Morning arrived far too quickly.
A pale shaft of sunlight slipped through the cracked curtains and landed squarely on Ael's face, dragging a groan out of his chest. He shifted, turning away from the light and burying his head deeper into the pillow, one arm flung across his eyes as if that might shield him from reality itself.
Too early…
Technically, today was a free day.
No rifts scheduled. No mandatory training. No Lyra looming over him with that terrifyingly calm smile that usually meant broken bones in the next five minutes. For once, the world could wait.
At least, that was the plan.
"AEL, WAKE UP!"
The voice came like a war cry from the other side of the door, followed immediately by heavy footsteps.
Ael grimaced. Of course.
He rolled onto his stomach and buried his face into the mattress. "Why does the world hate me…" he muttered.
"I SAID WAKE UP!" Kara's voice rang louder, sharper, completely uninterested in his suffering.
"Go away!" he shouted back, voice muffled by the pillow. "I had a rift yesterday for gods' sake! People tried to kill me! Monsters definitely tried to kill me! I deserve sleep!"
"We don't care!" Kara snapped back. "It's Saturday!"
The door burst open before he could protest further, and Isla immediately seized the opportunity, leaping onto the bed with reckless enthusiasm.
"And you haven't spent time with us since you awakened!" Isla declared, laughing as she bounced atop him. "So we're kidnapping you! Family day!"
Ael let out a strangled sound as the air was knocked out of his lungs.
"Dammit, girls!" he cursed, flailing under the covers as he tried—unsuccessfully—to protect himself. "Can't a man have one peaceful morning in this house?!"
The only response he got was laughter.
Growling under his breath, Ael hauled himself upright, sheets tangled around his legs. He stomped straight into the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind him, locking it with finality.
From the other side, he could still hear their giggles.
"…We win," Isla said smugly.
Ael leaned against the sink, staring at his tired reflection in the mirror. Dark circles lined his eyes, evidence of rifts, training, and restless nights spent thinking about things far larger than himself.
"…One day," he muttered, splashing water on his face, "I'm moving somewhere without women."
…
Meanwhile, at Phoenix Guild headquarters, an entirely different kind of tension brewed.
The meeting room was dim, illuminated primarily by the soft glow of the central holo-table. Five translucent projections hovered above it—each one bearing the likeness of a guild master whose presence alone could make cities nervous.
Lyra sat in her seat with crossed arms and an upright posture, an image of poise and authority. But beneath that controlled exterior, worry etched faint lines into her expression.
"Lyra," Eryndor finally spoke, his calm, glacial voice filling the room, "this is the second time in a week you've called for council. That is… unusual, to say the least."
Lyra exhaled slowly.
Without wasting time, she recounted everything—Felicia's report, the encounter with the beast, the unsettling intelligence behind its hatred, and finally Ael's theories. She left nothing out.
As she spoke, the temperature of the room seemed to drop.
When she finished, Seraphine was the first to break the silence. Her voice remained gentle, but the gravity beneath it was unmistakable.
"This is deeply concerning," she said. "If this is true, then rifts cannot be treated as mere natural phenomena anymore. This isn't disaster management… it's an invasion."
Kael leaned forward, lightning faintly crackling along the edges of his projection. "What worries me isn't just the theory," he said bluntly. "It's the boy. If his element is something demons fear—something tied to Ether—then they will hunt him."
His eyes sharpened. "And if they find him, they won't stop at him. They'll come for this world."
"Yes," Lyra said quietly. "Which is why I plan to push him but I don't want him to overly exert either."
The room paused.
There was conviction in her words—but beneath it, a subtle tremor of unease.
Thalen smirked. "Are you worried about the kid, Lyra?"
Her brows twitched.
She ignored the provocation and straightened instead. "I'm going to share something," she said firmly. "Something only I know about Ael."
With a flick of her wrist, data projected into the air.
Rift performance metrics. Stat growth patterns. Core refinement anomalies.
How he's refining his core without mana stones, Lyra explained how he's gaining universal stat increases—two points across the board, three in intelligence—with every level.
Silence.
"WHAT?!"
The response was instant and unanimous.
"What the hell, Lyra?!" Kael exclaimed. "How could you keep this secret?! He should be diving into rifts every single day!"
"That's reckless," Seraphine argued immediately. "He's newly awakened!"
"And fragility is a weakness," Kael countered. "Power like that doesn't wait."
Lyra's voice dropped, carrying a sharp edge. "He is not a tool. He trains. He learns. He grows at a pace he can handle.. sometimes more than he should.."
Eryndor observed her quietly. "…You're holding something back."
Lyra stiffened.
Finally, she sighed. "His element is… strange. It can replicate the components of other elements."
She described Etherbolt. Silver Tempest. How they felt like lightning—yet were not mana-based.
"He created them in one week," she finished. "Because I challenged him before allowing him to go into a D-Rank rift with a level five core refinement because of his stats.."
Absolute silence followed.
"…That boy," Eryndor said slowly, "if guided properly, could surpass all of us."
"Yes," Lyra said immediately.
"But then we cannot coddle him."
"I will not throw him to die."
They argued. Carefully. Fiercely.
Eventually, compromise was reached.
"Five D-rank rifts a week, he needs to increment his core refinement to be reader if hell hits the floor," Eryndor said. "That's final."
Lyra reluctantly nodded.
As the meeting ended, she leaned back in her chair alone, staring at nothing.
Why does the thought of losing him feel… unbearable?
The answer lingered just beyond her awareness.
And somewhere across the city, Ael sneezed suddenly.
"…Weird," he muttered.