaustion from blood loss was replaced by this heavy, viscous pain.
It was a desperate, short-sighted survival strategy: he had traded his physical future for the strength to stand. Ten minutes later, Arian opened his eyes.
The whites of his eyes were covered with fine, bluish blood vessels — a sign that the mouldy ether was entering his brain. He propped himself up on his knees; his movements were slightly smoother than before due to the numbness of the pain.
He glanced at the greasy drawing that his 'neighbour' had given him.
Through the esoteric lens of the mouldy ether, the lines on the drawing appeared to come alive. He noticed a structural problem with the T-44 piston: below the second pressure valve was a 'siphon' designed to divert the flow of ether.
'This wasn't an accident...' Aaryan clenched his fist, his knuckles cracking. 'Mok deliberately made me break that piston to cover up his embezzlement of the mining area's ether quota.'
He looked down at his empty hands. In the lower echelons of the Maya district, hunger was a prison. This mouldy pancake had become the poisonous nail he used to pry open that prison.
Aaryan clutched the greasy structural diagram of the parts. This wasn't just any diagram; it was a pledge of allegiance and a matter of survival and retaliation. At that moment, he was not only facing hunger, but also a multifaceted struggle involving corruption, physical limitations and power struggles. Mok's decision to withhold three days' worth of rations from him, ostensibly as 'punishment for damaging public property', was, in reality, a calculated manoeuvre by the lower classes.
Mok didn't truly care about the piston because, in the black market of the Maya district, a deliberately manufactured 'malfunctioning part' was the perfect vehicle for smuggling ether quotas. He needed a scapegoat to appease the monthly loss audits from above, and a 'wingless, bloodline-damaged' royal descendant was the perfect sacrifice for the Maya district. By withholding Aaryan's food, Mok intended to break this once-proud man completely, rendering him too weak to detect the tampering with the piston's internal components.
This game was silent. Aaryan leaned against the condenser, enduring the excruciating pain in his stomach and remaining silent. In the Maya district, he knew that protesting meant being labelled "scrap". His mould-covered eyes were fixed on the departing obese foreman's back. Using the inferior energy provided by the mouldy cake, he repeatedly deduced the logic of the T-44 piston siphon in his mind. He was determined to devise a way to use the 'siphon' to turn the tables before his next shift. Was the old man who tossed him the mouldy cake truly acting out of pity? In the Maya district, pity was rarer than gold.
The old man was a 'rat' in this mine; he knew about Mok's embezzlement. However, he was too old and his hands were too unsteady to disassemble the intricate T-44. By giving Aaryan the mouldy cake containing the blueprints, he was essentially engaging in a 'proxy game'. He used the cake as leverage to hire a desperate royal descendant to challenge the overseer's power.
The old man was an experienced miner; he knew about Mok's embezzlement. However, he was too old and his hands were too unsteady to disassemble the intricate T-44. By giving Aaryan the mouldy cake containing the blueprints, he was essentially engaging in a 'proxy game'. He used the cake as leverage to hire a royal descendant in dire need of money to challenge the overseer's power structure. If Aaryan succeeded, the old man would profit from the chaos. If Aaryan died, the old man would only lose a cake he was going to throw away anyway.
Aaryan knew he was being used, but he had no choice; hunger had robbed him of the right to refuse. He licked the last crumb of the mouldy cake, savouring the numbing sensation from the fungus. He had struck a cruel balance between blueprint and reality: he had accepted this 'deadly gift' and was preparing to use it to dismantle the entire mining area's oppressive structure. This was the microscopic war unfolding within him: the bloodline of the Celestial Vein Demon Clan found this inferior, mouldy ether utterly repulsive.
When the golden royal blood sensed the blue mould entering its circulation, it unleashed a near-self-destructive immune response. Aaryan felt as if his veins were being filled with flowing shards of glass.
The C-shaped metal support at the base of his left wing resonated strangely under the stimulation of the mouldy energy. The rust on the support began to peel away, revealing a dark purple sheen from the absorption of etheric impurities.
Aaryan made a reckless decision. Instead of attempting to purify the mould with royal blood, which would have drained his life force, he deliberately released the defences of his spirit core. This allowed the impurities to flow down his spine and into the metal support.
