After getting home, Noah had not even made it to his bedroom.
He had dropped his coat over the back of a chair, set his bag beside the coffee table, then collapsed onto the sofa.
Sleep took him before he could even remove his shoes.
When he opened his eyes, the first light of dawn was already filtering through the curtains.
A dull ache ran through his body.
“Urgh…”
He sat up with difficulty.
His muscles immediately protested.
His temples pulsed.
He remained seated for a few seconds, staring blankly into space.
The events of the previous day returned at once.
The jewelry store, the crystal, the tail, Victor, Fred, the station, the train, the threats, and the decomposed arm.
Noah let out a long sigh.
“I’m really not made for this kind of thing.”
He ran a hand over his face.
Yesterday, his biggest problem had been figuring out how to isolate a mutant molecule.
He had always preferred laboratories to fights.
Test tubes to weapons.
Calculations to confrontations.
And yet.
Over the past few weeks.
The world seemed determined to drag him out of that comfort zone.
Then a darker thought crossed his mind.
A cold anger passed through his eyes.
‘I maybe should have killed him.’
He saw Victor again, lying in the alley.
Injured, vulnerable, and at his mercy.
‘I would have had far fewer problems.’
Silence settled.
The thought surprised even him.
He stayed silent, then shook his head.
No.
He still refused to cross that line.
Even after everything that had happened.
Even after seeing those men try to rob him.
Even after feeling the fear of death.
He was not a murderer.
Not yet.
Then his gaze landed on the bag abandoned beside the sofa.
The crystal.
Instantly, the scientist took over again.
The emotions faded and curiosity returned.
“Alright.”
He stood.
“Let’s see what you’re hiding.”
A few minutes later, Noah was in his laboratory.
The crystal fragment rested beneath an analysis lamp.
He observed it from different angles.
Weighed it, scratched it, crumbled it, then studied the results.
One hour passed.
Then two.
Then three.
Finally, Noah dropped into his chair.
“Hmm…”
The results scrolled across his screen.
No surprise.
Silicon dioxide.
Magnesium silicates.
Iron silicates.
Traces of other minerals.
Exactly what the scientific publications already described.
The problem remained whole.
Why did this crystal contain Astra ?
Why did that energy not escape naturally ?
Why did this mineral structure become so precious to Ascendants ?
The analyses gave him no answer.
By evening, Noah temporarily gave up.
“Hmm…”
He observed the remaining fragment.
“No matter how much I look…”
“I can’t see anything.”
The next day.
Noah decided to change approach.
The crystal could wait.
His potion prototype was more promising.
He took out the vial containing the cyan liquid.
The substance glowed faintly under the laboratory light.
‘The station incident removed my last doubts.’
The prototype worked.
Even if not in the form he had intended.
At first, Noah had wanted to create an advanced regeneration serum.
A therapy.
A medicine.
Something scientific.
But the results looked more like a potion.
A real potion.
The kind of product one would expect to find in a video game.
Or in an old fantasy story.
The only difference was that it actually existed.
“I need to accelerate its effect.”
His gaze slid toward the crystal.
Then an idea sprouted.
‘What if I could extract only the energy ?’
He picked up a fragment.
Gray Astra circulated through his first Node.
‘Atomic Decomposition!’
The crystal vibrated.
Its structure gradually disintegrated.
The minerals vanished, then something remained.
Pure and visible energy.
A kind of luminous mist. Find the original chapter at g.com.
‘Even the atomic decomposition could’nt destoy this mist the it’s probably astra.’
Noah held his breath.
“I did it.”
This time, it had not taken several days.
The experiment had taught him how to control his power.
But a new problem appeared immediately.
The energy dissipated.
Always.
As soon as it was released.
It rippled for a few seconds before vanishing into the air.
Like invisible smoke.
Noah tried again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Then, during one attempt, the energy accidentally came into contact with the cyan vial.
And something changed.
The luminous mist was absorbed naturally.
As if the liquid had attracted it.
Noah froze.
“What is this ?”
The liquid shone for a few seconds.
Then returned to its normal appearance.
But Noah could feel it instinctively.
The potion had changed.
Tests on the rats quickly confirmed his intuition.
Regeneration was faster.
Much faster.
The results surpassed everything he had obtained so far.
“Fascinating…”
He observed the data.
Then the rats.
Then the data again.
“It looks like the energy dissolved into the liquid.”
And yet, that conclusion defied all logic.
