The moment the portal dropped us into the Endless Storm, I knew we weren't on RCP anymore.
The transition didn't feel like walking into a new location. It felt like being plunged into a living world, one that breathed thunder and rained stars.
We landed on cracked, obsidian-like terrain, covered in veins of glowing blue crystal. The sky above us wasn't a sky but a writhing mass of black-and-navy stormclouds stretching endlessly in every direction, glowing and pulsing like a giant lung. Lightning cracked across it in patterns, not white, but a violent, electric blue. Not once every few seconds but constantly. It lit up the sky like camera flashes in a warzone.
And the rain. It wasn't cold. That was the first mind-bending thing.
It was warm.
I lifted my hand instinctively, letting the drops roll down my fingers. The sensation was gentle, almost soothing. The rain came down like a waterfall with no pressure but each drop was smooth, not acidic or sharp.
Just... warm water. The kind you'd sink into after a rough day. It smelled faintly of minerals and static. And wherever it hit the ground, the cracked earth shimmered faintly, blue light dancing across the surfaces like tiny serpents.
The ABR.
The only phenomenon in existence that could terraform raw matter into energy-reactive minerals. And now we were standing in the middle of the original, infinite storm it came from.
I could hear the rain pattering on my armor, sizzling gently when it hit the Synsiline plating. Even the upgraded armor my forger customized was being slowly bathed in low-level energy. It hummed.
"Alright," Baldie grunted from up front, his deep voice slicing through the symphony of rainfall. "Move. We're not camping. We're mining."
He didn't look at me. He just started walking, motioning for the rest of us to fall in. I did with no questions, just the quiet sense that if you didn't keep up, this place would swallow you whole.
To my surprise, Sunglasses and Buzzcut were focused now with zero bullying, no jabs and no smirks. Even their glares at me were more reflexive than anything. They were working and planning.
The terrain changed fast as we hiked.
We moved across slick, dark rock that sometimes jutted upward like teeth. Pools of glowing liquid formed in deep cracks. Floating boulders hovered above us, suspended mid-air in weird, magnetic pulses. I spotted one with blue veins pulsing faintly and pointed.
"That's it," Buzzcut said. His voice was rough, but not hostile. "That's raw Synsiline."
We stopped beneath a ridge of lightning-cracked stone. It gave just enough cover for us to breathe without getting flash-fried.
"Listen up," he continued, pulling out his pickaxe, which flickered faintly with embedded crystal wiring.
"Synsiline is born from ABR saturation. The rain hits the mineral-rich terrain, soaks into the faultlines, and over time, crystallizes. You'll see it in blue veins in the rocks. The thicker the vein, the older and darker the growth. The older the growth, the purer the Flux."
Baldie nodded. "We mine fast for two days in the storm. After that, we hit the plains. Better odds of finding high-yield cores there."
"And more chance of dying," Sunglasses muttered.
"More payoff," Baldie replied flatly.
No one argued. Instead, we set up the scanners. Each team member pulled out their bracelet, held it up, and activated a localized scan. The bracelets pinged, then lit up with mini-map projections; vein clusters, terrain faults, and core density readings. It was like a treasure hunt where the treasure might explode in your face or turn sentient and murder you. So, fun.
I worked quietly.
Every swing of my pickaxe into the glowing stone sent sparks flying. The warmth of the rain soaked into my gear, softening the tension in my arms and shoulders. The deeper we dug, the brighter the veins became. Synsiline gleamed like wet sapphire beneath the rock, humming faintly under every strike. Some parts were brittle and shattered into crystal fragments. Others were dense and took over thirty swings to break off a shard.
Buzzcut whistled when I pulled out a thick, oblong shard. "Pure vein," he muttered, slightly impressed. "Hold onto that. Your next weapon could run on it."
I just nodded.
The others still didn't speak to me but I was left alone. No more verbal jabs. No more "Periwinkle" taunts. Just distant glares and quiet judgment. They could still hate me but they wanted their loot more. And in this hellscape? I'd take that over being ganged up on again.
Rythe moved beside me quietly, crouched as she chipped at a smaller cluster. She was quick and more efficient than I expected. Her movements were graceful, like she knew how to mine with purpose, not brute strength. Her armor was mismatched, old tech, but it was covered in patchwork mods.
I glanced at her and murmured, "Holding up?"
She looked up at me and gave me a tired smile. The rain made her face glisten like a painting.
"You did good," she said softly. "Back at the Mand. I… I couldn't make my stand. You did."
"You didn't have to. I just had the muscle to make mine."
She shook her head. "It's not about muscle. It's about will. You're still standing. That's something."
I didn't know what to say to that. Not really. So I just gave her a nod.
For the next few hours, we worked side by side, finding more Synsiline than I expected. It clung to everything. It formed under rocks, grew out of tree-like mineral spires, some had grown like roots across boulders. We had to cut them out like tumors. Buzzcut tagged the high-yield ones and marked the terrain for deeper extraction the next day.
By evening, we had collected at least thirteen dozen cores and over three hundred kilograms of raw fragments. Not a bad haul for Day One.
We set up a small shelter using terrain shields from our packs. The storm never let up and it didn't get darker or brighter. The lightning never stopped but inside the glowing dome, with the soft hum of tech and the scent of cooked ration cubes, it almost felt… survivable.
Tomorrow, we'd head deeper. Maybe to the Plains.
Maybe further.
But for tonight, I just sat beside Rythe in the dome, feeling the warmth of the rain against my legs as we listened to the thunder and wondered what waited beyond the light.