"Bring out the mute exile and hand over the star-steel key, or we burn this entire quarter to the ground!" Commander Vane yelled, his voice echoing across the silent, ruined courtyard as eighty heavily armed blood-bandits took up positions on the stone rooftops.Lucas stood near the edge of the collapsed stone well, his eyes calm, dark, and utterly motionless as he stared at the red-robed mage leading the syndicate."You brought eighty men to collect a coreless cripple?" Lucas asked, his tone flat as the cold night air.Vane spat onto the muddy cobblestones, his broad curved blade glowing with a toxic green acid aura that hissed against the damp earth. "Don't act blind, Peterson trash! Every guild in the border city felt the earth rumble an hour ago! The ancient ruin beneath these streets has opened, and a useless dog like you doesn't get to sit on a gold mine!""Hand over the ruin controls now!" a senior bandit mage shouted from a nearby balcony, raising a crackling lightning staff h

"If your core shatters under this spatial pressure, young master, there won't be enough left of your body to bury," Esther said, her hands trembling as she set three raw spirit crystals on the stone table.Lucas didn't blink. He sat cross-legged on the cold stone floor of the subterranean sanctuary, his left arm extended straight out in front of him."Step out of the chamber and lock the iron gate," Lucas said, his voice dropping into a hollow, dangerous rasp. "Whatever noise comes through the wall, do not open it."Esther backed away slowly, her eyes wide with fear as she pulled the heavy iron door shut, dropping the locking bar into place with a loud, metallic clatter.Lucas closed his eyes and immediately plunged his consciousness into the swirling vortex of his inner dantian.The residual memory fragment from the ancient subterranean ruin floated inside his soul realm like a burning sphere of liquid silver. It was a dense, compressed knot of ancient spatial knowledge, holding raw

"If you came here to collect the bounty First Prince Valerius put on my left hand, Jessica, you brought too few guards," Lucas said, his dark eyes tracking the shadowy silhouette standing beneath the decaying timber archway at the edge of the border city.Jessica stepped out from the darkness, her face pale under the moonlight as she pulled back her travel hood with a trembling hand."I came alone, Lucas," Jessica said, her voice tight, strained, and stripped of the cold arrogance she had displayed back at the Peterson family hall. "There are no guards behind me. No imperial enforcers."Lucas kept his left hand inside his coat, his fingers hovering half an inch above his newly expanded spatial dantian."The Peterson family doesn't send their prized disciples three hundred miles into a border warzone without an escort," Lucas said softly. "Speak before I snap your neck and drop you into the well.""Damon stripped my father of his elder seat two nights ago!" Jessica blurted out, her che

"Shoot the girl first, leave the Peterson brat crippled!" the lead assassin screamed, his voice slicing through the roaring river as eight High Mage-level attackers emerged from the tree line.Lucas didn't draw a sword. He stepped directly between Esther and the incoming volley of black lightning bolts, his left palm burning with a blinding silver radiance."Get behind the stone pillar, Esther," Lucas ordered, his tone dead, cold, and utterly devoid of panic.Esther scrambled behind the ancient river marker, her hands forming a tight, protective mana circle that shielded her back from stray arc energy.Four black-robed mages from Damon's private guard channeled heavy earth spikes from the riverbank, aiming to impale Lucas from below. Simultaneously, four disguised royal executioners leveled silver spears, firing a barrage of concentrated lightning straight at his chest.Lucas raised his bare left hand, his High Mage core roaring to life as he drove his consciousness into the air vecto

"Drop the heavy travel bags here, Esther, we enter the outskirts of the central territory on foot," Lucas said, his dark eyes locking onto the burning perimeter watchtowers of the southern valley district.Esther leaned against a thick oak trunk, her face sickly pale, but her breathing steady after Lucas suppressed the Black-Lotus Venom with his spatial mana."That is my father's merchant outpost down there," Esther whispered, pointing a trembling finger toward a row of charred, smoking timber buildings. "The flag of the Peterson Enforcement Squad is flying from the main gate."Jessica stepped up beside them, keeping her head low as she pulled her hood over her face."Damon didn't just lock up your family, Esther," Jessica said, her voice tight with bitter realization. "He brought in the local magistrate's private guards to seal the entire sector under martial law so no news reaches the capital court."Lucas didn't wait to discuss it. He moved forward like a phantom, his leather boots