The Grand Council of Arcane Progression was in an uproar.

  The half-moon table, an intricate construct of polished brass, mahogany, and inlaid mana circuits, was elevated on a raised dais, giving the seven Arch Mages a commanding view of the chamber. The room was massive, domed, its walls lined with glowing mana-infused tubing that pulsed rhythmically, their soft hum barely audible beneath the cacophony of outraged voices. Below the towering council members, on the central dais, stood a lone figure—Captain Arven Dalloway of the Mana Enforcement Agency, his uniform crisp but his expression anything but.

  “I repeat,” Dalloway said, his voice struggling to rise above the clamor, “Traebus Hellmut has successfully activated the portal and escaped. We don’t know where he’s gone. The portal collapsed immediately after transit.”

  “Impossible!” thundered Arch Mage Vortheim, his mechanical monocle flickering angrily as he slammed a gauntleted fist onto the table. The impact sent a small ripple of unstable energy skittering across the surface. “Portal travel is not possible! Not without years—decades—of refinement! The mana destabilization alone should have incinerated him on the spot!”

  “Then explain why he isn’t incinerated,” Arch Mage Elendra, the only one who looked more intrigued than enraged, mused as she sipped a steaming glass of etheric tea. “Clearly, Traebus was... ahead of us.”

  That only fueled the outrage.

  “He’s an arrogant child,” spat Arch Mage Gregor, his elaborate clockwork pauldrons clanking as he gestured wildly. “And worse, a dangerous one! He violated every restriction we’ve placed on dimensional experimentation! If he succeeded—if he made it work—then we are no longer leading arcane progression. He is.”

  That thought made the room seethe.

  Elendra raised a brow. “And that is the part that bothers you most, isn’t it?”

  A heated silence followed.

  Dalloway, wisely choosing to ignore the Council’s bruised egos, cleared his throat. “The MEA retrieved what was left of the laboratory. We’re analyzing the wreckage, but most of his research was either destroyed in the collapse or—” He hesitated.

  “Or?” Vortheim’s monocle flared ominously.

  “Or deliberately sabotaged,” Dalloway admitted, his gloved hands tightening behind his back. “He covered his tracks. What little we recovered is incomplete, fragmented at best. We cannot replicate his success without more data.”

  The room darkened, as if the weight of their collective indignation dimmed the very light sources pulsing above them.

  Arch Mage Sothis, who had remained silent until now, finally leaned forward, his many-layered coat rustling like dead parchment. His voice was slow, deliberate. “If Traebus Hellmut has escaped... then the question is no longer about stopping his research. It is about ensuring that we find him before anyone else does.”

  The murmuring intensified. Yes. That was the real danger.

  Elendra smirked, setting her tea down with an elegant clink. “Then I suppose the race is on.”

  “We need full control of his lab remains,” Vortheim snapped, regaining his composure as he turned to Dalloway. “All surviving fragments of Hellmut’s research are now under the highest priority for analysis. Every scrap, every shattered rune, every trace of energy signature. Nothing is to be overlooked.”

  Dalloway nodded sharply. “Already underway. Our top arcanists are sifting through the debris.”

  “Not good enough.” Sothis’s voice was a quiet razor. “We don’t just need to understand his work. We need to recreate it.”

  Elendra, ever the tactician, laced her fingers together and leaned forward. “Portal travel is only what we know he achieved. What else did he invent? What other rules did he break while hiding from us? If he discovered one forbidden branch of magic, there is a high probability he delved into others.”

  A ripple of tension moved through the Council.

  Forbidden research.

  Hellmut had always been anomaly—too clever, too reckless, always operating just at the edge of legality. If he had managed this, what else had he done in secret?

  Gregor’s eyes narrowed. “If Hellmut had the audacity to break the laws of dimensional stability, what are the odds he stopped there? Has he unraveled mortality? Has he dabbled in absolute energy conversion? Is he sitting on the secrets to arcane fusion?”

  “Even worse,” Elendra said smoothly, tilting her head. “Has he discovered something we have never even considered?”

  The thought sent an unsettling silence through the room.

  Finally, Vortheim slammed his hand onto the table again, his voice iron-clad with resolve. “We must secure the man himself. The only way to access his discoveries is through him. His notes are compromised, his research incomplete—but he holds the key to it all.”

  The Council members nodded, the discussion shifting from panic to determined strategy.

  Dalloway stood straighter. “Then the order is clear. We hunt him down.”

  The Grand Council of Arcane Progression had made its decision.

  The greatest mind of their era had escaped them.

  They would not allow it to last.

  Vortheim’s voice sliced through the chamber. “As soon as Hellmut’s lab is reconstructed and the portal is functional again, you will lead an expedition to capture him, Captain.”

