The weight of Aurel Veylan's words lingered in the chamber.

Ren sat stiffly, his fingers laced together on the table as if holding himself steady. He had faced battles and horrors, but something in this man's calm gaze unsettled him in a way no blade had.

Lark leaned back in his chair, giving space for the silence. His eyes, however, stayed sharp on Ren, waiting for the question he knew was coming.

Finally, Ren exhaled. "So… research says there are cracks between two realities. But what kind of cracks? If they were visible, you'd already have found them. So they're not?"

Veylan nodded. His tone carried no pity, only certainty. "You're right. Where two realities overlap, cracks appear, but not in any way the eye can see. They exist at the atomic scale. Tiny, like pinholes in space itself."

Ren frowned. "If they're that small, how can we even detect them? And how can someone pass through something so small?"

A faint smile touched Veylan's lips. He spoke with a patient respect. "A sharp mind, just as I heard. We've been researching this for years. If a crack exists, it won't reveal itself to sight. Instead, you must listen to the resonance of the world. When two dimensions overlap, the laws grow uncertain. Energy leaks. Gravity bends. Particles flicker between being and not being. That is the sign a doorway is near."

He leaned forward slightly. "We built a machine to measure those signs. It reads fluctuations in mana. You see, mana particles are not like atoms. They are smaller, far lighter. They can slip through places atoms cannot. When a crack forms, mana begins to leak or gather there. That is what our machine detects."

Ren's brow furrowed. "So it sends mana into the crack… and waits for them to bounce back?"

Veylan shook his head. "Not bounce. Resonate. When mana touches the boundary of a crack, it vibrates, like striking a chord on a string. That vibration spreads, and the machine picks it up. It's not that the particles return. It's that they make the dimensional wall hum, and we measure the echo."

He tapped the table gently, as if marking the rhythm of an unseen pulse. "On the scanner, it looks like a fracture in glass. Lines of light where the world has thinned."

Ren sat back slowly, trying to picture it.

Lark gave a short laugh. "So, in simple words?"

Veylan's eyes glimmered. "When mana touches the crack, it doesn't bounce back. It makes the boundary vibrate. And that vibration is what our machine catches."

Ren lowered his gaze for a moment, then nodded. "I understand. But when you sent your soldiers, they didn't carry these machines with them, right?"

Veylan shook his head lightly. "No, they did. Every expedition team was equipped with scanners. They followed proper protocol."

Ren frowned. "Then what's the problem? If the machines can detect cracks, why didn't they find anything?"

Veylan leaned back, his eyes distant as if weighing years of research. "The problem isn't the machines. The problem is the cracks themselves. I studied travelers' journals, ancient scriptures, and fragments of forgotten records. They all described the same points of convergence specific mountains, ruins, coastlines where the veil was thin. But when our soldiers reached those places, the scanners showed nothing."

Ren's brow furrowed. "So the old records were wrong?"

Veylan shook his head. "Not wrong. Outdated. Dimensional cracks aren't fixed like landmarks. They shift. Think of it like a ripple on water. The ripple can appear in one place, but the next moment it drifts, fades, or reforms somewhere else. The old records captured the cracks as they were in that era. But over decades or centuries, the flows of mana and the balance of reality itself change, so the cracks no longer align with those ancient maps."

Lark crossed his arms. "So the cracks move… like storms across a sky."

"Exactly," Veylan replied. "We are chasing storms written in books, but by the time we arrive, the storms have already passed."

Ren leaned back, trying to process. "So the cracks move like storms… then it makes sense why your soldiers return empty-handed."

Before Veylan could reply, Lark tilted his head and asked, "But if cracks keep shifting, then why don't our dimensional pockets behave the same way? The doors we carry or open, they stay fixed. Why is that different?"

Veylan's lips curved faintly, as if he had been waiting for someone to ask that. "Because dimensional pockets are artificial. They aren't born from the clash of realities. They are crafted and stabilized by anchors inscriptions, mana seals, and binding cores. Those anchors force the pocket's door to remain tied to its owner or location, keeping it from drifting."

He paused, then tapped the table with his finger. "Natural cracks have no such anchors. They form where the pressure between worlds grows unstable, and as soon as that pressure shifts, the crack shifts too. Our pockets are cages we built. The natural cracks are wild rivers breaking through stone."

Ren gave a slow nod, finally understanding. "So one is forced to stay. The other follows its own rules."

Veylan met his eyes. "Exactly."

Ren frowned. "Wait… but the ancient scriptures say there was once a tribe that created dimensions themselves. If that's true, then why would their locations shift? That sounds like the same thing as our dimensional pockets. Isn't that contradictory?"

Veylan's expression grew thoughtful, almost grim. "It only sounds contradictory on the surface. The tribe you speak of did not create true dimensions. What they made were tethered realms half-real, half-borrowed. They carved out space by bending natural cracks, forcing them wider and stabilizing them with primitive anchors. For a time, those places were steady… but they were never fully under control. The cracks they used still obeyed the laws of shifting convergence."

He leaned forward, his voice low. "Think of it this way. Our dimensional pockets are crafted from the inside out, using mana anchors as their foundation. But what that tribe did was the opposite: they built outward from a natural wound in reality. That made their realms powerful, but also unstable. When the convergence moved, their creations either collapsed or shifted with it. That's why the ancient records mention places that no longer exist where they once did."

Lark exhaled softly. "So they weren't doors of their own making. They were doors stolen from the cracks themselves."

Veylan nodded slowly. "Exactly. Borrowed doors. And borrowed doors never last forever."

Ren stayed silent for a moment, then asked quietly, "Then… is there a chance? Do any of those tribal dimensions still exist?"

Veylan's gaze turned distant, as though he were staring through walls of time. "That is the very question some scientists spent half of their life chasing. We are doing research on it years ago. Even one and half century ago. It's still ongoing and most time taking research in which I invested my money. We found that ancient scriptures and books during discovery of underground city located on southern iceland ring. According to it, it's highly chance of most of those realms collapsed centuries ago. Some left behind nothing but unstable rifts, too dangerous to enter. But a few… a few may have survived, drifting with the convergence. If they did, they are no longer where the scriptures first recorded them."

He clenched his hand on the table. "That is why the soldiers failed. They searched in the old coordinates, but the convergence has already carried those places elsewhere. Without precise mapping, it is like searching for a single grain of sand in a storm."

Lark frowned. "But if the convergence keeps shifting them, then how can anyone find them now?"

Veylan gave a bitter smile. "That is where the problem lies. Only those who understand both the old patterns of convergence and the new mana fluctuations can track their trail. Without that, every attempt is blind. Our time and space mage is in coma. If he is present, then I do not have to worry about anything."

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