After the group draw settled and the last bracket lit up on the giant screen, the host returned to the stage with a smile too bright for the mood in the room.
"Before we move to the close of today's East Coast Press Conference," he said, voice full of practiced excitement, "our sponsors and research partners would like to share several breakthroughs that may shape not just the diver league, but the future of humanity itself."
That changed the air at once.
The teams stopped talking to one another and looked toward the stage. Reporters reset their cameras, sponsors leaned forward. Phones rose. Even the divers who had been sneering at rivals a minute ago now turned their heads. Public fights, league draws, and petty power games mattered, but not as much as this.
Because in the new world, science had become another front line.
The first logo to rise onto the screens was polished silver and dark green.
Stephan and Kropcke
Phong knew the name already. Stephan Ellison's company. Pharmacy. Too much money, too much reach, and the kind of ambition that looked humane only because it had learned to smile for cameras.
Stephan took the stage himself.
He walked with the kind of old wealth that never had to hurry, every movement measured, every button on his suit in the right place, every pause placed so the audience would lean in. Behind him, his company banner shifted into diagrams, lab footage, and product concept art. It was science performed for the public. Science made fit for investors.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Stephan said, "we stand at the edge of a medical revolution."
That earned him a murmur and a few flashes.
He continued, smooth as oil.
"Thanks to recent breakthroughs in extraction, filtration, and stabilization technology, Stephan and Kropcke has succeeded in deriving medicinal compounds from several dungeon organisms previously thought too unstable or too dangerous for repeated medical use."
Images appeared behind him in sequence.
Goblin livers preserved in sterile trays. Slime bodily fluid being separated through a rotating machine that glowed with mana-guided filtration rings. Samples of troll blood and the moss that grew across troll flesh. Even still images of Mushroomire blood under magnification, branching and spreading across a white field like tiny rivers of ink.
Each new slide came with a clean summary. Not for experts in the room, but dumbed down enough for the public.
Goblin liver derivatives had shown promise against blood-borne parasites and certain tropical pathogens. Refined slime compounds could be used in wound sealing, tissue hydration, and controlled gel-binding of damaged cells. Troll blood, when stabilized and separated correctly, had demonstrated remarkable cell regeneration properties. Mushroomire blood carried strange adaptive proteins and mana-reactive structures that seemed to help guide healing in wounded tissue without the same cancer risks early researchers had feared.
The screens shifted again.
Now the room saw charts: Lab trial phases, WHO guideline references, controlled testing environments, side effect tracking.
Stephan let the weight of it build before delivering the part everyone had come to hear.
"Pending continued testing and international approval through the proper channels, our executive team expects these medicines may offer treatment, and in some cases likely cure, for malaria and several other diseases long considered untouchable by current medicine."
The first wave of applause broke there, strong and real.
It wasn't because people liked Stephan. But because people understood what malaria meant, what incurable diseases meant, what it meant to take monsters and alchemy and blood and mud and turn all of that into hope people could swallow in pill form. And most importantly, what that meant for the social position of divers as a whole.
Stephan lifted one hand and continued over the applause.
"And beyond that, we believe we are only beginning to understand the regenerative potential of troll and Mushroomire compounds."
Another set of slides appeared.
Amputee rehabilitation models. Limb regrowth concepts. Cell repair acceleration studies. Age-related tissue degeneration reversal models.
People in the room leaned forward. Now the applause became something else. Hunger. Greed. Wonder. Fear.
Stephan said it plainly.
"If licensed, these therapies could allow the regrowth of lost limbs, the restoration of bodily function in those long disabled, and possibly even controlled cellular rejuvenation."
That hit the room like a shockwave.
This was not what people thought of medicines, not anymore. It was borderline miracle. Biological immortality was within grasp.
The photographers near the front nearly trampled each other trying to get a better angle. Reporters started whispering into mics live on air. Several older investors in the sponsor rows looked like they had stopped breathing.
Stephan let it all bloom before stepping into the second half of his message.
"And," he said, smiling just enough, "none of this would have been possible without innovative field thinking."
The screen behind him changed.
Now it showed Olen: A polished league portrait beside footage of trolls. Young trollings. Lab footage. Controlled sample transfers. Moss cultures under bright light.
Stephan turned toward his son and stretched one hand out.
"My son, Olen Ellison, and his team's early field work with troll taming and troll adaptation gave us the push we needed to stabilize multiple formulas in laboratory conditions."
