Beyond The System-Chapter 286: Foundation Scaffolding

“We’ve done all we can here,” Elric said, addressing me more directly than anyone else. “We should move on now.”
I grimaced. It wasn’t that I thought he was wrong—he wasn’t. But it still tasted sour, turning away while my hands felt empty. Leaving without doing more.
Outside, children still played in the filth as if it were normal. Men and women still wore gaunt expressions on bodies too thin. And the sour smell was still soaked into the walls like it had been sealed there.
Thea placed a hand on my shoulder, steady and warm. “And the longer we stay, the more likely someone will find out that we’re here. Then…”
Sia finished for her, blunt where Thea was careful. “They’ll take the orb back and install a new mayor. Bring everything right back to what it was before. For now, they’ll be better off.”
“Yeah,” I said with a slow exhale. “I got it… Did you find anyone worth telling about the island? Who’s willing?”
Elric nodded and held up two fingers. “Two families. Both have experience with farming. They’ll bring crops and seed with them.”
“Who are they?” I pressed. “And how will they get there safely?”
Elric’s mouth tilted into a knowing smile. “I let Drake know. He’ll have something prepared. Abandon identities. Transport. The whole thing. They’ll be fine.”
I nodded, not bothering to pry. For now, it felt wiser to avoid the brothers’ machinations, and whatever quiet channels they used to speak across distance. If something was vital, Elric wouldn’t hide it. Drake probably wouldn’t either… but he was still unreadable to me.
I waited, letting the rest of my question hang until Elric filled it.
“Both families have several children,” he continued. “One family’s oldest is around Mei and Vel’s age. Five kids total: three boys and two girls. Two of the boys are teenagers.”
I nodded, silently urging him on.
But Elric stopped, suddenly sheepish. “The other… uh—” He turned to Sia, wordlessly begging for rescue.
Sia nudged him with her shoulder, playful, hiding a small smile behind her hand. “The other has two girls and one boy. All separated by a year, starting at eighteen and going up. Old enough to take care of themselves.”
“Right…” I said, with just one more question I couldn’t help asking. “And their talent?”
Sia nodded and gestured toward Thea, apparently the one who’d tested them.
“Two girls were able to sense World Force after some time,” Thea said, then trailed off. The rest of the answer was obvious in the silence she left behind.
It hit me then how little I understood about what came next for people like that. “Can we just try again?” I asked. “Eventually they’d acclimate to the feeling, right?”
Thea’s expression tightened into something complicated, a strained smile. “It’s not that we can’t, but time sunk versus what’s gained. And even if they eventually sense something, training would take so long they could be Marcus’ age by the time they form a Harmonic Foundation.”
I nodded, understanding. Maybe one day we’d have the time and safety to let some take that long road. There was nothing wrong with forming a foundation late. But who would carry them for all those years? Who would protect them long enough for it to matter? For now, it was better to leave it.
Still, the thought planted a deeper worry in me.
This was a world where power decided everything. The Engineers existed, but I knew almost nothing about the price of that peace, or how fragile it really was. And by the very nature of this world… if people like Sei or Amei didn’t exist, maybe it wouldn’t be so different from this continent after all.
Sei was powerful, though I wasn’t even sure he was the one in charge there. His strength rivaled gods. Just thinking back to that battle with Serith and the other Stewards of worlds left a dull weight in my chest. Humbling. It wasn’t hard to imagine Sei as the pillar that kept the peace standing.
But in the end… it was only that. An assumption.
If we grew into something much bigger, what would it take?
“Their Blessings?” I asked.
“Mostly basic battle Blessings,” Elric said. “Swordsman, axeman, that sort of thing.” Then he hesitated, scratching the back of his head. “One’s a hoeman… Never seen that one before. That’s the husband with the older kids, I think.”
Sia nodded, confirming it.
“A what?” I asked.
“A hoeman,” Sia repeated, like that cleared everything up. “You know. As in a farming hoe.”
I exhaled through my nose in disbelief. “And what? The missions tell him to fight with it? Or farm?”
She rocked her head side to side. “It… yeah. You know, actually I’m not sure. Hoeman felt like enough to end the conversation about Blessings with him.”
