Keizeix spent nearly twenty minutes staring at the mountain of cores in his Personal Storage before admitting the obvious.
"I have absolutely no idea what I'm looking at."
Thousands of cores stared back at him metaphorically.
Beginner.
Intermediate.
Master.
He could separate those.
The platform's marketplace tools had already taught him enough to estimate basic grade.
But distinguishing a core taken from a human knight from one taken from a mage?
That was another problem entirely.
Some looked slightly different.
Some glowed.
Some didn't.
One Intermediate core contained faint blue veins.
Another looked almost identical but had a cloudy white center.
Keizeix knew better than to start eating random glowing objects.
Shirespoke's story about pieces of a fortress landing three valleys away remained very convincing.
So he opened the platform.
Then Estros's private channel.
**Keizeix Silversilk:**
*Question.*
The response took several minutes.
**Estros:**
*You ask enough of those that I should start charging you.*
**Keizeix Silversilk:**
*How do I distinguish magic-bearing cores from physical ones?*
The joking stopped.
**Estros:**
*You finally noticed your pile probably contains both.*
Keizeix frowned.
**Keizeix Silversilk:**
*Yes.*
**Estros:**
*Open Marketplace. Select Prepare Listing. Put one core into the appraisal field but don't actually list it.*
Keizeix did.
The platform asked him to select an item from Personal Storage.
He chose a random Beginner core.
Information appeared only after he deliberately requested the marketplace estimate.
**Stage 1 — Beginner Core**
**Primary Development: Physical**
**Residual Magical Content: Negligible**
Keizeix's eyes widened.
"That's useful."
**Keizeix Silversilk:**
*Found it.*
**Estros:**
*Now enjoy doing that several thousand times.*
Keizeix's enthusiasm died.
**Keizeix Silversilk:**
*I hate you.*
**Estros:**
*No you don't.*
Keizeix paused.
That sounded disturbingly familiar.
He ignored it.
He selected another core.
**Primary Development: Magical**
**Residual Magical Content: Low**
A smile slowly appeared.
"There you are."
He moved it aside.
Then another.
Physical.
Physical.
Mixed.
Physical.
Magical.
Physical.
After twenty minutes, Keizeix had sorted fewer than a hundred.
He stared at the remaining thousands.
"This is going to take forever."
Estros sent another message.
**Estros:**
*Before you ask: no, I don't know a secret way to sort ten thousand cores instantly.*
Keizeix glared at the message.
**Keizeix Silversilk:**
*I wasn't going to ask.*
**Estros:**
*You were.*
He absolutely was.
---
Keizeix didn't consume everything he found.
That was the first rule Estros hammered into him.
Grade mattered.
Type mattered.
Affinity mattered.
And quantity mattered.
A hundred individually weak cores could still become dangerous if someone tried absorbing them too quickly.
So Keizeix started small.
A Beginner magical core.
He held it between his front legs after sealing his tent.
The thing contained considerably less power than Keizeix himself.
That made it relatively safe.
He absorbed it.
Warmth spread through his body.
Not Mana.
Something deeper.
The magical strength remaining inside the core broke apart and was gradually taken into his own.
When the sensation ended, Keizeix opened his status himself.
**Magic: 31,426 / 100,000**
Eighteen points.
Keizeix stared.
"...That's it?"
He messaged Estros.
**Keizeix Silversilk:**
*Eighteen.*
**Estros:**
*Beginner core?*
**Keizeix Silversilk:**
*Yes.*
**Estros:**
*What were you expecting? Ten thousand?*
Keizeix didn't answer.
**Estros:**
*You are already Master. Weak cores contain weak remnants. Quantity helps, but diminishing usefulness is real.*
That was unfortunate.
Keizeix looked at the pile.
Then smiled.
Fortunately, quantity was the one thing he possessed.
---
He began carefully.
Ten cores.
Rest.
Twenty.
Food.
Another twenty later.
He didn't force them into himself all at once.
Some provided fifteen points.
Some twenty.
Occasionally a particularly developed Beginner mage core gave considerably more.
Intermediate magical cores were better.
Master magical cores were dramatically better.
Those he treated with much more respect.
The first Master magic-bearing core made his entire body heat for nearly an hour.
Keizeix didn't touch another that night.
He was ambitious.
Not suicidal.
Over the following days, sorting cores became part of his routine.
Fight.
Eat.
Rest.
Repair Edenweave.
Message Tiestra.
Sort cores.
Consume safe magical ones.
Sleep.
Repeat.
It was tedious.
It worked.
---
His battlefield progress continued as well.
Sia refused to accept his six-kill victory quietly.
The following day she defeated him by eleven.
Keizeix won the next by four.
Neither victory was impressive enough to satisfy either of them.
Their totals climbed gradually as they learned the beetlekin.
Not thousands more.
Dozens.
A little efficiency here.
A better trap there.
Sia became frighteningly precise with her lightning.
Keizeix became increasingly difficult to pin down even without relying heavily on Shadow Mist.
The Edenweave absorbed mistakes.
The silk tonic let him build larger trap networks.
But the beetles remained worthy enemies.