The energy was not a gas.
Not a solid.
Not a liquid.
So how could it mix like this ?
That question consumed Noah entirely over the following days.
Three days.
Three days with almost no sleep.
Three days observing.
Measuring.
Drawing.
Comparing.
His notebooks piled up.
The whiteboards filled.
Yet one constant kept returning.
Always.
When the energy dissipated.
It followed a pattern.
A motif.
Something organized, not random.
A structure, maybe even a language.
Noah reproduced dozens of sketches.
Curves, symbols, trajectories.
Each time the energy dispersed, it seemed to follow the same invisible paths.
And when it fused with the cyan liquid…
Those paths changed.
As if the energy had received new instructions.
On the fourth day.
Noah repeated the experiment again.
He wanted to observe more closely.
Much more closely.
The crystal decomposed.
The energy appeared.
Noah brought his face closer.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Then…
A brutal, violent pain.
“AARRRGH !”
His hands instinctively flew to his eyes.
A burning sensation, as if white-hot needles were piercing through his retinas.
“My eyes !”
His glasses fell to the floor.
He stumbled back, tripped, and collapsed.
The pain increased again.
Then the world disappeared.
When he regained consciousness…
He was somewhere else.
Noah opened his eyes.
He was in a valley.
A gentle wind brushed the grass.
The sky was immense.
Unreal.
And yet, something was profoundly different.
Everything shone.
The trees, the stones, the mountains, the air itself.
Thousands of symbols floated everywhere.
Lines, curves, luminous structures.
Some resembled the diagrams he had drawn in his notebooks.
Others were completely unknown to him.
He stepped forward, amazed.
‘These forms…’
‘I know them.’
Like invisible roots.
Like a language.
Like a formula.
He reached out.
They were the motifs he had been reproducing for several days.
The patterns observed during the dissipation of energy but here they were complete, living, real.
“Runes…”
The word escaped him naturally.
He knew runes.
Every Ascendant had heard of them.
High-level artifacts used them.
The great agencies studied them.
But the ones he saw here seemed different.
Older.
More fundamental.
A rune came toward him.
Then suddenly retreated, repelled.
Noah frowned.
“Why ?”
Then he looked at his own hand.
And his breath caught.
Symbols were escaping from his body.
They circulated beneath his skin.
Around his fingers.
Around his arms.
They formed a different structure.
A structure that conflicted with those of the world.
Like two magnetic fields repelling each other.
“What the…”
For the first time in a long while.
Noah no longer thought like a scientist.
He was simply fascinated.
Then the landscape cracked.
A fracture appeared in the sky.
Then another.
Then hundreds.
The entire world began to break like a mirror.
The runes exploded, the valley collapsed, and Noah was swallowed by light.
He opened his eyes abruptly.
The sun was already shining.
His laboratory was intact.
And yet…
Something had changed.
Immediately.
He felt it.
And above all, he saw it.
Around him.
Everywhere.
Faint symbols floated in the air.
On the objects.
On the walls.
On the plants.
Just like in his dream.
“I’m hallucinating…”
He stood and walked to the bathroom.
Cold water ran over his face.
He raised his head.
Then froze.
In the mirror.
His eyes were no longer totally green.
Shades of gold and red now swirled inside his pupils, layered over the original green as if trying to erase it without success.
“What is this ?”
A primitive fear rose immediately.
“Cataracts ?”
“Glaucoma ?”
“A mutation ?”
Then he realized something else.
His glasses.
They were not on his nose.
And yet.
He could see perfectly.
Every detail.
Every pore of his skin.
Every reflection.
Every symbol.
Noah’s heart accelerated, then a migraine struck him.
He fell to his knees.
“Aargh…”
He knew this sensation.
Astra depletion but it was impossible.
He had not used any ability since waking up.
Why was he exhausted ?
He closed his eyes, then sank into his inner space as he had done hundreds of times before.
His first Node appeared, then…
He froze.
A second Node floated nearby.
Bright.
Red.
Golden.
Its shape strangely resembled an eye or a core.
A new structure, living and powerful.
Noah remained silent for a long time.
Then an incredulous smile slowly appeared on his face.
‘I understand this vision, the runes, the symbols and that dream.’
He opened his eyes again, and his pupils returned to their original green.
The migraine was already beginning to fade.
The exhaustion too.
“So…”
His voice trembled slightly.
“I reached the second Node.”
And this time he had obtained far more than a simple extra reserve of Astra.