Chapter Twelve: Ethereal gland

Dawnsreach sanctum

Stuart Domain, AKA Bastion Pass

Sol Continent

Terra, Gaea, solar system

Milky Way Galaxy

Luminary Star sector

19th Vetraeus cycle, 50 New Solaris Prime

Sam returned to the Craftlab—a spacious, arcane-infused chamber tucked beneath the Golden Dawn stronghold. It was a place of perpetual hums and whirring mana coils, a sanctuary of invention she shared with Emily and Ginny. The walls were lined with crystalline storage units and floating holo-scrolls, their shimmering glyphs softly illuminating the darkened corners. In the center, where all three workstations branched like the petals of a trinity flower, Sam sat at her own desk, its surface cluttered with half-finished enchantments, disassembled magitech cores, and the strange spherical object she had retrieved from the Dungeon.

She hadn't dared open it yet.

Instead, she pored over the files spread across her desk, each one tied to the Wryward Incident. Screens flickered with archived footage and written accounts, her gaze fixed on a particular segment that had long troubled her.

June Wryward's ice manifestation had reportedly annihilated the Infernals on the train. At least, that's what the report claimed. But Sam had been there. She had felt the resonance of that cold magic—and it wasn't strong enough. Not nearly enough to obliterate an Infernal-class demon. And it certainly didn't explain the other bodies, the scorched marks, the bloodless wounds. Something else had moved through that train. Silent. Lethal. Possibly another Awakened.

Sam leaned back in her chair, the soft hiss of pneumatics releasing a breath with her. She exhaled through her nose, long and low, before muttering, "There was someone else..."

Still, the answers would have to wait.

With a flick of her fingers, the report minimized into a rune-locked tab. She turned her attention back to the object—the mysterious orb resting at the heart of her bench like a forbidden fruit.

Around it, her workspace was an organized chaos of parchment and parchmentless data scrolls. Arcane texts lay splayed open beside handwritten theorems. Some were scribbled drafts of her own, others were joint publications with Emily or Ginny, touching on topics like Thaumaturgic Polarity or Ethereal Frequency Compression. A side stack contained rough sketches of enchantment lattices, and her most recent notes: On the Reactions of Alchemically Tempered Earth to Elemental Imbuement.

Crafting was more than a discipline to Sam—it was instinct. Her Ability Factor gave her affinity with the Earth and all its countless forms: metal, clay, stone, crystal, even dust. This affinity made her naturally suited to the art of Crafting—what some still called Forgemastery. Crafters, or Artificers as the classical texts named them, were cultivators who channeled Mana through material form. They shaped enchanted blades, wove seals into armor, and engineered magitech devices capable of feats indistinguishable from sorcery. Emily had taught her the foundations, passing on the practical insights of the Stregha method. But Sam had branched out quickly, forging her own theories and adapting techniques to suit her affinity.

Now, all three of them—Emily, Ginny, and herself—shared this sacred space. Here, theory became reality. Thought became form. Sam reached out, fingers brushing over the surface of the sphere. It was cool to the touch, unnaturally so, and the material was unlike anything she had ever encountered. Not metal. Not crystal. Not even true stone. She summoned her Internal Sense again, focusing her Odic force like a needle threading through its structure. Nothing. A void. As if the sphere rejected all attempts to read it.

Frustrated, she whispered, "Even the container isn't of this world..."

Her fingers curled around its grooves. There were no visible seams, and yet, through some instinct or perhaps subtle design, she found the mechanism. She gave it a twist, and a soft click echoed through the chamber. Then the sphere opened.

A wave of radiant white light exploded outward—not violently, but like a sunrise piercing through shadow. It flooded the entire lab in brilliance, bathing everything in a divine glow. Her notes fluttered under the pressureless pulse. Her eyes squinted against the luminance, and for a breathless heartbeat, the world disappeared.

What the hell is this?

She shielded her face, heart pounding, as a low hum began to pulse from the open sphere—an ancient rhythm, like the heartbeat of something slumbering beneath the skin of reality. Then, suddenly, everything went white.

The world around her vanished.

No walls. No ceiling. No sound.

Sam floated in an endless white expanse, the very air still and thick with unseen potential. It wasn't silence—it was the hush that came before the birth of sound. Before thought.

Before form.

And then… it appeared.

Suspended before her was a massive orb, but not like the sphere she had opened. This one radiated geometric complexity—a swirling mandala formed of countless interlocking star-patterns and glowing latticework. It shimmered with starlight, each thread pulsing with ethereal energy. Runes danced within its rings, each shaped like miniature constellations, their trajectories charting out paths through the void like celestial equations. The entire structure was alive, a breathing diagram of cosmic order and metaphysical design.

