He calculated his base battle power without any intent amplification, law integration, or skill activation. The number sat at the lower boundary of Tier 4 territory.
In one morning, he thought, looking at the panel with an expression that was trying to decide between satisfaction and mild alarm at his own existence. Tier 4 base power. In one morning of cultivation.
He held that thought for a moment. Then he noticed something.
The session had felt slightly off. Not wrong enough to be a warning during the session itself — he had been too focused on the process to identify it while it was happening — but now that he had stopped, the off-note was obvious.
He looked at the stat distribution again. Physical Strength, Strength, and Speed all at 2,000. Spirit at 1,100.
His spirit had grown. That much was clear. And the reason it had grown was visible in the logic of what the Ancient Chaotic Immortal Ascension Method actually did — it refined every cell in his body, and his brain was part of his body. Brain cells refined to the same chaotic energy properties as everything else meant dramatically enhanced processing power, faster signal transmission, deeper innate comprehension capacity. Since spirit and the brain were linked — spirit drawing its foundation from the mental faculties that the brain housed — refining his brain cells had directly fed his spirit stat upward.
But his brain cells, refined as they were, couldn't match the pace that the 50-fold cultivation speed multiplier applied to his physical and Qi stats. His body and Qi had climbed with the full power of the technique behind them. His spirit had climbed only as fast as his brain cell refinement could push it, which was fast, but not 50-fold fast.
The result was a gap. A significant one.
Spirit passively and actively governed everything — the control layer for his body, his Qi circulation, the direction and precision of his power output. When his spirit sat broadly in line with his other stats the control was effortless, the gap between intent and execution essentially zero. Now his body and Qi values had cleared 2,000 while his spirit sat at 1,100, and Nova could feel the difference. It was like holding a weight that had grown heavier than the grip strength managing it — technically possible, but demanding, and with a clear ceiling beyond which the grip failed.
If he kept cultivating without addressing the spirit gap, his physical and Qi stats would continue climbing under the 50-fold multiplier while his spirit stayed behind on its slower track. At some point — sooner than he would like — the gap would become unmanageable. He would lose precise control over his own power output. A warrior who could not control their own power was not simply limited — they were dangerous. The explosion risk was real and he understood it clearly.
He closed the cultivation session.
The spirit refining technique was no longer a priority on a list. It was the hard ceiling on everything else. Without it, the Ancient Chaotic Immortal Ascension Method's 50-fold cultivation speed was effectively unusable beyond a certain point, because the speed that made his body and Qi stats climb so fast was the same speed creating an uncontrollable imbalance.
He needed it before he could push further.
Supreme Combat University. One month until the Martial Aptitude Examination. First place in the entire Federation.
He had work to do.
Across the city, in a building adjacent to Dragonspire Tower, a young man in a tactical black uniform lowered his sniper rifle and pressed his watch interface with visible frustration.
"Captain. Mission failed. Target was wounded but escaped. Lost visual contact."
The response came after a brief pause, a steady male voice that gave nothing away. "Acknowledged. All units, target has gone dark. Initiate search pattern in the Dragonspire sector, wide dispersal. Target is a registered Tier Warrior, B-rank nature-affinity talent, Assassin profession. Anomalous ability manifestations inconsistent with profile. Threat assessment elevated to Level 3."
Acknowledgments came back in sequence from agents spread across the district.
The search continued.
Several hundred meters above the city's administrative district, the Central Clock Tower housed the Inspection Bureau's command center in its upper floors — a place that never fully went dark regardless of what the city below was doing, the work of investigation and response being the kind that didn't observe office hours.
Captain Veil sat at his desk with fresh bandages visible at his collar and the posture of a man who had been awake for considerably longer than was advisable. The incident reports on his screen had not become more coherent with repeated reading.
Across from him, a young woman was working through a bowl of spicy casserole with the focused dedication of someone who had decided that whatever else was happening, this meal was going to be finished.
"So spicy," she announced between bites, in a tone that indicated this was not a complaint. "So good."
She was nineteen, with long blue hair that fell in a gradient fade to her waist, bound at the ends with a silver clasp. A black silk blindfold covered her eyes completely. What was visible of her face below the blindfold — the clean bone structure, the smooth pale skin, the expressive curve of her mouth — suggested that the covered portion was similarly remarkable. She moved through the room with the unhurried confidence of someone whose covered eyes were not actually limiting her perception of it.
Seris Valthorn. Second-year student at Divine Martial University. LV39, Tier 4. S-rank origin talent. Legendary-tier profession: Mystic Eye Sovereign. She was back in Thornhaven on a recruitment assignment that her graduation requirements had made technically mandatory, which was the only reason she had ever admitted to for returning.
Veil's sigh was heavy enough to be audible across the desk.
Seris paused mid-bite and tilted her head toward him. "Brother Marcus. What's wrong."
"Over a dozen incidents across the city tonight," he said. "Simultaneous. An ordinary civilian man went berserk and attacked his family with no prior history of violence. A woman set fire to her own home with her children inside. Warriors at Tier 1, 2 and 3 experiencing sudden violent psychosis — no trigger, no warning, no cause we can identify. The warriors themselves aren't particularly dangerous at those tiers, but they're creating collateral situations. Civilians are getting caught in it."
Seris set her bowl down. The cheerful eating energy shifted into something more focused without her expression changing significantly. "Random causeless psychosis across multiple locations simultaneously."
"Simultaneously. And the pattern is expanding. New incidents are still being reported."
She was quiet for a moment. Then she picked her bowl back up and finished the last few bites, apparently having decided that thinking and eating were not mutually exclusive. "I've only been away a year," she said. "Thornhaven has gotten complicated."
"It has." Veil rubbed his temples. "The Void Cavity this afternoon didn't help. Whatever the Abyss Cultists were trying to accomplish, the aftermath is still rolling through the city's systems."
"I saw it from the Skyrail," Seris said, with the tone of someone describing a near miss. "Genuinely thought that was the end. Even the Imperial Capital hasn't had a King-Tier proximity event in my lifetime."
"It almost was the end." Veil's voice was flat. "If the White Elder hadn't been in the city—"
"He was here?"
"He was here." A pause. "We were fortunate."
Seris processed this with the stillness of someone revising their assessment of how close things had actually come. Then she stood, stretched with the easy flexibility of a Tier 4 body that had been extensively cultivated, and set her empty bowl on the corner of his desk.
"Send me to the Dragonspire district," she said. "I'll find out what's causing the psychosis outbreaks. External manipulator or contagion effect — give me a few hours."
Veil looked at her for a moment. He had more manpower concerns than he had manpower, and Seris at Tier 4 was more capable than most of what he had available tonight.
"Dragonspire district," he said. "Find the root cause. Don't engage anything above your tier without backup."
"Of course." She was already moving toward the door with the quiet sureness of someone whose blindfold had never once been a limitation.
"Seris."
She paused.
"Be careful. Whatever is causing this — it's not something we've seen before."
The smile that appeared below the blindfold was unreadable in the way of someone who had seen enough to know that careful and safe were not always the same thing.
"When am I ever anything but careful?"
The door closed behind her. Veil sat alone with his incident reports and the specific disquiet of a man who had read the same data too many times to still believe it was going to start making sense.
Outside in Thornhaven's streets, in the alleys and building shadows and drainage channels that the cleanup crews hadn't reached yet, the microscopic fragments of abyssal flesh were still moving. Still finding each other in the dark. Still doing the patient, purposeful work of things that had a plan and all the time they needed to execute it.
The psychosis outbreaks were not random.
They were a first step.