The result of this gamble was horrific: the pain in his back eased, only to be replaced by an intense and overwhelming sense of "pseudo-power". His body was adapting to the rules of this ruin — if you cannot remain noble, you sink deeper than the mud. The blueprint was not just technology; it exposed an even greater deception.
Aaryan discovered that the ether siphoned away by the T-44 pistons did not flow into Mok's pocket, but rather through a hidden cooling pipe to the depths of the ground, where it entered the tightly sealed 'Mine No. 13'.
According to rumours in the Maya district, this was a workshop that produced a forbidden component called the 'Clockwork Heart'.
'Mok is just a watchdog.' Aaryan stared at a hidden anti-counterfeiting mark on the blueprints — the family crest of the Holy Blood Council.
This meant that those who had banished and broken him were still exploiting this ruin for all it was worth. This realisation kept him far more lucid than hunger. Aaryan slowly stood up. Although he was still weak, the mouldy aether gave his golden pupils an eerie bluish-purple halo.
He picked up a bloodstained rag from the ground and carefully wiped the rusty adjustable wrench in his hand.
'Three days' rations...' he murmured, his voice chilling like never before. 'Then I'll use these three days to tear down your entire altar.'
Meanwhile, in the sky above the Maya District, the heavy metal acid rain continued to fall, striking the abandoned piston casings with dull thuds that sounded like the drumbeats of a countdown to the impending collapse.
The moment the fungal toxin touched his stomach lining, Aaryan's body reacted with a surge of defensive excitement.
A bluish double vision began to appear at the edges of his field of vision. The heavy metal dust swirling in the mine became clearly visible in slow motion, each particle tracing a path as if gliding slowly through a viscous liquid.
He could feel high-frequency electrical signals emanating from his spinal cord — the reserve potential forced out of the Heavenly Blood King's bloodline to maintain system balance, which was being eroded by the toxins.
He had to complete the 'reverse disassembly' of the tampered T-44 piston before this potential was exhausted. Aaryan slowly extended his right hand, reaching for the heavy piston coated in green preservative grease.
In slow motion, his fingertips first touched the viscous grease, which spread across the piston's surface like a slowly flowing layer of dark green crystal. As he exerted force with his fingers, every fibre of his arm muscles stretched while the metal brace supporting his back imparted a semi-mechanical stiffness to his movements.
He wasn't moving the piston; he was using his ethereal senses to probe the broken sensor pin inside — a gap of less than 0.1 millimetres, yet one that would determine whether he lived or died.
Just then, Mok, the overseer, noticed Aaryan's unusual behaviour. His massive hand reached for Aaryan's collar.
Mok's hand sent a stench through the air, but to Aaryan, the movement was as slow as a hippo struggling in mud.
Aaryan didn't dodge. Instead, he used the metal support on his back as a centre of force and leaned back slightly, allowing the C-shaped hook of the support to press firmly against the cast iron cooling pipe behind him.
His previously weak body then unleashed an astonishing rebound as he used this force to slide his right hand down the piston's edge and grip the exhaust knob at the bottom precisely.
'Click—click.'
The sound of metal meshing was amplified in slow motion, turning into a deafening thunderclap — the ultimate form of struggle. He intended to use the energy from the mould to forcefully open the hidden 'siphon' inside the piston.
The golden glow in Aaryan's palm instantly turned a murky bluish-purple.
The impure energy could clearly be seen drilling into the piston's intake port in slow motion, like a frenzied barbed firefly rampaging through the narrow pipe. It shattered the anti-counterfeiting lock set by Mok and finally converged at the broken sensor needle.
The spores of the mouldy fungus rapidly carbonised under the high temperature, forming a hard 'bioceramic bonding layer' that welded the broken needle back together.
This entire process lasted only 0.8 seconds in real time, but to Aaryan it felt as though he were performing precise clockwork surgery on an erupting volcano. The instant the repair was complete, Aaryan abruptly rotated the piston clockwise.
The pent-up, high-pressure steam inside the piston found an outlet and emitted a sharp, explosive blast. A plume of scorching white smoke shot towards Mok's face.
Mok recoiled in terror while Aaryan, propelled by the steam, completed his final shift.
After this series of overloaded movements, Aaryan's body cracked with a creaking sound, the wound on his back ripped open again and the fabric securing him became soaked in blood. A few drops of golden-purple blood dripped down his spine and onto the hot piston casing, raising a wisp of smoke.
