2026-01-28 20:15:58The Regency Grand Hotel had marble floors, a chandelier in the lobby, and a front desk clerk who looked at Silas like he'd rolled in from a dumpster.
Fair enough. Silas was in a wheelchair, wearing hospital sweatpants and a T-shirt, with a scar running down the side of his face. He didn't exactly match the clientele.
"I'd like your best available suite," Silas said. "Open-ended stay."
The clerk — a young man with a name tag that read OWEN — smiled the kind of smile customer service people use when they want you to leave. "Sir, our premium suites start at three thousand per night. Perhaps I could suggest — "
Silas placed his bank card on the counter. "Charge it."
Owen hesitated, then ran the card. His expression went through three changes in two seconds: doubt, confusion, and something close to embarrassment.
"I — of course, sir. The Presidential Suite on the forty-second floor is available. Shall I arrange luggage assistance?"
"No luggage. Just the room key."
"Right away, Mr. Vane."
Owen printed the key card personally. He came around the desk to hand it over. Amazing how fast people moved when the numbers cleared.
Five minutes later, Silas wheeled himself into a suite that was larger than his father's entire studio. Floor-to-ceiling windows. King bed. A bathroom with a walk-in shower and heated floors.
He locked the door. Wheeled himself to the bathroom. Took a Pain Suppression Pill and forced himself out of the chair.
The shower was hot. The pressure was strong. He stood under it with his eyes closed and let the water hit his chest.
For the first time in two weeks, no one was watching. No nurses. No monitors. No security cameras. Just him and hot water and silence.
His father's face appeared behind his eyelids. Marcus Vane. Drafting table. Gray hair. Tired eyes.
Dead on a courtroom floor.
Silas pressed his forehead against the tile. His chest tightened. Not from the fractures — from something deeper. Something he hadn't let himself feel in the hospital because feeling it would have broken him.
He gave it ten seconds. Ten seconds of grief. Then he shut it down.
'Not yet. You can grieve when it's finished.'
He turned off the water and got out.
By late afternoon, he had a new laptop — delivered to the room along with a change of clothes, toiletries, and a proper meal. The hotel concierge had been very accommodating once the payment cleared.
Silas sat at the suite's desk, opened the System, and signed in.
「 Ding! Day 5 Sign-In successful! 」
「 Congratulations! The Host has obtained: 」
「 1. $500,000 」
「 2. Skill: Speed Reading (Rare — Permanent) 」
「 Speed Reading — The Host can process written information 10x faster than normal reading speed. Comprehension is fully retained. 」
Another Rare skill. Silas opened the laptop and tested it immediately.
He pulled up a news article. His eyes moved across the text and the words poured in. Not skimming — full comprehension. A two-thousand-word article took him twelve seconds.
'This changes everything.'
He cracked his knuckles and got to work.
For the next four hours, Silas devoured the internet.
He started with the Thorne Empire. Corporate filings, press releases, board of directors listings, subsidiary registrations. With Speed Reading, he absorbed everything in minutes.
The Thorne Empire was massive. Thorne Development Corp was the parent company, but beneath it sat over forty subsidiaries. Real estate. Media. Pharmaceuticals. Private security. A medical group — Thorne Medical Group, reference code TM. The same initials from Conrad Hale's chart.
Julian Thorne was listed as acting CEO. Age thirty. MBA from Kingsfield Business School. His public profile was clean — charity galas, business awards, magazine covers. Veridian City's golden boy.
Silas pulled up Julian's social media. Smiling photos. Tailored suits. A penthouse in The Crown district.
Then he searched Elena Vance.
Her accounts had been scrubbed three months ago and relaunched with a new aesthetic. Gone were the photos of architecture exhibits and coffee shops that she and Silas used to visit together. Now it was champagne, designer dresses, and charity events where she stood two steps behind Julian Thorne.
She hadn't changed her last name. Not yet. But every photo told the story. She'd traded Silas for Julian and rebranded herself to match.
Silas scrolled through the feed. A photo of Elena at a rooftop party. Julian's arm around her waist. She was smiling — the wide, perfect smile she used to practice in the mirror before events.
Below it, a caption: Grateful for this incredible life and the man who made it possible.
The man who made it possible. The man who stole her ex-fiancé's career, destroyed his father, and had him beaten in an alley.
Silas stared at the caption for three seconds. Then he closed the tab and moved on.
His father's lawsuit files were public record. Silas had never read them in full — he'd been too angry, too broken after the funeral. Now, with Speed Reading, he consumed every page in twenty minutes.
