Chapter 51: Rock-solid performance
Fabrisse found himself back in the Stratal Wing less than twenty-four hours after nearly being disqualified from it. He couldn’t afford to slack off now, not after his mentor Lorvan had been humiliated by Rubidi the other day. Min Hajin was already there when he walked in, bending over a glass viewing trough that shimmered faintly with internal aether. He didn’t look up. “You’re two minutes early.”
“Good morning, Assistant,” Fabrisse muttered. He made his way to the side counter where someone had stacked a crate labeled “ORE SAMPLE L-7-B – UNCLASSIFIED / DRAFTED.” The crate was somewhat splintered and smelled like burnt copper, which meant he was probably about to make new friends with some minorly radioactive gravel.
“I am not giving you a big assignment,” Min Hajin said. “I’m still technically not supposed to be giving you any assignments. But good with latent resonance theory, you are.”
He wants me to sort rocks again.
Min Hajin nudged a slate tab across the counter. “L-7-B. Evaluate. Tag anything that pulses.”
Fabrisse scanned the manifest. There was no classification, no comments, no hazard flags. Only a lot number and a single line: Harvested near Calder Shelf. Caution: unfiltered pull. That meant the ore was harvested without standard purification or resonance stabilization protocols. It could shift properties unexpectedly and was more dangerous to handle.
Min continued, “I checked. It’s boring now. Go learn something from it.” That removed the ‘dangerous’ part.
Fabrisse pulled on the gloves—standard spell-woven cotton with fray-resistant charm stitching—and reached into the crate. The first chunk was a jagged prism of something quartz-adjacent. It had a dull shine and no thermal imprint. It was likely inert. He set it aside.
The next shard was more interesting. It had hairline fractures and a faint purplish hue under light, and was warm on contact. The resonance depth seemed shallow but not dead. Possible mana ferrite? But . . . off-pattern.
He brought it closer to the viewing glyph, watching for the telltale flicker of latent aether.
There was a glow at the edge of his glyph-vision. Not from the stone—but from his glyph itself.
| [Quest Received: Applied Rock-onomics] Objective: Evaluate and rate the use-potential of raw materials from Ore Load L-7-B with at least a 75% accuracy. Submit findings to Supervisor Min Hajin. Bonus Objective: Correctly identify a misfiled or mislabeled mineral with latent or unstable aetheric potential. Reward: EXP +75 | FP + 2 | Earth Thaumaturgy Mastery + 1 Bonus Reward: Skill – Stone Resonant Carry (Rank I) (Passive)
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