Valoria doesn't creep into view the way towns from the Basin do.
It doesn't start as a few rooftops on the horizon, slowly forming and becoming real. It doesn't announce itself with smoke or distant bells, the smell of cooking fires.
No.
It arrives like a sunrise. It's sudden, bright, and impossible to ignore.
"Amazing..." I whispered.
The carriage crests the last ridge, and for a moment, I forget that I'm supposed to be calm.
Below us, the valley opens up into something so vast and so carefully built that my first thought is almost absurdly simple:
'So this is what happens when a world believes in its tomorrow.'
It sounds stupid, I know, but I couldn't help but admire it.
The city spreads outward in wide, layered rings, rising from the floor like a stepped crown. Streets shine faintly with embedded runes. Bridges arc gracefully between towers. Floating platforms drift in steady patterns through the air, never colliding, never wobbling, as if they've been doing this for a thousand years and never once considered failure an option.
Ryn presses his forehead to the window like a child in awe.
"... This is actually happening," he breathes, half-laughing. "No way!"
"You're not dreaming. It's real," I say, struggling to keep the smile out of my voice.
He turns to look at me, eyes bright with a smug grin. "You're smiling. You know that, right?"
"Am I?"
"Yeah." He squints.
I laugh quietly and look back out towards the city of Valoria.
I could hear it. The air hums, not in the wild, or in an uneven way as it does in the forest or the Basin, but in a steady, comforting rhythm. Like a heartbeat. Like a city that's learned how to keep itself alive, filled with history.
The Codex flickers in the corner of my vision, as if even it was impressed.
[URBAN AETHER REGULATION: ACTIVE]
[STABILITY: HIGH]
Conclusion: Valoria is a city of engineered harmony.
I blink the lines away. I don't want to reduce this wonderful moment to the results of diagnostics.
For once, I just want to... see it. Live it.
As we descend, the city sharpens into detail.
The outer ring is farmland, but not the kind I grew up in, the patchwork plots and muddy roads. No. This place had terraces shaped with intention, their fields curved gently, guiding wind and sunlight, and irrigation channels that cut through them like silver threads, with water shimmering faintly as it flows through.
"Amazing."
Along the edges, there were thin pylons topped with crystals that pulse softly, the timing so regular it feels almost harmonious.
Ryn watches them. "Whoa! What are those?"
"I'm not too sure, but if I were to guess, they're probably regulating the air," I say. "Moisture, temperature, and maybe pests."
He stares. "They're using magic to keep crops in perfect condition."
"Looks that way."
"That's…" He trails off, and when he finishes, his voice is quieter. "That's kind of beautiful."
It is.
Not the dramatic kind of beauty, but the quieter kind. The kind that happens when people stop using power only for war or pride and start using it to make sure their people can eat.
Past the farms, the second ring rises into industry.
Tall forge-towers vent controlled heat into the sky, but there's no choking smoke. The heat is captured and redirected into rune arrays set along neighbouring structures. Cranes move without ropes. Barges float along invisible rails, carrying stone, lumber, and metal in tidy stacks that don't shift even when the wind changes.
Workers gesture with gloved hands, guiding loads with short spells that look rehearsed. I was casual, like turning a lever.
Magic as labour. Magic considered normal.
As it should be.
Ryn lets out a low whistle. "So this is what happens when people stop treating Aether like a miracle and start treating it like… a tool."
"A tool," I agree. "Or a－"
He glances at me. "You're going to say something weird again, aren't you?"
"Maybe."
He grins and returns to the window, satisfied.
The closer we get, the more alive the city feels. It's not just the people; it's the motion around them. Everything flows. Everything connects. Platforms glide between towers in smooth routes. Streets glow brighter where foot traffic increases, dimming gently as crowds pass.
I watch a cart roll over a worn patch of stone, and the road subtly reshapes beneath the wheels, smoothing itself as if the city is correcting its own mistakes.
Self-repairing infrastructure.
My old world would've needed committees for this. Decades of planning. Funding proposals.
Approval.
Here it's just… there. As it should be. As if it's the ordinary thing to do.
Ryn catches my expression. "You look like your brain's about to melt."
"It's a lot to process," I admit.
He nods, voice softer. "Yeah. It definitely is."
We pass over a wide canal that cuts through the middle rings like a strip of glass. Bridges span it in elegant arcs, each lined with soft Aether-lamps that glow even in daylight, not because they need to, but because someone thought it looked nice.
