Stonewoke never slept.
It only shifted.
When the first light crept down the eastern face of the city, it did not arrive as warmth. It arrived as noise. Chains groaned as lifts hauled cargo from the lower wards. Vendors shouted prices already worn thin from repetition. Somewhere above, in the Gilded Rise, bells rang to mark the opening of guild offices and counting halls. Somewhere below, in the Pits, someone was already bleeding, and someone else was already being paid to pretend not to see it.
Kael moved through it all with the practiced ease of someone who had learned which currents to follow and which to avoid.
The Crossway Ward was awake by the time he reached the main thoroughfare. Caravans from the western docks clogged the streets, their wheels coated in dried salt and grit from the Solmere roads. Porters argued over load weights. Apprentices ran errands with half-memorized lists clutched in their hands. The air smelled of metal filings, oil, and yesterday's bread reheated for a second sale.
He adjusted the strap of his satchel and kept walking.
Stonewoke sat at an inconvenient place in the world, and that inconvenience was its greatest value. It was too far inland to be a port city and too close to the core routes to be ignored. Traders passed through whether they wanted to or not. Hunters rested here between contracts. Guilds used it as a filter, letting the weak burn out before they reached places that mattered.
If you stood on the high bridges near the Gilded Rise, you could see the roadways stretch east toward Kernsion, the capital of the Virellon Shards. Those roads were wide, stone-laid, and guarded. They led to academies, to recognition, to names that carried weight.
If you stood where Kael walked now, you saw something else.
The roads here bent downward.
They sloped into the Pits, where Stonewoke's foundations had sunk over decades of excavation, collapse, and quiet, unregistered expansion. Old tunnels honeycombed the ground beneath the ward. Some led to abandoned mana veins. Some led to sealed dungeons no one claimed responsibility for. Some led nowhere at all.
Kael had grown up learning which ones were safe.
He turned down an alley that cut behind a cooper's shop and emerged near the southern lift platform. A line had already formed. Workers waited with crates of scrap, alchemical residue, and half-functional components salvaged from the lower tunnels.
Today's work would not take long.
That had been intentional.
He stepped onto the platform when it was his turn and nodded to the lift operator, a thick-armed man with a permanent scowl and a Tier 1 insignia sewn into his vest. The chains rattled as the platform descended, light fading as stone swallowed the sky.
The Pits greeted him the same way they always did.
Quietly.
The deeper levels of Stonewoke lacked the chaos of the upper wards. Sound didn't carry well here. It was absorbed by stone, by old earth, by the weight of everything built on top. The air was cooler, damp with mineral scent and stagnant mana.
Kael stepped off the platform and followed a familiar route through the lower tunnels. Faint glow-lamps lined the walls, their light uneven and flickering. Someone had scratched tally marks into the stone near one junction. Another tunnel bore warning symbols painted over older, faded ones.
He passed them without slowing.
This was not his first descent, and it would not be his last.
The worksite lay near the edge of a partially collapsed extraction chamber, where an old mana vent had ruptured years ago and never been properly sealed. The city had deemed it stable enough for limited labor, which meant it was stable until someone unlucky proved otherwise.
Kael set down his satchel and rolled his shoulders once before getting to work.
He checked the structural supports first, tapping each brace with the handle of his tool to listen for weakness. The sound rang solid. He exhaled slowly and moved closer to the vent.
The task was simple.
Clear the residual buildup. Extract any salvageable fragments. Record fluctuations if the vent spiked.
Simple did not mean safe.
He worked steadily, conserving stamina, keeping his breathing even. The System tracked everything, whether people acknowledged it or not. Wasteful movement meant wasted growth. He had learned that early.
Time passed.
Sweat dampened his shirt. The glow-lamps flickered once as mana pressure shifted, then stabilized. Kael noted the change on a slate and continued.
When the last fragment was secured and the readings logged, he straightened and checked his internal count.
Close.
Not yet.
He packed his tools, wiped his hands, and turned toward a narrower passage branching off from the chamber. This one sloped further down, toward an auxiliary tunnel the city no longer monitored closely.
That, too, had been intentional.
The Old Man had chosen the task carefully.
Kael moved deeper, boots scraping softly against stone. The tunnel opened into a low cavern where broken equipment lay scattered in disuse. A rusted pneumatic piston leaned against one wall, its surface pitted and scarred. Near it, half-buried in debris, sat a cracked mana-vent casing no one had bothered to retrieve.