Patent theft. Three separate filings by Thorne Development claiming ownership of Vane Design blueprints. Marcus's counter-filings. The lawyer withdrawals. The solo court appearances. Seven months of a man fighting alone against a machine designed to crush him.
And then — on page forty-three of a court transcript — a name Silas had never noticed.
Roderick Thorne.
Not Julian. Roderick. Listed as "founding chairman and majority stakeholder of Thorne Development Corp." He'd been referenced once in a pre-trial deposition by a Thorne attorney who said: "As per the directive of Mr. Roderick Thorne, the company's position on the patent dispute is final."
Julian's father.
Silas searched the name. Ten minutes of digging. Twenty. Thirty.
Nothing.
No photographs. No interviews. No social media. No public appearances in over fifteen years. Every article about the Thorne Empire mentioned Julian as the face of the company. Roderick Thorne was a footnote — if he was mentioned at all.
A man who controlled a multi-billion-dollar empire and had no public presence. No photos. No voice recordings. Nothing.
'Julian is the face. But who's behind the face?'
Silas pulled up corporate registration records. Roderick Thorne was still listed as majority shareholder and board chairman of Thorne Development Corp. He hadn't resigned. Hadn't retired. He was still there — on paper.
But nowhere else.
In The Crown district, three miles north of the Regency Grand, Julian Thorne was having dinner.
His phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen, frowned, and set down his fork.
"What is it?" Elena asked from across the table.
Julian didn't answer. He read the message, then typed a quick reply.
"Julian?"
"Conrad got himself into trouble." Julian's voice was flat. "The hospital situation is becoming a liability."
"What hospital situation?"
Julian looked at her. His expression said: don't ask questions you're not cleared for.
Elena picked up her wine glass and said nothing.
Julian stood from the table. "I need to make a call. Finish your dinner."
He walked to his study and closed the door.
Back at the Regency Grand, Silas leaned back in his chair.
His laptop screen showed a web of corporate filings. Thorne Development at the top. Forty-plus subsidiaries branching out like roots. Julian's name on the visible layer. Roderick's name buried in the foundation.
'Julian is the sword. Roderick is the hand holding it.'
He looked at his System status.
「 Physique: 5 」 「 Wealth: $100,750,014 」 「 Skills: Cellular Regeneration Lv.1, Appraisal Eye (3/day), Iron Grip, Speed Reading 」 「 Active Quests: Dismantle St. Caelum billing fraud (13 days remaining) 」
Four skills. Three quarters of a billion in reach within a few months if the daily sign-ins kept scaling. A quest with an Epic Crate reward.
But attacking Julian Thorne directly right now would be suicide. The man had lawyers, security, media connections, and forty subsidiaries to absorb any blow.
'Work from the edges inward,' Silas thought. 'The hospital billing scam is the first piece. Small, exposed, provable. Tear it out. Then move to the next one.'
He opened a new document on his laptop and started typing.
TARGET LIST — PRIORITY ORDER
Conrad Hale / St. Caelum billing fraud (Quest active — 13 days)
Thorne Medical Group (parent of the billing scam)
Julian's public reputation (long-term — needs evidence)
Roderick Thorne (unknown — needs investigation)
He stared at the fourth entry.
'Who are you, Roderick? And why is a man with your power hiding from the world?'
No answer came. Not from the laptop. Not from the System.
Silas closed the document and shut the laptop. His Pain Suppression Pill was wearing off. The ache in his ribs was coming back. He took a Healing Pill and lay down on the hotel bed.
Tomorrow was Day 6. Six days into the System. Thirteen days left on the quest. And somewhere in this city, a man with no face controlled everything.
Silas closed his eyes.
Sleep came fast. The grief didn't.
