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The answer arrived like a cool bell rung in a quiet room.

[System Notification: Object identified. Ancient egg detected. State: Dormant. The system does not yet possess full information. Binding required for deep analysis.]

John turned the black rock-like egg in his palm. It lay heavy and patient, as if it had been waiting for this exact hour and these exact fingers.

How do I bind it? he asked in his mind.

[System Guidance: Host may bind the egg by offering a single drop of blood essence. Procedure: make a shallow cut; the system will extract and refine one drop essence; apply to the shell.

Warning: Essence is not common blood. Do not overdraw.]

John glanced at Fizz, sleeping in a warm curl on his lap, whiskers twitching at a dream only he could see. He kept his voice inside.

Show me how.

[System: Ready.]

John reached into his inventory. The rare dagger appeared in his left hand with the small, satisfying weight of a tool that had done honest work and would do more. The blade was short and bright, the edge clean, the handle wrapped in dark cord. He held his right hand above the egg, steadied his breath, set the very tip of the blade against the pad of his index finger, and drew a quick, neat line.

The cut stung. A bead formed, dark and perfect.

[System: Extracting essence.]

He felt a small tug, like a thread pulled from a sleeve without tearing the sleeve. The bead grew denser, deeper, until it was not red—more like a dark wine with a glint in it. It hung for a heartbeat on the edge of the skin, then fell.

The drop struck the egg.

Light answered. Not blinding, not loud—just a full, steady glow from deep inside the black. It was the light of coal waking, of an ember remembering it had once been a star. It swelled, held, and faded to a low pulse, slow as a patient drum.

Fizz snuffled and curled closer, unbothered.

John kept very still.

One minute crept by.

[System Notification: Binding successful. Host recognized by object. Analysis unlocked.]

Now tell me, John thought.

[System Analysis: Object—Ancient Ant Egg.

Class: Null.

State: Dormant (bound).

Hatch Requirement: Large aggregated nourishment: beast flesh, beast blood, structured mana (stones/cores), sustained infusion period. Current Hatch Progress: 1%.]

John's thumb rubbed the shell without meaning to. Ancient ant egg. Null class. Words, but also a door opening onto a room he had never seen.

What is "Null" class? he asked.

[System Explanation: "Null" denotes an entity not aligned to a single common element. It can adapt, devour, combine. Its growth depends on what it consumes and how the host guides it. Null class entities can become keystones or catastrophes, depending on handling and feeding.]

So it will become what I feed it, he thought.

[System: Broadly true. Pattern and pace will matter.]

How much will it need?

[System: Uncertain. Age unknown. Shell density is extremely high. Estimated total required nourishment is beyond small stockpiles. The system cannot predict the exact amount. Progress will rise as you feed. Current progress: 1%.]

Where do I get that much flesh and blood? And mana stones? he asked. I am a first-year student. I don't have piles of coins. I don't have a forest of beasts.

He glanced across the room toward the short square door with the iron plate —STORAGE— squatting in the wall like a tight mouth. The place where the academy kept what was left after training—the parts that needed counting and burning and sending away.

"Could I use that?" he asked. "The storage room. Beast parts."

[System: The host may utilize stored beast remains if access is lawful. The egg cannot digest raw material in its current state. However: the host's void can pulverize and refine remains into a form the egg can absorb. Procedure: feed through void, then channel to egg.]

John's breath found a new shape. "Grind in the void. Feed the egg."

"How do I put the egg into the void without losing it? he asked. The black place is big. Endless. If it drifts…"

[System Warning: Accurate. The host's void space is unbounded relative to the host's current control. Objects released fully within may be unrecoverable until significantly stronger. Risk: permanent loss.]

Is there a way to anchor it?

[System Guidance: Two-layer pinning is possible. One: a continuous mana sheath around the egg.

Two: a micro singularity tether —host-defined— set not to pull but to hold, linked to the host's core. This will stabilize the egg in a fixed locus within the host's void tunnel.]

"Cost?" John asked.

[System Cost Estimate: High. The mana sheath + tether will consume ~50% of your available mana pool continuously while active. Current pool at Circle Two: approx. 2000 units. Available remainder during sheath: ~1000 units. In combat, endurance and burst capacity will be reduced.]

John weighed it. Half his well, always pouring, to keep the egg safe and near.

"I am in the academy, he thought. Fights can happen, but classes come first. If I can hatch this, if it becomes what you say —keystone or catastrophe— I want it on my side, not outside my reach."

[System Additional Warning: If your active mana ever falls to zero while the sheath and tether are engaged, the pin will fail. The egg will slip into an unbounded void. Recovery would then require a future level of control and power of void that the host does not currently possess. Do not allow your mana to be fully depleted.]

John turned that sentence like a stone in his hand. Do not empty the well. Leave something at the bottom. He pictured a bucket bouncing off a dry floor. He pictured the egg going dark and small and gone into a place even his mind could not name.

I understand, he thought. I will not drain to zero.

There was a silence. Not empty — just the kind that sits with you when a hard choice is made and the room changes shape because of it.

He looked down. Fizz's head had slid to the side, cheek squished against John's knee, mouth open a little in a soft, foolish O. A dot of dried lather clung to one whisker like a medal from the war on grime.

John smoothed the fur between Fizz's ears with the back of two fingers. "Rest," he whispered, not aloud. "You did enough for ten."

He steadied his breath and spoke in thought: Let's set the anchor.

[System: Begin when ready.]

"Not yet," he thought. "Not alone. I will take the first step with Fizz awake. I want more eyes, even small ones. And we will need the storage room open. No thieving. No sneaking. I will write it in the ledger. We will move like students, not rats."

[System: A cautious approach is approved.]

Teach me the shape anyway, John thought. I want to see it in my mind.

[System Instruction: Visualize the egg floating before you in a small pocket of clear water. Wrap a thin film around it — your mana, steady and unbroken. Not pressure; presence. Now, at the very top of the shell, imagine a point where night kisses it. Seed a grain-sized tether there —a "quiet star"— that answers only to your core. The tether does not pull; it holds. Keep the film fed. Keep the star quiet but awake.]

John did as told in the space behind his eyes. He saw it: the shell in a calm bubble, a shimmer touching it all around, and at the top, a single point where a dark met shell was like a fingertip touching a bell and asking it not to ring yet. He felt the slow tug of it. He felt the cost. His chest tightened a hair where his mana lived.

Enough, he told himself. Later.

He set the dagger back into his inventory. It vanished as if it had never been, as the room swallowed small shows readily if you let it.

He rolled the egg once more in his palm, then tucked it safely into the inner pocket above his heart, where the new duty slate and Sera's note already rode. He patted it gently.

"We will feed you," he thought toward the small hum inside. "Not with stolen meat. With our work."

Fizz snored a tiny snore, the kind that makes cats judge you. John almost smiled again.

The room's lamps had gone pale. Dawn had pushed up on the edges; the shapes in the room no longer needed flame to be themselves. The scrubbed sections looked cleaner in day-gray. They were not shining. Not yet. But they were honest now. There is a kind of clean that lives in honesty before it lives in light.

"Just a little," John said to the air, meaning sleep. He slid down along the wall until his head rested against his bundled coat. His arm curved around Fizz without thinking, the way men who work together keep each other from rolling off carts in bad roads.

[System Reminder: Host has chosen to pursue the egg's hatch. Consumption plan pending. Void-pin procedure pending. Caution flags set for mana floor.]

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