“Okay,” I said, letting the oddity slide away. “It’s only them at first. But when more people come—when an actual community starts to form—there’ll have to be strict governance.”
Elric nodded confidently, smiling brightly. “You made me head of discipline. Don’t worry about all that.”
That only made me worry more.
We shifted the conversation, letting the rest of it sit alongside our planned departure. “So,” I began, squaring myself up, “I’ve got some new things to talk about.”
I started laying out what Thea and I had found, both Grand Carving and Animora. I explained the basics of Grand Carving first, and Elric helped translate the hard part: the feelings, the internal cues, the subtle differences you couldn’t describe without sounding insane. Thea scribbled rapidly as we spoke, capturing all the extra details I didn’t note out.
“The main danger,” I added, “is that I haven’t gained all the elements yet. Altering your bodies permanently could severely affect your training down the line.”
Thea bit the edge of her lip, thinking hard.
“And not everyone can have my level of control,” Elric added,
so
helpfully.
“Peter?” Sia called, dragging my attention away from Elric and pointedly ignoring her obnoxious lover. “How were you able to do this without messing up your own Inner Realm?”
I hesitated a beat then answered. I explained the unique Harmonic Foundation I had. I mentioned the assistance I received from another soul residing within me… but I didn’t elaborate.
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust them with the truth about Drybel.
I just didn’t know who was listening. My senses were sharp, but like I’d said, that battle had humbled me. It had reminded me that sharp didn’t mean safe. Who knew what could be listening at any time.
Even for higher beings, something like the Voidseed could mean a lot.
“So…” Sia said after I finished, brow knitting. “That person builds?”
“Yes,” I replied evenly.
“Then… why don’t we?” she said, like it was the most obvious answer in the world. “Build. Cores.”
“I—uh…” My thoughts stalled. “Hmmm.”
Thea shook her head immediately. “The only way to stabilize a core is over the Nexus. Anything else fades eventually, and all that energy is lost.”
“Actually,” Elric cut in, jumping to defend Sia’s idea, “we’ve never experimented much with keeping them active. What causes the instability? Lack of energy? Placement? Of course, the Nexus is the center of power, so—”
“It’s likely internal Force supply,” Thea guessed, finishing the thought for him, eyes flashing with quick, brilliant sparks against the gray storm of her irises.
“But that kind of work could take a long time,” I said, not rejecting the idea so much as weighing it, “and a massive amount of supply… if it even works. And then there’d be maintenance.”
“Building might take a while, but…” Sia lifted a hand in my direction. “We’ve got
you
, and the veins.”
Right. Between my Void Seed and the Dragon Veins, I could draw an enormous amount of World Force when I needed to. Enough to make “impossible” feel probable.
“And the cores already produce more Internal Force than we need,” Elric added. “We can redirect that to maintenance. Like you said,
if
it works. And if we want to adjust things, we just let the cores dissolve.”
“And we don’t have to start big,” Sia said, simple and steady. “Small changes. One at a time. We test it the way you tested it. These feelings might not end up identical for everyone, and even if they are, we could still get different results from combinations. Unique paths.”
Change was inevitable.
Grand Carving had been foundational for us, really, pre-foundational. A crude, necessary step with a single purpose: increase flow speed, and with it, diffusion.
But now?
Efficiency would climb. Power could branch, not just upward, but outward into shapes that suited the person holding it. With new capabilities came new doorways, and doors meant routes no one had walked before.
And anyone we taught wouldn’t have to crawl through the first steps the way we had. They could arrive here immediately, standing where it had taken us blood and risk to reach.
I glanced around the room, at their faces, at the careful attention in Thea’s eyes and the restless certainty in Sia’s.
My expression hardened.
“It may be premature,” I said, “but there’s a matter we need to handle first.”
Thea nodded, just as serious. “We did the research, but…”
I understood what she was really saying. I’d led them toward the discovery, but I hadn’t crafted this.
It had been obvious to her. The true creator.
“The hell is wrong with you two?” Elric groaned.
“Sia,” I said. “The name.”
She stiffened at the sound of her name, then realized what I meant and squeezed her eyes shut. “You had me worried.”
I shook my head once.
“This is serious,” I said, and meant every word.
One second. Two. Three.
Then—
“Foundation Scaffolding.”