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter 66: The Ashara
The sign-in notification appeared the moment Silas opened his eyes.「 Ding! Day 68 Sign-In successful! 」「 Reward: $600,000 」「 The funds have been transferred to the Host's account. 」Common tier. Nothing special. He closed the interface and got out of bed.Kira was already in the living room, standing by the window with a cup of black coffee. She didn't look like she'd slept. Then again, she never did."Anything overnight?" Silas asked."Quiet. No movement from Blackmere. No Athenaeum contacts. Zephyr's feeds are clean.""Good."He poured himself a coffee and checked his phone. Three messages from Graham about the Ashford Quay foundation pour scheduled for next week. One from Vivienne — a logistics update on the resort project's revised timeline. Nothing from Serath.The quiet should have felt good. It didn't.Roderick was planning something. The Thorne Tower activation was coming — Silas could feel it in the same way he could feel Aether flow through walls now. A pressure building
Chapter 65: The Funeral
Silas opened his eyes before dawn.「 Ding! Day 67 Sign-In successful! 」「 Reward: $100,000 」He dismissed the notification without looking at it. A hundred thousand dollars. Two months ago, that would have changed his life. Now it barely registered.Today wasn't about money.He showered. Dressed in the Sovereign's Wardrobe. The suit adjusted itself to the occasion — darker than usual, the cut sharper, more formal. No flash. No statement. Just quiet authority.He stood in front of the mirror and adjusted his tie.The scar on his left temple caught the light. A gift from Thorne's men, sixty-seven days ago. He didn't hide it anymore.Kira was waiting by the door. Black tactical clothing, as always, but she'd swapped her combat jacket for something more appropriate. A dark blazer over a fitted shirt. She still looked like she could kill everyone in the room. She just looked like she could do it at a formal event."Car's ready," she said."You're staying outside.""I know." She paused. "I'
Chapter 64: Convergence
Silas sat cross-legged on the penthouse balcony. Eyes closed. Breathing steady.The Aether moved through his body in a slow, stubborn loop. Ten times now he had completed the full circulation cycle. Ten out of a thousand.It was progress. Slow progress. But real.Lyra stood behind the glass door, watching. She had been observing his technique for the past twenty minutes without speaking. Now she slid the door open and stepped out."You're forcing it again," she said.Silas opened one eye. "I'm guiding it.""No. You're shoving Aether through your meridians like you're pushing water through a pipe. That's not how it works." She crouched beside him. "Your father didn't force anything. He felt the flow and followed it. That's why his buildings worked. He didn't impose structure on Aether. He let the Aether show him where the structure wanted to be."Silas closed his eye again. He thought about Marcus's blueprints. The way every line seemed to curve naturally, as if the building had always
Chapter 63: The Sinclair Name
Lyra didn't knock.She pushed through the penthouse door at 9:47 PM, walked past Kira without a word, and dropped her bag on the kitchen counter.Silas was at his desk reviewing Ashford Quay blueprints. He looked up.Her face was pale. Her jaw was tight. Her glasses were slightly crooked, like she'd taken them off and put them back on too fast.She wasn't frightened. She was furious."Someone accessed my sealed records," she said. "My birth records. The ones I buried eleven years ago."Silas set down his pen. "Who?""I don't know." She pulled out her phone and placed it on the desk, screen up. A network access log. Timestamps. IP addresses. "But the access came from a terminal on Blackmere Estate's network."The room went quiet.Kira, standing by the hallway entrance, tilted her head slightly. She didn't know what Blackmere meant. But she knew Silas's face, and his face had just gone very still."How deep did they get?" Silas asked."Deep enough." Lyra's voice was clinical. Controlled
Chapter 62: Night Raid
The System notification appeared the moment Silas opened his eyes.「 Ding! Day 64 Sign-In successful! 」「 Reward 1: $300,000 」「 Reward 2: Physique +1 (24→25) 」He sat up in bed. The penthouse was dark. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, Veridian City's skyline glowed against the night sky. Three buildings in the Crown District pulsed with faint Aether threads that only he could see.Silas looked at his hands. Flexed them.Physique 25. He could feel the difference immediately. His muscles were denser. His tendons tighter. Every fiber of his body hummed with a quiet power that had nothing to do with cultivation. This was raw physical enhancement — the System rebuilding him from the cellular level outward.He got out of bed and walked to the kitchen. Poured a glass of water. Drank it standing at the counter.'Sixty-four days,' he thought. 'Sixty-four days since Ward 7B.'The man who had lain broken in that hospital bed would not recognize the person standing here now. The Physique st
Chapter 61: The Letter
Day 63.「 Ding! Day 63 Sign-In successful! 」「 Reward: COMMON — $500,000 」Morning. Silas sat at his desk in the Vane Development Corp office — the old studio in Greyhaven. Marcus's drafting table behind him. Marcus's blueprints on the walls.Marcus's letter in his hands.He'd read it three times already. Now he read it a fourth.The handwriting was precise. Architectural. Every letter drawn with the same care Marcus used on blueprints."To the Athenaeum Council. Dated: March 14th."Twenty-six years ago. Two years before Marcus died."I am writing to report activities by Roderick Thorne that I believe constitute a violation of whatever agreements govern the use of Aether-infused materials in construction."Marcus hadn't known the word "Veil." He didn't know the rules. But he knew something was wrong."Mr. Thorne has installed hidden materials in at least four structures I designed. These materials — metallic alloys of unknown composition — were added without my knowledge or consent."
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