By midday, the city buzzed.
The rumors had begun.
A man had returned from beyond the lands of Morgoth.
Not injured. Not broken.
Changed.
Whispers passed through the guildhall, the market stalls, and even among the guards at the city walls.
But Argolaith paid them no mind.
He was in the training chamber again.
Focused.
The cube hovered in the center of the room—held in a suspended shell of mana, rotating slowly like a moon orbiting an invisible star.
Argolaith stood beside it, sleeves rolled up, eyes narrowed in concentration.
His runes—layered in circular sequences on the walls and floor—were each tied to a specific elemental signature.
Fire. Ice. Wind. Earth. Light. Shadow. Ether. Blood.
He wasn't trying to destroy the cube.
He was trying to understand it.
He fed a thread of fire into the field.
The cube pulsed, rippled once, and the fire passed through it—untouched, unregistered.
Next was ice.
The air grew cold around it—but the cube simply spun, unaffected.
