The transition from Vasir's interrogation cell to his private workshop happened on Day 29, under the cover of "enhanced contamination protocols."
Two guards escorted me through the maintenance shafts at dawn, their expressions carefully neutral. To them, I was a potential biohazard—something that needed isolation from the Tower's pure atmosphere. They wore filtration masks and kept their distance, as if my very presence might corrupt their mana signatures.
If only they knew the truth was far more dangerous.
Vasir's workshop was three floors deeper than the interrogation level, accessible only through a series of descending passages that grew progressively older and darker. The white marble of the upper Tower gave way to grey stone, then to dark basalt that predated Orizon's current architecture by centuries.
The final door was sealed with a ward I couldn't even perceive—I only knew it existed because Vasir's mana flared as he dispelled it, and the air pressure in the corridor suddenly equalized with a soft pop.
"Inside," Vasir said. "Quickly."
I stepped through, and the door sealed behind me with the finality of a tomb closing.
The workshop was larger than I'd expected—a vaulted chamber that stretched fifty feet in each direction, with a ceiling lost in shadow above. The walls were covered in blackboards, just as before, but there were more of them now. Equations flowed across slate surfaces like rivers of chalk, some in Avulum's flowing script, others in mathematical notation that looked distinctly... Earthlike.
"Did you—" I started.
"Steal notation systems from Earth through the surveillance feeds?" Vasir finished, not looking up from the workbench where he was arranging crystalline instruments. "Yes. Your world's mathematical language is more efficient than ours for certain types of calculations. Particularly differential equations."
He gestured to a blackboard covered in what I recognized as Navier-Stokes equations—fluid dynamics.
"Your physicists never had mana to work with, so they developed extremely precise models for material behavior. It's fascinating. Limiting, but fascinating."
I walked closer to the board, reading the modifications Vasir had made. He'd added terms to the standard equations—variables representing mana pressure, aspect resonance, dimensional frequency. It was a hybrid language, merging Earth physics with Avulum magic.
"You've been working on this for a while," I said.
"Forty years." Vasir finally looked at me, his grey eyes sharp. "I told you—I've been trying to solve your exact problem. How to make Avulum magic work in a mana-dead environment. You're the first test case I've had access to."
He walked to a section of wall where crystalline screens flickered with surveillance feeds of Earth. I recognized the view immediately—my city, the port where I'd watched the dragon descend.
The fires were still burning, but smaller now. Controlled. Emergency lights outlined a perimeter where military vehicles formed defensive positions. I could see movement—organized, purposeful. Not panic. Adaptation.
"Twenty-two and a half hours," Vasir said quietly. "Your military has established thirty-seven secure zones globally. Casualties are estimated at two hundred thousand, but that's far lower than the Tower's projections. They expected two million in the first day."
"The low-mana environment," I said, unable to look away from the screen. "The monsters are starving."
"Yes. But the mana saturation is rising. Point-zero-one-two percent ambient now, up from point-zero-zero-five at Hour 12. By Day 7, it'll be point-five percent. By Day 30, close to one percent."
He changed the feed to show New York. A Greater Behemoth stood in what had been Times Square, surrounded by rubble. Military bombardment was ongoing—missiles, artillery, even what looked like experimental energy weapons. The creature barely flinched.
"Greater monsters can sustain themselves for six to eight hours in your current mana density," Vasir explained. "By Day 7, they'll be able to operate indefinitely. By Day 30, they'll be stronger than they were on Avulum because they'll be the only mana-dense entities in a low-resistance environment."
The implication was clear. Every day I delayed, the enemy grew stronger.
"Which is why," Vasir continued, turning away from the screens, "we're going to spend the next twenty-six days turning you into something that can kill them. But first, we need to make the Council believe you're struggling."
He gestured to a training area in the center of the workshop—a circular platform inscribed with diagnostic runes.
"For the next week," Vasir said, "you're going to fail. Spectacularly. Repeatedly. I need the Council's surveillance to see a student who's hitting a wall, not a prodigy who's mastering techniques overnight."
"What technique am I failing at?"
"Combination spells. Specifically, Fire-Water integration." Vasir pulled out a small metal sphere—sealed, with a visible seam around the equator. "This is a standard training device. You're supposed to introduce water through this port, then use Fire and Water aspects simultaneously to create a pressure differential. Done correctly, the sphere splits cleanly along the seam."
He demonstrated, his hands moving with practiced ease. Fire in one hand, Water in the other. The sphere began to glow—red on one side, blue on the other. After three seconds, it split with a soft click, falling into perfect halves.
"Your job," Vasir said, reassembling the sphere, "is to fail at this for six days straight. Make it look like you can't balance the aspects. Overheat one side, freeze the other incorrectly, create uneven pressure. I want catastrophic failures—explosions, implosions, anything that looks like a student who's trying but can't quite grasp the principle."
"And on Day 7?"
"On Day 7, I have a 'breakthrough' in my research. I discover that your contamination has created an unusual aspect resonance that requires a modified technique. I teach you the 'correct' method, you suddenly succeed, and the Council sees measurable progress that justifies continued observation."
It was elegant. A manufactured struggle followed by a manufactured solution. The Council would see exactly what they expected to see.
"There's one problem," I said.