Back in the communal quarters of Sea Fortress Number Three, Karl Sonneberg had been preparing himself for many possible reunions.

  Tears.

  Hugs.

  Relief so intense it might knock the wind out of his chest.

  Perhaps even silence—the kind that came from people who had seen too much and didn’t yet know how to speak about it.

  What he had not prepared for was the door bursting open to reveal a pack of hollow-eyed teenagers who immediately began shouting over one another.

  “We’re starving!”

  “That stuff was evil!”

  “If there’s ever a new item in the shop—”

  “—it better be the name of the scientist—”

  “—and we’re buying it—”

  “—no matter how many points it costs—”

  “—and force-feeding it to them—”

  “—because death is way too easy for that monster!”

  Karl blinked.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Then he slowly lowered the cup he’d been holding.

  “…You’re alive,” he said carefully.

  “Yes,” Arin replied flatly, already halfway to collapsing into a chair. “And we paid for it.”

  Around Karl, the rest of the family stared in stunned silence. Parents who had been holding their breath for weeks stood frozen, unsure whether to laugh or cry. Grandparents exchanged looks that carried equal parts relief and disbelief.

  Tom wiped his face with his sleeve and groaned dramatically. “I swear, if I ever see that gray brick again, I’m committing treason just to avoid it.”

  For a moment, no one spoke.

  Then Karl snorted.

  “That’s it?” he said. “That’s your grand return? Complaining about food?”

  Several of the older generation nodded in agreement.

  “You kids are soft,” Arin’s uncle added. “Back in our day—”

  “—back in your day you weren’t eating compressed existential despair,” Tom shot back.

  Karl waved a dismissive hand. “You’re exaggerating.”

  Tom’s lips curled into a slow, vicious grin.

  “Oh?” he said lightly. “Funny you say that.”

  He reached into his pack and placed something gently on the table.

  A small, gray rectangle.

  About the size of a biscuit.

  The room went very, very quiet.

  “Well,” Tom continued cheerfully, “luckily for us, I asked Tian for a few extras before we left. You know. For emergencies.”

  The teenagers’ eyes gleamed.

  Arin leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. “So here’s the deal. Mom’s cooking real dinner for us. Proper food. Warm food. Food that doesn’t taste like regret.”

  He glanced at Karl, his father, and his older brother—all of whom had mocked them minutes earlier.

  “And for everyone who said we were soft,” Arin added sweetly, “you get dinner too.”

  A pause.

  “…We’ll even serve it,” Tom added.

  Karl frowned. “What’s the catch?”

  “No catch,” Arin said. “Just… nutrition-dense.”

  An hour later, the fortress dining hall bore witness to a scene that would be whispered about for generations.

  On one side of the massive table sat the teenagers, happily devouring steaming bowls of food. Vegetables grown through energy-accelerated agriculture. Protein substitutes so refined they were indistinguishable from the real thing. The smell alone made mouths water.

  On the other side…

  White plates.

  Pristine.

  Empty except for a single gray block placed dead center.

  Biscuit-sized.

  Comically small.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  The contrast was cruel.

  “If we had some garnish,” Tom mused aloud, “we could’ve passed this off as a three-star dish.”

  No one laughed.

  Karl stared at his plate.

  It didn’t smell.

  That somehow made it worse.

  It reminded him—uncomfortably—of the lint trap from a dryer. Dense. Fibrous. Wrong.

  “So,” Tom said brightly, stuffing his face. “Eat up. Dinner’s getting cold.”

  Snickers rippled down the teenagers’ side of the table as they tried—and failed—to suppress their laughter.

  Johnny, however, sat very still.

  Then, with a deep breath, he picked up the gray block.

  “Well,” he muttered, “how bad could it be?”

  He took a bite.

  Chewed.

  Swallowed.

  His face didn’t change.

  “Huh,” he said calmly. “You’re all overreacting.”

  The adults straightened.

  Johnny smirked. “Honestly? Not that bad.”

  Encouraged—and unwilling to be shown up—the others followed suit.

  Ten seconds later, the dining hall descended into chaos.

  Someone gagged.

  Someone swore loudly in three languages.

  Someone made it exactly halfway to the bathroom before losing the battle entirely.

  Karl stared at his plate in horror.

  “This,” he choked, “is not food.”

  Johnny, now pale, stood up abruptly.

  “Excuse me,” he said stiffly—and bolted.

  The teenagers howled with laughter.

  “Worth it,” Tom declared.

  Later that evening, as the echoes of laughter faded and stomachs were finally full, the world continued to move forward.

  Far from the dining hall, deep within a secured hangar, the future stood on reinforced wheels.

  The generals gathered in silence before the prototype.

  It was ugly.

  No—unsightly didn’t even begin to cover it.

  A long, reinforced carriage of wood and composite materials. Five meters in length. One and a half meters wide. Raised fifty centimeters off the ground.

  Functional. Brutal. Efficient.

  Six harness points lined its front.

  “This,” said Laelia Sevso, barely containing her excitement, “is the solution.”

  She gestured animatedly, her eyes shining.

  “It requires six humans to pull. That configuration provides optimal initial lift and sustained motion without long-term fatigue. With our enhanced physiology, they can maintain pace all day.”

  The marshals listened.

  Some grimaced.

  Some nodded slowly.

  “It isn’t pretty,” Laelia admitted. “But it works. And more importantly—it changes everything.”

  Before mana, science had obeyed rigid rules.

  After mana, those rules bent—but did not break.

  The problem had been mindset.

  Researchers had clung too tightly to old assumptions, afraid to step beyond familiar frameworks.

  Laelia hadn’t.

  She had embraced structure and chaos.

  This carriage wasn’t just transport.

  It was proof.

  Proof that humanity could adapt faster than anyone expected.

  Behind her, research centers buzzed with renewed fervor. Scientists returned to their books not with despair, but with exhilaration. Old theories rewritten. New schools of thought born overnight.

  And somewhere far beyond the fortress walls—

  Something ancient stirred.

  In the void beside the system bound to humanity, a faint glow flickered.

  It drank deeply of unseen energies.

  Then, as invisible shackles tightened, it dimmed once more.

  Waiting.