“One week,” she said. “Meet me here again. Be stronger.”And just like that, she turned and walked away, leaving me alone in the fading light tired, sore, but more dangerous than yesterday.She left me standing alone in the quarry, the stones heavy in my pocket, my skin buzzing with this new power she’d forced into me. I had a teacher now dangerous, strict, but a teacher. I had tools. I had a path forward.But the moment I stepped back into the shadowy streets of the city, I felt it again. Eyes. Not Elara’s calm, cold stare something thinner, hungrier. Eyes that moved on the toxic wind.The Astors.They were hunting. And this time, hiding wouldn’t save me. It was a race now their Gale Fist versus whatever foundation I could build out of stone and will.And I had exactly one week to make myself unbreakable.That week became a loop of pain, training, and tiny victories.During the day, I practiced Skin-Weaving until my brain felt like mush. I started small a patch on my palm. Then two p

She left me in the quarry, stones in my pocket, new techniques in my head, and a fresh layer of paranoia weighing on me.That night, back in my shelter, I didn’t rush into cultivating. I just sat in the dark, thinking. Elara was training me to be a better tool maybe for her but she was also giving me a fighting chance against the storm that was coming. I had to be smart enough to use the tools without becoming someone else’s pawn.I pulled out one of the Earth-Aura Stones and started the Marrow-Temper’s Hammer. The familiar, brutal vibration hit my bones, grinding and purging. But tonight, I tried something different. I remembered Elara’s lesson: it wasn’t just about enduring it was about control.Could I steer the vibration? Focus it? Direct it to the spots that needed it most?I pictured the spot in my spine that always throbbed. I willed the resonance to cluster there, to hit the impurity square on. It felt like trying to herd wild cats with a stick. The energy thrashed, resisted,

I stopped forcing it.I let the frustration sit there. I let the fear and the hunger sit too. I didn’t try to shove them away or pretend everything was fine. I just… let them make noise in the back of my mind while my marrow’s quiet hum kept going underneath it all steady, slow, stubborn.And that’s when I felt it.A vibration not in the air, not in the metal deeper than that. It felt like it came from the bones of the world itself. Slow, ancient, patient. The Song of the Deep Stone.My own marrow-hum suddenly felt like a nervous mosquito buzzing next to a mountain. I didn’t try to force myself to match it. I just let my awareness sink toward that deep, steady thrum. I pictured my bones like roots, reaching downward, settling into that massive rhythm.My breathing smoothed out. The mental noise didn’t disappear, but it faded into the background like it finally understood it wasn’t in charge.For a moment, I didn’t feel like a hungry, stressed-out runner with too many enemies and not e

They definitely weren’t expecting me to sit here in the middle of their patron clan’s poison plant, waiting for them.I didn’t wait long.Moonrise showed as a faint sickly green glow through the toxic haze outside when I finally felt them arrive. Not a sound just a shift in the room. The chaotic Aura around me didn’t settle. It started copying. Parts of the purple-black fog lightened, turning into muddy grey patches that looked way too much like my own energy.It was like staring at a dozen warped versions of myself in a broken funhouse mirror.>>>Good. The System was actually helping.Core resonance. Deep Stone Song. Right.I closed my eyes and ignored the visual tricks. I dropped my awareness inward, into the slow, steady hum in my bones the patient rhythm I’d