Beneath the water, I caught glimpses of faint luminous lines running under the canal bed. The Codex detects traces of Aether from them.
The canal isn't just water.
It's a conduit.
It cools the forges. Feeds the farms. Powers the purification towers that rise like thin needles along the waterway, drawing in mist and releasing clean air.
Everything is part of something bigger.
Everything feeds something else.
Valoria isn't just prosperous.
It's organised.
Not in a cold, oppressive way, at least not on the outside. It appeared hopeful, at least to an outsider like me.
Ryn shifts on the bench, suddenly restless. "Kael."
"Yes?"
His eyes are still on the city, but his voice changes, lower and more careful.
"Do you think people like us are even supposed to be here?"
The question isn't bitter. Not yet.
It's honest.
'He must be thinking about what the other guy said about the Ten Houses.'
I don't answer immediately.
Because standing above Valoria, it's easy to feel small. To wonder if the city was built for someone else, and whether we're just drifting into the wrong story.
But then I look at the streets again: the workers, the children, the vendors selling bread and rune-charms side by side. I see a public plaza where a crystal obelisk stands, and people touch it as they pass. A faint glyph appears above their fingertips; information, schedules, and notices
A public terminal.
A resource meant for everyone.
And I realise something simple:
This city functions because of the people. It needs the people to function.
It needs workers. Scholars. Mages. Builders. Couriers. Farmers. Guards.
A system this big doesn't survive by rejecting every piece that doesn't come stamped with a crest.
It survives by using what works.
"We're here. Right now. We're in Valoria," I tell him. "So yes."
Ryn snorts quietly, but there's relief in it. "That's such a Kael answer."
"..."
He leans back and finally, finally stops gripping the edge of the seat like he's afraid he'll fall out of this new life.
The carriage glides lower into the residential rings, tall spires with sky-bridges, hanging gardens, balconies threaded with vines. People move along floating walkways that drift a few inches above the ground, safe and smooth. Warmth-orbs hover near doorways, casting gentle light.
In one open balcony, a family eats dinner while a small sphere of heat floats near their feet, keeping them warm without a hearth.
No smoke.
No wood.
No aching arms.
Just warmth. Quiet and steady.
Ryn watches that balcony for a long moment.
Then he says, almost to himself, "It's funny, I know I'm here and everything, but it's still unbelievable. I just didn't know places like this could exist."
Neither did I.
But now that I've seen it, it feels like proof that this world can be more than survival and struggle.
It can be built. Maintained. Improved.
I can improve it.
Or at least try to.
Something to aspire for.
The carriage turns onto a broad boulevard leading toward the inner city. The street beneath us glows brighter as we pass, runes responding to the carriage's weight and direction. Tall pylons stand at even intervals, crystals rotating slowly at their peaks, sending soft pulses down the road like a guiding rhythm.
Ryn laughs under his breath. "This is unbelievable. It's like even the road is welcoming us."
"Or tracking us," I say automatically.
He elbows me lightly. "Stop."
I grin and let the comment go.
Because for the first time since I woke in Elyndra, the future doesn't feel like something I have to claw for.
It feels like something waiting to be reached.
I glance at the Codex as it hums softly, as if recording my awe like it's another kind of data.
[CITY CLASSIFICATION: VALORIA]
[STATUS: PROSPERING]
[USER NOTE: OPPORTUNITY HIGH]
I blink it away again.
Ryn is still staring out at the city, eyes bright, mouth tilted up in a faint smile he doesn't seem aware he's wearing.
Hope looks strange on him.
It's strange, I barely know Ryn, but this sight of him. It looks… right.
Valoria doesn't ask if we belong.
It simply exists, bright and thriving and full of possibility.
And for the first time, I find myself thinking something I haven't thought since my old life ended:
Maybe this time, I can become more than what the world expects of me.
The carriage glides onward, carrying us into the heart of the city.
Not as nobles.
Not as heirs.
Just two boys at the starting line, watching the world open up like a door that's been waiting for us to push through.
Valoria makes my old world feel like it was rendered in grayscale.
Back on Earth, my hometown had been a place of straight lines and tired routines. The concrete sidewalks cracked by winters that no one bothered to fix properly; streetlights that flickered because the city council could never agree on budgets; storefronts with sun-faded signs advertising the same discounts year after year. Everything functional, but everything worn down at the edges, like the whole place had been built with the assumption that nothing truly new would ever happen there.