He knelt on one knee, panting heavily. The bluish spots on his retinas spread rapidly and the smoke gradually dissipated.
Mok, clutching his scalded mechanical mask, roared in fury, but Aaryan revealed a chilling smile.
The piston was now operating at 15% higher frequency, meaning the aether Mok had embezzled was flowing back into the mine's main power pump via the siphon Aaryan had diverted.
'You wanted to embezzle it? I'll make it explode,' Aaryan said hoarsely. Remnants of mouldy cake clung to his fingers, along with that regal, unyielding golden sheen.
In this slow-motion spectacle of violence, it was a piece of mouldy cake that cost him more than just three days of life; it was the first fatal move he made in this hopeless game in the Maya district.
When the pungent, mouldy and inferior ethereal flavour exploded in his stomach, Aaryan's consciousness shattered like a mirror struck by a hammer. The reflection in the fragments was no longer of the grimy drainpipes of the Maya district, but of the eternally burning 'Primordial Flame' of the Sanctuary. This forced 'fullness' by the fungal toxins was doubly humiliating for Aaryan, both physically and psychologically.
He had thought he could fight hunger with willpower, just as he had thought he could escape judgement through his bloodline. Yet now, curled up in the shadows, he could feel the mouldy cake transforming into filthy wisps of energy flowing through his limbs. This instinct to 'survive' relentlessly washed away his remaining noble pride like a tidal wave.
'So, holy blood isn't heavier than mud,' he murmured self-deprecatingly. Once the soul-draining spasms in his stomach had subsided, he found that his mind had become colder than ever before. He realised that the luxuries of 'compassion' and 'glory', swallowed and digested alongside the mouldy crumbs, had ultimately transformed into a sinister, purplish-red aura of malevolence in his eyes. In his daze, he recalled an afternoon on the floating island known as the 'Asgard Tuning Academy'.
His mentor pointed to a bottle of 99.9% pure crystal elixir and solemnly warned him:
'Aaryan, you are the heir of the Celestial Vein. Your body must be as pure as this elixir, for even the slightest impurity will create noise in your tuning.'
At that time, Aaryan, dressed in a snow-white silk robe, believed this wholeheartedly and would feel anxious if even a speck of garden soil touched his fingertips.
In reality, a drop of black, oily-smelling condensation fell onto his forehead. His body was no longer pure; he had even begun to actively absorb etheric mould in order to repair the metal brace in his spine. The 'noise' his mentor spoke of was now the howling will to survive, coursing through his spinal cord.
If the price of holy blood is false purity, then he would rather forge a heart of stone amid the filth. Aaryan leaned against the wall, pressing the greasy paper diagram tightly to his chest as he stood up.
As he was about to leave the stinking repair shop, he heard slow, deliberate applause coming from the shadows. It wasn't the sound of human hands clapping, but the crisp sound of metallic knuckles striking a wooden cane.
'Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.'
A hunched figure emerged from the steamy haze. He wore a dark red trench coat and had half his head covered by a thick leather eye patch; his other eye was fitted with a multifocal gear lens that emitted a red glow.
He was the 'middleman' of the mining black market — 'The Vulture' Seth.
'I've always wondered: after swallowing this mouldy cake that even rats would despise, will the high and mighty Prince of the Celestial Vein vomit first or go mad first?' Seth said in his heavily nasal voice. His lens swept across the metal frame behind Aaryan. "But you gave me a third answer — you turned it into a 'tonic'."
Aaryan gripped the rusty wrench in his hand; a faint blue light flickered between his fingers in the shadows.
'Don't be nervous, Your Highness.' Seth chuckled hoarsely and pulled a still-beating magical core, encased in a transparent Petri dish, from his robes. 'That fool Mok only wanted your life, but a businessman like me values your "adaptability". Someone in the 'Sewer Colosseum' has offered a high price for a living vessel to house the 'Clockwork Heart'..."
Seth lowered his voice, the red lens almost touching Aaryan's eyes. 'Your enemies want you to rot in this quagmire, but I want to send you back to the Upper District as a weapon of revenge. Will you take the deal?"
Aaryan stared at the beating, heart-shaped mechanical device; the metal frame on his back trembled with a pleading sound.