Sam felt it before she understood it. Information flooded into her, not as words or images, but as knowing. It filled the space behind her eyes and settled in her bones like sacred fire.

[Host has gained the Terra Constellation Formula.][Knowledge of cultivation technique has been transferred into Host. Gaea Spell System has encoded the information within Host's consciousness.]

The voice of the Gaea Spell System echoed inside her mind—calm, emotionless, yet familiar. It had always been there in the background, nudging her forward, guiding her evolution. A quiet architect of her meteoric growth. But this… this was something new. Something foundational.

So this is how it teaches…

She blinked, and the world returned.

Sam gasped as she came to, lying flat on the polished floor of the Craftlab, her limbs trembling with aftershocks of the spiritual transfer. Her breath came shallow, chest rising and falling rapidly as her senses recalibrated.

"Sam?"

Emily stood just inside the doorway, the shadows of her tall frame cast by the last echoes of light still flickering off the now-dormant sphere. She didn't run—Emily never let her emotions override her—but her aura reached out, scanning, subtle and controlled. Her concern hummed in the air between them.

"What happened?" she asked, striding over and extending a hand.

Sam took it gratefully, rising to her feet with a soft groan. She bent down to retrieve the sphere. It was quiet now, its core dimmed, the glowing heart it once held now completely vanished.

"It was a cultivation formula," Sam said, steadying her breath.

Emily's brows rose ever so slightly, recognition dawning behind her composed expression. "A formula? You mean… for entering the second stage?"

Sam nodded, a smile beginning to spread across her face. "It's called the Terra Constellation Formula. From what I gathered, it's Divine Grade. Not just advanced—it's profound. I can feel the structure of it inside me."

Emily's eyes narrowed slightly in thought. "I see… But I don't get it. If it's about ascending to the second stage, couldn't you have just asked Vuelo? Or even your mother for—"

She caught herself, the words trailing off like smoke.

"I did ask," Sam said softly. "I asked Sophia for the Sinclair and Vysileaf formulas. She offered both. But I later declined it."

Emily blinked. "Why?"

"Because I already knew the Vysileaf formula," Sam replied, her voice quieter now. "Thanks to Inastasia's memories."

Emily inhaled sharply. "Inastasia… You mean the one you fused with in that Echo Field. Your…"

"My past life," Sam said, her eyes distant with memory.

Fifty years ago, during one of the early explorations into the Echo Fields—those mystical zones of time-locked memory simulations—Sam had encountered a version of herself. Or rather, a soul echo named Inastasia. When their two souls fused within the Field, Sam's spiritual matrix had undergone a complete recalibration. She returned changed, her Essence twisted into something greater—more layered. More ancient. She didn't understand it at first. Not until she began researching the lingering aftereffects. That's when she discovered the truth. A truth buried in the esoteric corners of soul cultivation theory.

It was called the Ethereal Gland. It was a metaphysical organ—an energy center embedded deep within the cognitive-spiritual nexus of the brain—believed to function as the gateway between memory, breath, and soul awareness.

Anatomically, the Ethereal Gland was closely aligned with both the prefrontal cortex and the pineal gland, nestled just above the bridge of the nose and behind the center of the brow. This sacred point, often referred to by cultivators and mystics alike as the Crown of Insight or the Seat of Ethereal Breath, marked the convergence of intellect, intuition, and Essence perception.

The Ethereal Gland acted not as a conduit for raw energy like the Soul Core, but as a spiritual echo chamber—a resonant vault that preserved the soul's deepest impressions. It retained imprints of mental patterns, emotional signatures, and the mana frequencies tied to past experiences. Over time, it became a memory crown, storing the remnants of prior lives, battle instincts, and ancestral spells—echoes of the self that existed before awakening.

It did not bind or channel energy directly, but it offered something perhaps even more precious: remembrance—of who one had been, and the untapped knowledge still woven into the soul's unfolding path. It was from this organ that the Gaea spell system was located, and it was through the system, that the Ethereal gland was able to allow Sam access knowledge and skills from her past life.

When Sam had awakened, she had awakened to combat skills that her father had instilled in her as a child, skills she had forgotten after her powers were sealed. The Ethereal gland was what made it possible for her to retain those skills in her muscle memory. It was also responsible for Sam's innate understanding of Mana control, which allowed her to grow fast.

All in all, the organ was allowed Sam access to the knowledge she had accumulated from her past life. Yes, past life as in that Sam was a Reincarnator. Yet....there was something else she had just learned from this spiritual transfer.

"What is it," Emily asked. She had sensed the worry within Sam's mind, something that should be the opposite as she finally gotten what she wanted.