Even the air had tasted tired, exhausted.
Exhaust fumes and damp asphalt. The faint, metallic bite of rain hitting hot pavement. The stale sweetness of cheap coffee clings to my coat after another late shift.
Oh, how I miss the coffee.
At night, the sky was never really dark, washed out by orange light pollution, thick with the hum of distant highways and the constant low groan of machinery that sounded less like progress and more like endurance.
Valoria hums too, but it's a different kind of hum.
Here, it feels like a song, harmonic in its presentation.
Not loud. Not demanding. Just… steady. Like the city knows its own rhythm and trusts it enough not to shout. The glow in the roads isn't the harsh glare of streetlamps fighting darkness; it's a soft pulse threaded through the stone, a quiet reassurance that the system is alive and listening. The lights don't bully the night away... they cooperate with it.
On Earth, beauty always felt temporary. Something you had to chase. Sunsets squeezed between office buildings. A patch of autumn trees behind a shopping centre. The rare mornings when fog rolled in and softened everything enough that the world looked forgiving.
And even then, it was always interrupted.
A damn car horn. A damn construction drill. A damn notification that buzzes in my pocket. A constant reminder that there were deadlines, shifts to cover, emails to write, and bills to pay. Just thinking about it makes my skin crawl. There was always something waiting to pull you back into dullness.
But Valoria doesn't pull.
It invites.
It's the first place I've ever seen where infrastructure looks… proud. Not in the arrogant way nobles are proud, but in the quiet way a well-built bridge is proud, because it knows it will still be here tomorrow. The roads repair themselves. The plazas adjust their light. Water moves where it's needed. Heat is captured instead of wasted. Even the gardens hanging from balconies feel intentional, like someone planned them not just because greenery looks nice, but because living things deserve space.
In my old hometown, we had parks too. But they were boxed in. Chains on the gates after dark. Trash bins are overflowing on weekends. The grass was always slightly patchy because maintenance was never anyone's priority. People used those parks the way they used everything else—briefly, hurriedly, because they had to be somewhere else.
Here, I watch people linger.
A vendor talking to a customer without glancing nervously at the time. Children playing beneath a fountain that loops water upward like it's a joke the city is telling. Workers guiding floating cargo with calm gestures, not rushing, not bracing for something to break. Even the guards, Aether Knights, move as they belong to a society that expects stability as its default state.
Earth had always felt like we were building against entropy with bare hands, constantly patching holes in the same sinking ship. Even in the lab, especially in the lab, everything was about cost and compromise. We'd model something beautiful on a screen, equations lining up like art, and then reality would hit: budgets, regulations, failure rates, bureaucracy. The moment anything got too ambitious, someone would ask, Is it worth it? And the answer was almost always no, because worth was measured in quarterly numbers and immediate returns.
Valoria looks like a place where someone, at some point, answered yes.
Yes, it's worth building the road so it repairs itself. Yes, it's worth regulating the air so the city stays clean. Yes, it's worth shaping water, heat and light into something that doesn't just keep people alive, but makes their lives easier.
I don't know what kind of history it took to get here, what wars, what bargains, what sacrifices. I know there's power at the top of it, the Ten Great Families and their control and their politics, and I'm not naïve enough to think a city this polished doesn't hide rot somewhere beneath the surface.
But still.
Standing here, watching Valoria breathe, I can't stop thinking about my old street back home, grey rowhouses, damp air, the same pothole that had been there for seven years because it wasn't "urgent," the bus that always ran late, the way my neighbours' faces looked permanently resigned to being tired.
I used to think that was just adulthood.
That the world naturally dulled over time.
That potential was something you outgrew.
Valoria makes that belief feel like a lie. I learned that because my environment couldn't afford anything else.
Maybe that's what hurts the most, looking at this city.
Not envy, but something more complicated.
A kind of mourning for what my old world could have been if we'd built for the long term, if we'd cared about beauty as a function instead of a luxury, if we'd treated human lives like something worth optimising for.
And then, quietly, almost guiltily, hope.
Because if a world like this can exist at all, then maybe my life didn't have to end in dullness.
Maybe the part of me that used to stare at datasets and think, This can't be all there is, wasn't being dramatic.
Maybe I was right to feel wasted.
Valoria doesn't erase that grief, but it gives it somewhere to go.
It turns it into a question.
If they can build this with Aether… what could I build, if I learn the rules?