  Dalloway stiffened. “A full capture operation? Sir, we don’t even know where he—”

  “Find him,” Sothis interrupted coolly. “Take an army if you must. If he is allowed to remain free, we risk more than just an uncontrolled discovery—we risk the very foundation of our dominion over magic itself.”

  Dalloway nodded stiffly, but his hands tightened behind his back. The Council wasn’t finished with him yet.

  Gregor narrowed his eyes. “You’re hesitating, Captain.”

  Dalloway exhaled. He knew there was no avoiding it now. “There is... one detail I have yet to report.”

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  The Council’s mood shifted immediately. Seven pairs of piercing eyes bored into him.

  Elendra leaned forward, steepling her fingers. “Go on.”

  Dalloway’s voice was measured, but there was an undercurrent of unease. “The portal malfunctioned before fully stabilizing. It wasn’t... Hellmut’s fault. One of my men shot it.”

  Silence. Absolute, crushing silence.

  For a full breath, no one spoke.

  Then, the yelling began.

  "A trooper shot the portal?" Vortheim bellowed, his monocle flaring red with overcharged mana. "Are we employing imbeciles in the Mana Enforcement Agency now, Captain?"

  "Do you have any idea how much that compromised our ability to retrace the spellwork?" Gregor roared, his heavy gauntlets clanking as he gestured wildly. "This isn’t some minor alchemical accident, Captain, this is the single most important magical breakthrough in recorded history! And we have an idiot with a trigger finger to thank for setting us back decades!"

  Sothis, who rarely raised his voice, simply folded his hands and spoke in a tone far more dangerous than the others’ shouting. "Tell me, Captain... what, precisely, was the reasoning behind shooting an unstable dimensional rift? Was your man hoping it would surrender?"

  Dalloway winced at the sheer venom in Sothis’s voice but stood his ground. "Sir, the trooper panicked. Hellmut was making a break for the portal, and he thought—"

  "He thought wrong!" Elendra cut in smoothly, still steepling her fingers, watching the Captain like a particularly unfortunate specimen under a magnifying lens. "Panic is for the untrained. If your men are panicking, Captain, then perhaps the MEA should reassess its hiring standards."

  Dalloway clenched his jaw but said nothing. This was bad.

  Vortheim exhaled sharply through his nose, his frustration barely contained. "We will discuss the disciplinary measures for your agency later, Captain. For now, we need to refocus. Hellmut is still out there. The sooner the portal is reconstructed, the sooner you can lead the capture team."

  Gregor nodded, still fuming but reigning in his temper. "Then let’s return to the matter at hand—tracking him. We don’t know where he went, and thanks to your men, we can’t even analyze the exit signature. How do we follow him?"

  Elendra, silent until now, tapped a single manicured finger against her chin. "We assume Hellmut covered his tracks. That’s what any intelligent mage would do. But we don’t need to track him directly. We simply need to track his presence. His influence."

  The chamber quieted, intrigued by the shift in conversation.

  Sothis’s gaze sharpened. "Explain."

  Elendra smiled. "A mind like Hellmut’s doesn’t stay hidden for long. He is an anomaly, and anomalies always leave ripples. We find the disruptions, and we find him."

  "Divination," Gregor murmured, his eyes widening slightly. "That’s what we need. If he still exists—anywhere—we can locate him through divination."

  The room fell silent as realization struck the council like a thunderclap.

  "Of course!" Vortheim’s gauntlet clanged against the table as he leaned forward. "Dimensional distance wouldn’t matter if we can locate his essence! If he is alive, if his presence still lingers, we can track it!"

  Sothis's gaze darkened. "Divination is costly at that level. And the stronger the protections he placed on himself, the greater the risk of backlash. If he anticipated this, he might have—"

  "We don’t need to break through his defenses," Elendra interrupted smoothly. "We just need to confirm his existence. Once we do, we rebuild the portal and calibrate it to his signature. We don’t need a full trace—just an anchor point."

  Gregor exhaled sharply. "And then we go to him."

  Vortheim frowned. "But divination on a scale this grand... we don’t have the expertise. None of us specialize in it."

  A pause. A slow realization.

  Elendra smiled again, more knowing this time. "We will require the assistance of an outside party."

  Dalloway, still stiff from the earlier berating, visibly tensed. "You mean to bring in him, don’t you?"

  The council members exchanged glances. There was only one mage powerful enough to pull off divination across realms.

  A mage not of the council, whose enigmatic nature made him a wild card, but whose expertise in forbidden magic was undeniable.

  Sothis’s voice was grim. "We have no choice. Summon him. We will need him to find Hellmut."

