The Aegis Ward recognized him before he even touched the handle.

The faint blue shimmer around the front door pulsed once and then faded to transparent, allowing him to enter.

Holden stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

When he heard the door lock, he felt a big change in his body. He had been carrying a lot of worry for weeks without admitting it, but now that tension finally started to disappear.

He leaned back against the door and breathed.

Holden smiled.

It had been years since he actually felt happy enough to smile with his whole face.

"Okay," he said to the empty hallway. "That’s enough drama for one week."

He pushed off the door and walked to the kitchen.

He set Vespera’s Gold Chest on the kitchen table and sat down.

The lid was much heavier than it seemed, but he pulled it open. Inside, two items were sitting on a piece of black cloth.

The first item was a small stack of six crystals. Each was roughly the size of a thumb and gave off a soft glow that changed naturally from white to gold.

Pure Aether Crystals.

Holden whistled low.

"These must be worth a small fortune each," he muttered, picking one up and rolling it between his fingers. The energy inside was dense and clean, completely different from the ambient astra energy that floated around the academy. "Six of these together could probably buy a house in the mid-tier districts."

He set the crystal back down carefully.

These would be his ticket to 9-Star when the time came. Raw, concentrated energy that his multiplier could feed on.

Not yet, though. He needed to be smart about the timing.

The second item was a black card.

it was made from something other than ordinary plastic or metal. The academy’s war logo was stamped into one side in matte silver. On the other side was a single line of text.

[Elite Training Pass - Gravity Chamber Access - Authorization: Vespera]

"Gravity rooms," Holden said, turning the card over in his hands. "The ones the upperclassmen are always bragging about. The ones that supposedly compress a week of training into a single day if you can survive the settings."

He tucked the card into his jacket pocket.

Between the crystals, the training pass, the Iron-Body Tempering he’d already absorbed, and his 1,000x multiplier still running passive, his progression options were stacking up nicely.

He closed the chest and slid it to the side of the table.

That was when he heard the footsteps.

"Holden?"

Maeve appeared in the kitchen doorway. She was wearing an oversized shirt that hung past her knees and her hair was a tangled mess. She had clearly been napping on the couch and had jolted awake when she heard the door.

Her eyes went wide.

"You’re back!"

She ran across the kitchen and hugged him tightly around the waist. She squeezed him hard and hid her face against his chest.

"Ow," she said, pulling back immediately and frowning. "Since when are you this hard? You feel like a wall."

"New training routine."

"Was it the ruins? Were you safe? Did anything bad happen? Are you hurt anywhere? Let me see your arms."

She grabbed his wrist and started inspecting him for injuries. Holden let her look for a few seconds before gently pulling his arm back.

"Maeve. I’m fineee."

She looked up at him, searching his face the way she always did. Checking for the lie. She was good at knowing when he was hiding something.

This time, she didn’t find anything.

"Really?" she asked.

"Really. I promise."

Her shoulders sagged with relief. She let out a long breath and flopped into the chair across from him.

"Don’t do that to me," she said. "Three days in that fog with no updates. I couldn’t sleep properly. I kept thinking about all the things that could go wrong."

"Nothing went wrong."

"I know that now. I didn’t know it then."

She pulled her knees up onto the chair and hugged them, watching him with those sharp eyes she’d inherited from their mother.

"You seem different," she said quietly.

"Different how?"

"I don’t know. Lighter, maybe."

Holden didn’t answer that right away. Instead, he reached into his inventory and pulled out the Ashen Bestiary Journal.

It looked exactly like it had when he’d found it in the serpent’s nest. Dusty. Worn leather cover. The kind of book that looked worthless until you opened it.

He slid it across the table.

Maeve looked at it.

"What’s this?"

"Fought a giant snake in the ruins. Nearly died. All so I could save you a trip to the library."

She blinked at him.

"You’re joking."

"Half joking. The snake was real. The dying part is an exaggeration. Mostly."

Maeve picked up the journal carefully, turning it over in her hands. Her fingers traced the cracked spine and the faded symbols on the cover. Her brow furrowed.

"This isn’t standard academy material. The binding style is pre-Collapse. Maybe even pre-Awakening era. Where did you find this?"

"In a treasure chest, deep inside the toxic fog. While being hunted by a beast that could swallow a carriage in one gulp. So you’re welcome."

She opened the first page.

Then she stopped moving entirely.

Her eyes locked onto the text and drawings like they’d been glued there. The usual energy she carried, the fidgeting and bouncing and constant motion, just vanished.

Holden watched her read.

She read the words quietly to herself. Her eyes moved quickly between the ancient drawings and the complicated writing. Her face showed exactly what she was thinking. Sometimes she looked confused, sometimes she looked shocked, and then she would nod to herself.

She turned a page.

Then another.

Then she flipped back to the first page and re-read something.

"Holden," she said, her voice sounding different. You could tell she was thrilled, though she was trying her best to keep her cool. "This is incredible. Whoever wrote this wasn’t just documenting beasts. They were mapping behavioral patterns. Hunting strategies. This is a researcher’s work. A real one."

"Good. That’s what I hoped you’d say."

She turned more pages, her fingers moving with increasing urgency.