The next two weeks were a blur of regimented, private agony. The world outside Ren's room ceased to exist. He did not eat. He did not sleep. His every waking moment was consumed by the Second Tempering. The process was a brutal, monotonous cycle: he would spend hours forcing the volatile river of his soul's Aether through his spiritual channels, enduring the grinding, tearing pain until he reached the absolute limit of his endurance. Then, he would collapse into a state of deep meditation, his body automatically absorbing the ambient Aether of the world to heal the profound, self-inflicted damage.
His progress was measured in inches. The first day, he managed to push the stream a mere hand's breadth down his arm before the pain became overwhelming. By the end of the first week, he had successfully scoured and widened the primary channels in both arms, his reward being a new, deeper level of pain as he began work on the more complex, delicate pathways of his torso.
Zephyrion was a merciless, ever-present taskmaster. The spirit offered no comfort, only scorn for weakness and a grudging nod for progress.
"More pressure!" his voice would boom in Ren's mind as the boy's body trembled on the verge of collapse. "You are not trying to coax the river; you are trying to gouge a canyon in a mountain of flesh! Use more force!"
Yet, beneath the insults, there was a current of true, effective guidance. The spirit taught him how to use his will to not just reinforce the channels, but to actively guide the reconstruction, to weave the raw Aether into stronger, more resilient spiritual pathways.
On the fifteenth day of his seclusion, Ren achieved a breakthrough. With a final, agonizing push, he completed the scouring of the last major channel in his body. A profound, shuddering tremor ran through him as, for the first time, a complete, uninterrupted circuit was formed. The volatile Aether of his Spirit Soul, no longer fighting against narrow, restrictive passages, surged through his newly carved riverbeds in a smooth, powerful, continuous loop.
The pain vanished, replaced by an intoxicating sensation of pure, untrammeled power. He felt like a man who had spent his entire life breathing through a thin straw and had just taken his first deep, lung-filling breath.
He extended his hand, and this time, he did not summon a spark. He simply willed it, and a thick, crackling bolt of brilliant azure lightning, as long as his forearm, erupted from his palm. It did not explode or dissipate. It held its form, a contained, miniature thunderstorm that hummed with a power a hundred times greater than any "Compression Burst" he had ever feigned.
"Finally," Zephyrion's voice echoed, for once devoid of any scorn. It was a simple statement of profound, long-awaited success. "The whelp has learned to roar."
Ren examined the lightning bolt crackling in his hand. This was a true Soul Skill, born not from a GAMA manual, but from the innate nature of his own soul, now flowing freely through a vessel strong enough to contain it. He felt the immense power within it, but also its cost. The single bolt had drained a noticeable portion of his reserves.
He extinguished the lightning and rose from his cot, his body feeling stronger and more alive than ever. His seclusion had transformed him. He didn't know what his new rank was; the traditional metrics seemed increasingly irrelevant. He only knew that he was, at last, beginning to touch the true potential of his Raijin blood.
It was then that a new sound intruded upon the silence of his sanctuary. A faint, rhythmic thump… thump… thump… echoing from outside. It was a sound he hadn't heard in weeks. He went to his window and peered out.
In the main training grounds, visible in the distance, a crowd of students was gathered. In the center of the arena, two figures were locked in a furious, high-speed spar. One of them was Anya Volkov, her crystalline shields flashing as she defended against a barrage of attacks.
Her opponent was a tall, powerfully built upperclassman Ren didn't recognize, his fists wreathed in roaring flames. The fight was a true spectacle of high-level cultivation.
Ren watched the exchange, his newly honed senses analyzing the flow of Aether. He saw the upperclassman's power, but also his wastefulness. He saw Anya's flawless defense, but also the immense strain it was putting on her.
Then he saw something else. Perched atop the roof of the opposing dormitory, its multifaceted lens gleaming in the afternoon sun, was a familiar, spider-like automaton. A Pagoda drone.
It was not watching the fight. Its lens was aimed directly at his own window.
The quiet knocking on his door began at that exact moment. It was not the Elder. It was a sharp, insistent, official rap.
Ren turned from the window, his mind racing. His sanctuary had been breached. He didn't know how. The null-field was perfect.
He opened the door.
Two grim-faced men in the formal grey uniforms of the GAMA Enforcers stood in the corridor. Behind them, his expression a mixture of cold triumph and detached curiosity, was Chief Technician Prell.
"Initiate Ren," the lead Enforcer said, his voice flat and hard. "There has been an incident. A maintenance team dispatched to service a 'faulty' resonance emitter above this room found the device to be in perfect working order. However, they found this."
He held up a small, evidence bag. Inside it was a single, minuscule flake of scorched black metal.
"Forensic analysis from our Pagoda colleagues confirms it is a fragment of a Kylin-class Aetheric Regulator," Prell stated, his voice clinical. "The same type that 'accidentally' failed at our northern research facility. You have been a very difficult ghost to find. But your mission to the Baron's estate, it seems, was not as clean as you thought."
The first Enforcer stepped forward, a pair of Aether-suppressing manacles in his hand.
"By the authority of the GAMA High Council and in cooperation with the Spirit Lumina Pagoda," he declared, "you are under arrest."