  The words had barely left his mouth when the double doors of the council chamber were thrown open with violent force, the heavy brass and oak slamming into the walls with a resounding boom that echoed through the chamber.

  A man strode inside, dressed in dark purple robes, embroidered with archaic symbols that seemed to shift in the candlelight. But it was the ridiculous pink ball cap perched atop his head that clashed with the rest of his ensemble, making him look like some bizarre fusion of arcane mastery and casual irreverence.

  He grinned as he strolled toward the center dais, completely unfazed by the glares and tension radiating from the Arch Mages. "You know," he said, voice rich with amusement, "I saw you were going to call for me. Thought I'd save you the trouble and just show up."

  A collective groan of exasperation rippled through the council.

  "By the gods," Vortheim muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. "This is already a disaster."

  "Oh come now, old friend," the diviner said, spreading his arms dramatically. "You're all so serious. This is why I never show up to these meetings. No sense of fun."

  Elendra sighed, rubbing her temples. "We don’t have time for theatrics. You know why you're here."

  His grin widened, and with a theatrical flourish, he bowed deeply, sweeping his arms out as if addressing a crowd. "Ah, but where are my manners? Allow me to introduce myself—Midas Hellmut, at your service."

  The temperature in the room shifted.

  The council’s outrage, which had already been simmering, turned into something far more dangerous.

  Elendra’s fingers, still steepled, tightened slightly, her knuckles whitening. "Midas," she said, her tone carrying the weight of immeasurable patience being tested.

  Midas straightened from his bow, his smirk widening as he turned toward her. "Mother," he greeted smoothly, winking.

  The chamber erupted.

  Vortheim’s gauntlet slammed into the table, his monocle flaring crimson. "You did not tell us he was your son, Elendra!"

  "Are we supposed to just ignore the incomprehensible nepotism here?!" Gregor bellowed, his chair scraping violently as he half-rose. "How are we supposed to trust that he won’t betray us for his wayward brother?!"

  Elendra exhaled, rubbing her temples. "If I thought he was loyal to Traebus, I wouldn’t have agreed to summon him. But let me be clear—this is not my doing. Midas is here because, as he so eloquently put it, he saw we were going to call him."

  Sothis leaned forward, his fingers tapping against the table. "And what do you want, Midas?"

  Midas grinned and shrugged. "Oh, just the same thing as you all—to see where this goes."

  Elendra exhaled sharply, rubbing her temples. "Enough. If you’re here, then let’s get to the point. Interdimensional divination is not simple. It requires precision, control, and an immense amount of power. Even if we locate Traebus, bridging the gap between dimensions is another challenge entirely."

  "Ah, Mother, always so practical," Midas said, his smirk still firmly in place. "But you’re not wrong. Tracking someone across dimensions isn’t as easy as peering into a scrying bowl. You need anchor points, stabilized ley channels, and a reference to their soul signature. And that’s just the bare minimum."

  Vortheim crossed his arms. "And?"

  Midas sighed dramatically, then snapped his fingers. A scroll materialized in his hand, unrolling itself with a flick of his wrist. "Let’s see... For a full-scale interdimensional divination, we’re going to need—oh, just a few things." He cleared his throat. "A stabilized planar mirror, a fully intact Archon’s Eye, two liters of essence-infused celestial ink—uncontaminated, mind you—a quantum-locked time crystal, and aetheric threading woven by a living Fatebinder."

  The council chamber fell into dead silence.

  Gregor massaged his temples. "Gods preserve us... That’s going to cost a fortune." Then he looked around furtively, “Who wants to give up an eye?”

  Sothis’s expression was utterly unreadable, though his fingers drummed against the table in barely concealed frustration. "And how long would it take to acquire these materials?"

  Midas grinned. "Depends! How much are you willing to spend? Because let me tell you, none of this comes cheap. Oh, and it would really help if we had a direct sample of Traebus’s mana signature—preferably something fresh. Otherwise, well… I might accidentally divine the existence of a rock that looks suspiciously like him in some alternate reality."

  Vortheim groaned, his hand meeting his forehead. "Are there any other diviners we can consult?"

  "Not at my level," Midas said with a bright, infuriating smile. "But by all means, feel free to waste weeks looking for someone who won’t botch the spell and tear a hole in existence."

  Elendra sighed. "He’s right. He’s the best. As much as I hate to say it."

  Gregor let out a frustrated growl but relented. "Fine. We get him what he needs. But we are not paying his usual absurd fees."

  Midas grinned wider. "Oh, I wouldn't dream of overcharging family."

  Elendra shot him a warning glare, but Midas just chuckled, tapping his fingers against the table in amusement. "This is going to be fun."