Neral had been patient about not understanding things, which was one of his more useful qualities. He would carry a question for days without asking it, letting it sit until either the answer arrived on its own or he decided the answer was not coming and the question needed to be put directly.
He put it directly at breakfast.
He looked at Mira across the table and said: "I would like to understand what you do. Not in general. Specifically. What happened in the eastern district when the roads activated."
Mira looked at him. She considered the question in the way she considered all serious questions: by deciding whether she had language for it before committing to an answer.
"Roads carry path energy," she said. "Not the sa way zones carry it. Zones have a natural density from the Rift’s influence. Roads carry path energy the way rivers carry water—because things have moved through them. Hunters, creatures near zone boundaries, the ambient field from years of traffic. The energy accumulates in the road’s structure, flows along the path of least resistance, settles in places that have held it long enough to beco channels."
She held one of the vault pair’s crystal shells in her palm. Two shells, each roughly the size of a large coin, smooth and cold-warm in the way objects beco warm-cold after years of constant contact with a person’s skin.
"I was born sensitive to that flow. I feel it the way most people feel temperature—not sothing you choose to notice, just sothing that’s always present. In most cities it’s background. Quiet. In Kael’s Seat, the roads under the eastern district have been carrying sothing much older and denser than normal traffic residue." She set the shell on the table. "For most of my life I could hear those deep roads the way you hear a very low sound through a wall. Present but not readable."
Neral was listening with the focused attention he brought to information he actually wanted.
"The vault pair," Mira continued, touching the shell lightly, "is a road-anchor device. It was made by the sa people who built the deep road structure. Its purpose is to keep the carrier—Kai—aligned with the road network during periods when his path output is very high. Without it, the energy he produces would scatter randomly through whatever structure was nearby. Including the roads. Including buildings built on top of the roads."
"Which is what happened in the Incident," Neral said.
"Yes. The previous carrier had no vault pair and no deep road structure in place yet to receive his output. The energy scattered. The roads moved in every direction at once, and the buildings on top of them—" she paused. "Thirteen people."
"And now," Neral said.
"Now the roads are complete. The vault pair calibrated to Kai’s output level. When his sovereign energy fires, it travels through the road channels in a specific direction rather than scattering. The buildings don’t move. The people don’t notice." She looked at the shell. "What I do is read the current. The vault pair manages where it goes."
Neral sat with that for a mont. Then he said: "That is considerably less frightening than I expected it to be."
The older man looked at Neral. He did not comnt.
He checked the system that evening with a specific question in mind.
He had been accumulating evolution points for months without spending them. In Helios he had learned early that spending on raw stats—strength, speed, endurance—produced quick returns at low body rank and diminishing returns as the body developed. The principle had held through the crossing and the new world’s path frawork. He had fused skills instead, which was how the new world’s system rewarded accumulated material rather than accumulated points.
But he had 1,323 evolution points and had not spent a significant amount since Chapter 147’s Rending Strike fusion. The question was no longer whether to spend. The question was when and how.
He asked the system directly.
Evolution Points: 1,323
Query: optimal spend path at current body rank and frawork level
The system processed the query and returned a detailed breakdown he had not seen before. At 100% frawork loading, the path compatibility analysis and the new world’s depth logic were fully integrated into the system’s planning functions. The response was precise.
Body rank: Predator Body — confird
Next body rank threshold: War Body
War Body advance requirents:
1. Path depth sufficient: requires B-zone or above creature absorption — accumulating ✓
2. Structural stability: 6 active fusions, sovereign integration complete — stable ✓
3. Evolution Point investnt: 400–500 EP required for body rank push
Optimal EP reserve before push: 1,500–2,000
Current EP: 1,323 — insufficient for safe push
Estimated EP to target: 177–677 additional
Note: spending EP on raw stats at Predator Body produces
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