Most people would have ignored them.
Kael did not.
He crouched, examining the casing first. The fracture lines were old, the mana channels warped but not dead. There was still a faint resonance if you knew how to listen.
He added it to his satchel.
The piston came next. Heavy, awkward, clearly obsolete. Its internal seals were damaged, but the compression chamber was intact.
He hesitated only a moment before taking it as well.
The extra weight pulled at his shoulder as he stood.
That was fine.
He turned back toward the lift platform, retracing his steps. The return trip felt different, though nothing had changed. The same glow-lamps. The same quiet. The same damp air.
When he reached the platform and signaled for ascent, the chains groaned again, hauling him back toward daylight.
The Crossway Ward greeted him with sound and movement once more. He stepped off the platform and adjusted his satchel, ignoring the curious glances from a pair of younger laborers. Salvage from the Pits was common enough. The specifics rarely mattered.
He made his way toward the eastern edge of the ward, where the buildings grew older and the foot traffic thinned.
That was where the Old Man waited.
The structure he used as shelter had once been a watch post overlooking a now-sealed tunnel entrance. Time had softened its edges. Moss crept along the stone. A single wooden chair sat outside, angled to catch the afternoon light.
The Old Man occupied it, as he always did.
He looked up as Kael approached, sharp eyes taking in the satchel, the dust on Kael's boots, the steady rhythm of his breathing.
"You're late," the Old Man said.
Kael shook his head. "I'm on time."
A pause.
The Old Man grunted. "Sit."
Kael did, lowering himself onto the stone step opposite the chair. He set the satchel between them and loosened the strap.
The Old Man did not touch it.
"How close?" he asked.
Kael closed his eyes briefly, feeling the familiar weight of the System's invisible ledger.
"Very."
The Old Man nodded once. No praise. No warning. Just acknowledgment.
"You did the work cleanly," he said after a moment. It was not a question.
"Yes."
Another pause.
People passed at a distance, careful not to linger. The Old Man was not officially anything. He held no rank, wore no insignia. And yet, no one bothered him.
Kael had once asked why.
The Old Man had told him that some people were remembered longer than their usefulness.
"You'll finish today," the Old Man said. "Or you won't. Either way, Level Ten will come."
Kael met his gaze. "You planned it that way."
"I plan most things that way."
Kael allowed himself a faint smile.
They sat in silence for a while longer. Eventually, footsteps approached from the street, lighter and less cautious.
"Still alive, I see," a familiar voice called.
Kael turned as his friend emerged from between two buildings, waving idly. His clothes bore the marks of recent work, but his expression was easy.
"Barely," Kael replied.
His friend laughed and came closer, eyeing the satchel. "You finally hitting it today?"
"Looks like it."
"About time. I'm betting you get something boring. Defensive class, maybe."
Kael shrugged. "I can work with boring."
"Sure you can." His friend grinned. "I'll settle for anything that keeps you from hauling scrap forever."
The Old Man snorted softly.
The friend glanced at him, then quickly looked away. "Uh. Right. I'll… see you later."
He didn't wait for a response before leaving.
The sun dipped lower as the day wore on. Kael rose when the Old Man did, following him without comment toward the final stretch of the task. The auxiliary tunnel lay just beyond the watch post, partially collapsed but passable.
They worked together this time, clearing debris, stabilizing a weakened support beam. It was routine. Efficient.
When the last stone was set and the beam held, Kael felt it.
A subtle shift. A tightening, like a knot pulled snug.
He straightened slowly.
The Old Man stepped back.
"There it is," he said.
The world did not change.
Stonewoke did not pause to acknowledge the moment. The city kept breathing, kept grinding, kept ignoring him.
But the System did not.
A translucent window unfolded before Kael's vision, clean and precise.
He looked at it calmly.
────────────────────────────────────
STATUS WINDOW
────────────────────────────────────
Name: Kael
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Class: Unassigned
Affiliation: None
Tier: 0
Level: 9 → 10
CORE ATTRIBUTES
STR: 12
DEX: 14
AGI: 13
CON: 11
INT: 15
WIS: 14
LUK: 4
RESOURCES
HP: 120
MP: 90
STM: 140
SKILLS
• Basic Labor Proficiency
• Tool Handling
SYSTEM NOTES
• Level 10 Reached
• Class Selection Pending
────────────────────────────────────
Kael exhaled.
Tomorrow, he would have a name for what he was.
Today, he simply stood at the edge of it.