Olen rose in his seat at once, smiling with practiced humility.
Stephan went on.
"Troll blood and troll moss may well become the modern equivalent of horseshoe crab blood for the pharmaceutical industry."
That line landed beautifully.
Easy to quote. Easy to repeat. Easy to spread across headlines in the next hour. It reminded Phong of that scene in Ratatouille where the short chef was creating fast, frozen food concept to his investor.
He could already hear it in his head.
Dungeon Monsters May Cure Disease
Olen Ellison's Innovation Opens New Medical Era
From Troll Blood to Miracle Medicine
He did not clap. Neither did Alex.
Emma did, but only because it was necessary for people in her position, and Phong knew enough by now to hear the irony in it.
Because yes, the science was real. Yes, the medicine mattered. And yes, the room's hope was deserved.
But Stephan had turned his son into a product in the same breath he had turned healing into market dominance.
Then came Daniel.
The shift from pharmacy green to sharp corporate blue felt colder.
Springwell Inc
Daniel Harlan walked to the stage with less grace than Stephan and more certainty. He did not waste time on charm. He carried the tone of a man who expected the room to want what he had to offer before he opened his mouth.
"Humanity's greatest challenge in the dungeon," Daniel said, "has not been combat alone. It has been recovery between dives."
The screens behind him lit up with maps of Floor 1. Highlighted zones, marked routes. Shifting overlays, supply lines. Camp failures, outposts being taken over by monsters. Known hazard clusters.
Then came one highlighted region near the gate to Manhattan.
Daniel let the image sit.
"Springwell Inc's research team has yielded a positive result," he said. "A stable spot. Not too far from the lake of Doom."
That pulled even more attention than Stephan's medicine had from a certain kind of person: Investors, sponsors, government observers, real estate vultures in human skin.
Daniel spoke like a man unveiling the future.
"A truly stable rest point in Floor 1. A place where human divers may safely rest, restock, shop, and recover without returning fully to the surface."
The hall murmured.
Phones came up again.
Daniel built the picture carefully with studio perfect scenario and CGI. Divers resting in comfortable lodgings halfway through a dungeon route, secure rest areas, supply depots, medical treatment, food courts, cinema lounges. A whole town with supply chain services adapted to dungeon conditions created with expensive actors and a studio.
He said it all with the clean confidence of a man who had already sold himself the dream long ago.
"Soon," Daniel said, "it may be possible to take a break from combat, walk into a lit common area, enjoy a hot meal, visit a spa, watch a movie, or even sit in a Starbucks or a KFC in the middle of a dungeon expedition."
That line hit the crowd exactly how he intended. Laughter, surprise, idea of familiarity in a dungeon filled with death and danger, without having to worry about Shifting.
Then the deeper response.
Texts, calls.
Phong saw it happen in real time. Sponsor representatives checked phones, security men turned away to murmur into hidden mics. One government official in the front row began typing so fast his thumb looked blurred.
Because to the public, Daniel was selling comfort. To them, he was selling ownership.
Long lasting infrastructure. Stable territory. The right to plant brands, money, and state influence inside the dungeon like stakes in fresh ground. The people remembered Horns of the Earth. They had decided that Phoenix and the bull were rare enough to be classified as natural disaster rather than an active threat they needed to care about.
Phong could almost smell the greed. And now he knew Daniel's stable spot mattered even more than before.
Then came the researchers. The stage lights shifted again, this time not to a company logo, but to a line of university crests. Oxford, Cambridge, TU Massachusetts, TU Bayern, and several others from across Europe.
The mood in the room changed with them.
The corporate segments had been bright, ambitious, and hungry.
This one felt more serious, more fragile. A team of researchers stepped onto the stage, and Phong noticed something strange at once.
They looked uneasy.
Not merely nervous from being on camera. Deeper than that. One woman kept pressing her thumb against the edge of her notes too hard. A man near the center swallowed twice before speaking. Another kept glancing at the dark wings offstage as if checking whether something waited there.
Phong noticed it, yes. Then, because nothing bad had happened yet, he filed it away as stage pressure.
The lead researcher adjusted his glasses and began.
"For the first time," he said, voice tight but controlled, "our collaborative effort has produced a working public model of the mana particle."
That won the room instantly. Not because everyone understood the science, but everyone understood the phrase. Mana particle. The thing beneath skills, beneath spells. The basis of the new physics of the world.