"As much as I would like to jump straight to the second stage, it's still going to take a lot of time," Sam said. "Time I don't have." Sam looked at the mess of data and research that laid on her desk Emily went over to her side of the room. "I need to get into an Echo field,"

"Do you seriously think that the answer to Terra's problem still lies in the Echo field," Emily asked.

"I'm sure it does," Sam said. She had just picked up a data scroll when her Zodiak began to flare up. Sam took it out to see a call from Sophia Sinclair, her mother. Who was one of the Custodians of Dawns, part of the neutral forces that had calmed the Sol continent. Sophia seems to want to meet up with Sam, for some important meeting. Sam sighed and excused herself to Emily.

-

As the door slid shut behind Sam, Emily exhaled deeply, her breath heavy with a weight she hadn't fully acknowledged until now. She stood there for a moment, suspended in the stillness of the Craftlab, surrounded by the quiet hum of dormant machines and the fading echoes of Sam's departure. Everyone was moving forward. Evolving. Ascending. And yet, Emily felt as though she were standing still—like a phantom clinging to the edges of someone else's story.

Rex had already broken into the Sage Realm. Leon too—his aura had become blinding, even in its calm. And now Sam was on the verge of reaching the second stage, having just inherited a Divine-grade cultivation formula. Their growth was like the relentless bloom of stars, one after another illuminating the night sky of their destinies.

And Emily? She hadn't taken a single step.

To ascend beyond the Awakening Stage, one needed more than raw talent. It required a cultivation formula—a sacred method passed down through bloodlines, designed to guide a practitioner through the intricate steps of soul harmonization and energy refinement. But these formulas were not universal. Each one was tailored to the nature of its house, its bearer, and its history.

Take the Celestial Houses of the Divine Federation, for example. Each of the Twelve bore their own unique formulas from the families of the house, formulas that were refined across generations, polished by trials and success. These methods were elegant, powerful, efficient. They made the impossible seem attainable.

But Emily... Emily had no lineage to speak of. She wasn't born into a powerful well known family like Leon and Rex. She wasn't given a name bathed in divine radiance or a legacy tied to the stars. She was an orphan. Her hand trembled slightly as a jolt of pain lanced through her skull like a crack snapping through glass. She winced, clutching her head, trying to hold her thoughts together.

I'm an orphan from...

Another surge of pain struck, more brutal than the last. Her knees buckled slightly, and she gripped the edge of the table for support, her breath hitching. It was as if something inside her—some wall or barrier—was shattering the closer she got to remembering. The pain wasn't physical. It was psychic. A splintering of her inner world, a fracturing of something long buried.

The more I try to remember… the worse it gets.

She grimaced as the pain ebbed, but the damage was done. Her thoughts were muddled, her memories fogged over. And yet, even through that haze, a truth stood out—one she couldn't deny.

She had changed.

Not in the same overt ways as Leon or Rex or even Sam, but something within her had transformed. Emily used to feel nothing. Her face had once been a mask, her emotions sealed behind mental wards crafted to suppress the ache of absence. She couldn't even feel physical pain—not truly. Her body was a vessel of control. Of silence. But something had broken on Terra.

She had died. Or come close enough that the veil between life and death had thinned to nothing. She had crossed it again and again. And every time, something inside her cracked just a little more.

That pain—the real pain—had changed her. It had unlocked something within her soul realm. A shift, subtle but seismic. She could feel it when she meditated. When she dreamed. Even now, in the silence of this lab, it throbbed like a second heartbeat. But for some reason… she refused to look at it.

It wasn't denial exactly. It was more like instinct. A primal refusal. A knowing that whatever it was waiting for her behind those fractured memories… it wasn't something she was ready to face.

And so, every time her thoughts drifted toward her past, the pain returned. A flare of agony. A mental failsafe. A warning.

Her childhood… in…

She hissed as another spike of pain split her mind. This time she let it win. Her thoughts dulled. Her focus collapsed into numbness. With a shuddering breath, Emily looked down at the table and summoned something from her dimensional band—a large, cold object thudding softly onto the metallic surface.

The Automaton.

The one they had fought in the dungeon. A synthetic demon, cloaked in armor and secrets. She was supposed to hand it off to Ginny, let her analyze its inner workings with her usual brilliance. But something about it pulled at Emily. A whisper of familiarity. A resonance. Maybe if she couldn't move forward like the others, she could uncover something. Learn something no one else could.

So, without a word, she pulled her tools from the drawer and sat down, the gleam of the Automaton's shell reflecting in her eyes. If the past refused to let her in… then maybe the future could offer a way out.