Headmaster Corvin's office looked different in daylight. Less ominous. The books on his shelves were old, well-loved, with cracked spines and handwritten notes in the margins.
He offered them tea. Seris declined. Tobin accepted, mostly to have sothing to hold.
"So," Corvin said, settling into his chair, "you killed Venn. And two of his associates. And you're being hunted by the Lord Harvest."
"That's about the size of it," Varyan said.
"And you want my help."
"We want information. You said you were a fragnt-bearer. Order Fragnt 03. What happened? Why aren't you still carrying it?"
Corvin was quiet for a long mont. He stared at his hands—old, spotted, wrinkled.
"I gave it away," he said finally. "There's a ritual. It's forbidden, dangerous, and it nearly killed . But I passed the fragnt to soone else. Soone younger. Stronger."
"Who?"
"My granddaughter. She's seventeen now. She doesn't co here. She's hidden, far from the academy, far from the Harvesters."
Varyan leaned forward. "Why did you give it up?"
"Because the fragnt was destroying . Order fragnts aren't benign, boy. They consu as much as they give. I was losing myself—my mories, my personality, everything that made **. The fragnt wanted a vessel, not a person."
[「ECHO」: Order Fragnt 03 was transferred via forbidden ritual. Success rate: 18%. Corvin survived but lost 60% of his fragnt-enhanced abilities.]
"How do we stop the Lord Harvest?" Seris asked. "We can't keep fighting his minions forever."
"The Lord Harvest isn't one person," Corvin said. "It's a title. The leader of the Harvesters. No one knows their true identity. They could be a noble, a rchant, even a mber of the royal family. What we do know is that they've been collecting fragnts for decades. They have a vault sowhere—a vault filled with harvested shards."
"If we found the vault—"
"You could destroy it. And without their power source, the Harvesters would crumble." Corvin pulled a map from his desk. "I've been tracking their operations for years. This is everything I know."
The map was covered in markings—locations of suspected Harvester safe houses, fragnt-bearer sightings, and trade routes.
"There's a pattern," Seris said, tracing the lines. "All the routes converge here." She pointed to a spot in the mountains, east of the academy.
"The Forbidden Peak," Corvin said. "No one goes there. The mountain is cursed—or so the stories say."
"Or the Harvesters want people to think it's cursed," Varyan said. "To keep them away."
"Exactly."
[New quest: "The Forbidden Peak" – Infiltrate the Harvester stronghold and destroy the fragnt vault. Recomnded level: 20. Current level: 10.]
Varyan looked at Seris. At Tobin.
"W
e need to get stronger," he said. "Much stronger."
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