The screen behind them bloomed into a rotating model.
The room went still.
The image was beautiful.
And yet, wrong.
Unlike ordinary matter, the mana particle did not follow any shape known to human science. At the center floated a shifting core, not stable like an atom, not orbiting cleanly, but always changing while somehow remaining itself. Around that core drifted thin flat particles, almost two-dimensional in appearance, like floating sheets or slivers of image rather than solid matter.
The researcher's voice steadied a little as he explained.
"The core and the surrounding flat layers represent matter forms not previously observed anywhere on Earth."
He clicked forward.
The screen zoomed in.
Even enlarged, the structure still refused to behave like a normal particle. The flat parts around the core were in constant subtle motion, and each time the core changed, they reflected fragments of it as flattened images.
A younger researcher spoke this time.
"The best way to describe it is that the outer layers continuously project partial two-dimensional reflections of the core's present state."
Murmurs spread through the hall.
The models shifted again. Now they showed possible mana-state interactions, phase distortions, partial overlap diagrams, skill activation theories. The whole thing was strange enough to fascinate even people who could not follow the details.
Phong, sitting among the divers, watched the rotating model and felt something he did not like settle in his stomach. Not because of the science. Because the researchers on stage still looked too uneasy for people unveiling the biggest discovery of their careers.
Then the screen behind them glitched.
At first, nobody reacted. A flicker, then a small cut in the footage.
The lead researcher turned his head. So did the others.
The projected model froze. Then vanished.
In its place appeared a new video of a man.
The researchers on stage gasped all at once.
"Professor Ulrich."
That was enough to chill the room.
The man on screen looked wrong before he even spoke.
His hair was a mess, his suit collar hung loose, his eyes were too bright, too wet, too alive in the way of someone whose mind had broken and whose terror was so vivid it had kept the life in his eyes instead. He stood in what looked like a dark academic office or private study, but his body swayed like a man on the edge of a cliff.
When he spoke, his voice hit the hall with the force of something private dragged into public against its will.
"Humans should not have eyes."
The room stopped breathing. On screen, Ulrich leaned closer.
He was not drunk, not on drugged either.
He looked like a man trying to claw his own eyes out before they consumed him.
"They are coming," he whispered, then shouted, then whispered again. "The invaders of pure energy. They lie just beyond the edge of reality."
The researchers on stage were frozen in horror.
The audience had gone dead quiet.
Even the corporate men stopped checking their phones.
Ulrich's face twisted.
His hands shook.
Then, before anyone in the room could process what he was doing, the camera angle lurched, and the video showed him stepping backward onto something high.
A ledge.
A roofline.
Wind caught the edge of his coat.
The last image of him was not his face.
It was his shoes leaving the stone.
Then the video cut.
Gone.
The hall exploded.
Every person in that room reached for their phones almost on instinct. Reporters, sponsors, divers, staff. People checked news feeds, private messages, research channels, social media, emergency alerts, anything that might tell them what they had just watched.
Five minutes.
That was all it took for the first verified alerts hit.
Professor Ulrich had died one minute ago.
He had jumped from a building into the busiest market square of Köln.
The room changed then.
Not panic in the dramatic sense. It was something worse. Way worse. The kind of fear that spreads through educated people when evidence and impossibility shake hands in front of them.
The lead researcher on stage looked half sick.
His voice came back in pieces.
"The video... was pre-recorded. Two months ago. Before we traveled to the US."
Another researcher, white as paper, cut in.
"One month before Professor Ulrich was diagnosed as insane and moved to the asylum in Köln."
Someone in the crowd shouted how the feed had been changed. Another shouted whether this was a stunt. A third demanded to know who had inserted the footage.
The researchers had no answer.
None.
Their confusion looked real enough to be contagious.
They said the presentation had been checked. Secured, archived, reconfirmed.
They said Ulrich had already been unstable when they lost him from the main project.
They said there was no way the video should have predicted his death like that.
No way it should have known.
And standing there beneath the league banners, with corporate medicine and dungeon real estate still hanging in the air behind them, the whole press conference changed shape.
Hope had been the tone ten minutes ago.
Progress, medicine, science, claiming ground.
Now the venue felt haunted by forbidden knowledge, by a cosmic truth that drove people insane just by interacting with it. And by the possibility that somewhere between mana particles and mad professors and blind men from the Dry Sea, the world had started seeing things it was not made to hold.