Their armor didn't suddenly become soft merely because Keizeix had improved.
And every day they adjusted to him in return.
By the fourth evening, Keizeix had reached another problem.
His personal share of cores from these beetles wasn't helping his Magic much.
Most of them were physical cores too.
He watched soldiers harvesting the battlefield after withdrawal.
One spiderkin cut the horn from a dead rhinoceros beetle.
Another removed thick sections of carapace.
A third carefully extracted a dark gland from beneath a burrower's abdomen.
Keizeix stopped.
"Shirespoke."
His mentor looked over.
"Why are they taking pieces?"
Shirespoke stared at him.
"For the same reason armies take anything useful from the dead."
"Which is?"
"Armor. Weapons. Alchemy. Construction. Trade."
Keizeix's attention sharpened.
"Trade?"
Shirespoke gestured toward the battlefield.
"Do you believe beetle armor becomes worthless because the beetle stops using it?"
Keizeix looked around differently.
Suddenly the battlefield wasn't covered in corpses.
It was covered in merchandise.
That night he messaged Estros.
---
**Keizeix Silversilk:**
*Are beetle parts valuable on the Marketplace?*
**Estros:**
*Depends on the beetle.*
**Keizeix Silversilk:**
*Iron-shell. Rhinoceros. Burrowers. Horned varieties.*
A pause.
**Estros:**
*Yes.*
Keizeix smiled.
**Estros:**
*Carapace plates can be used for armor and reinforcement. Horns for weapons, powders, forging mixtures. Burrower sensory organs have uses. Certain glands sell to alchemists.*
Another message.
**Estros:**
*Quality and grade matter.*
Keizeix opened Marketplace searches deliberately.
Iron-shell carapace.
Listings appeared.
Then buy requests.
His eyes widened.
Some buyers weren't offering cores.
They were offering magical materials.
Low-grade mana crystals.
Mage-beast marrow.
Spirit herbs.
Elemental concentrates.
And, occasionally, magic-bearing cores.
Keizeix leaned closer.
"Oh."
This changed things.
He didn't need every enemy he personally killed to use magic.
He could kill what he was good at killing.
Harvest what they were worth.
Then exchange their useful remains for resources that advanced what he lacked.
**Keizeix Silversilk:**
*So I can turn physical enemies into magical growth.*
**Estros:**
*Now you're learning commerce.*
**Keizeix Silversilk:**
*I thought you were teaching me survival.*
**Estros:**
*Commerce is survival with paperwork.*
Keizeix laughed.
He liked the dragon more than he intended to admit.
---
The next morning, Keizeix started collecting.
Not everything.
That would attract attention.
But soldiers already received portions of battlefield salvage depending on contribution.
A prince taking useful trophies from his own kills wasn't unusual.
Keizeix selected high-quality horns.
Undamaged carapace plates.
Rare intact mandibles.
Burrower sensory structures.
Anything Shirespoke identified as worth keeping.
Most went into ordinary military collection.
His legitimate personal share disappeared into Personal Storage when nobody was paying close attention.
Sia caught him examining a beetle horn.
"Planning to wear it?"
Keizeix looked at her.
"Yes."
She stared.
He held it against his head.
"Does it suit me?"
Sia remained silent for three seconds.
Then turned away.
"I refuse to participate in this."
Keizeix grinned.
Another successful diversion.
---
A week after beginning his core-sorting project, Keizeix sealed his tent and opened his status.
He had consumed hundreds of suitable Beginner magical cores.
Dozens of Intermediate ones.
Only a carefully selected handful of Master cores.
He had also completed several small Marketplace trades involving beetle materials.
Nothing enormous.
No rare treasures.
Just steady transactions.
Carapace for low-grade magical supplements.
Horns for two Intermediate magic-bearing cores.
Burrower glands for processed mana-rich plant extract that could support magical development when properly consumed.
Bit by bit.
Never enough to risk overload.
Keizeix opened his status.
**Strength: 82,417 / 100,000**
**Health: 80,936 / 100,000**
**Magic: 52,184 / 100,000**
**Intelligence: 85,771 / 100,000**
**Mana: 52,184 / 52,184**
Keizeix stared at Magic.
Then stared again.
"Finally."
Above fifty thousand.
Barely.
But above it.
The gap remained enormous.
His other attributes were racing toward the limit.
Magic had only just crossed halfway.
Still, the stagnation was broken.
And more importantly, Keizeix now understood how to keep breaking it.
He looked through Personal Storage.
Beetle horns.
Carapace.
Glands.
Human cores still awaiting appraisal.
Marketplace orders.
Tiestra's supplies.
Everything connected.
War fed trade.
Trade fed resources.
Resources fed growth.
Growth let him kill stronger enemies.
Stronger enemies produced better cores and materials.
Keizeix slowly smiled.
A cycle.
One he intended to exploit mercilessly.
He opened the Marketplace again and began searching for the next affordable magical catalyst.
Heroic remained distant.
But for the first time, Keizeix could see a practical path toward it.
Not one miraculous breakthrough.
Thousands of small advantages.
Stacked carefully until they became something monstrous.