The dark rock desk in Sub-Vault Zero was cool beneath Lin Ke’s calloused fingertips.
Fourteen days after the collapse of the Seventh Ward’s ceiling, the underground complex had grown quiet.
Above ground, two hundred outer students—paid in double grain rations through Zhao Wuji’s illicit commercial logistics line—were busy shoveling crushed stone, erecting heavy timber roof beams, and burying the crater under forty tons of fresh fire melted rock waste to satisfy Elder Wu’s heavy-duty disaster paperwork.
Lin Ke stood alone before the Precursor Leyline End-post, dressed in clean, dark grey linen robes heavy with boiled leather bracers.
His cracked ribs still ached with a dull, throbbing stiffness whenever he rotated his torso. The skin beneath his linen shirt was mottled with healing yellow bruises.
Meat healed slowly. Living reality didn’t care about Golden Core majesty.
He reached into his sleeve. He pulled out the Precursor Access Token. Then he slotted the iron disc into the eight-sided end-post socket.
Click.
