Inside an abandoned garage attached to one of the older buildings in Sector 11, Tyler stood surrounded by a mess of wires, metal scraps, broken tools, and dismantled machine parts that had been dragged there over the past two days. The place smelled of rust, oil, and burnt dust. Half the ceiling had collapsed long ago, allowing narrow shafts of pale afternoon light to fall across the concrete floor, but most of the space remained dim, lit only by the small work lamps he had borrowed from discarded equipment.

This was the only place in Sector 11 where no one would question strange noises or smoke.

And for now, it had become his workshop.

At the center of the garage, rows of large batteries were lined neatly on the ground.

In truth, Tyler originally had only one.

A heavy vehicle battery taken from an abandoned transport unit near the outer street— old but still functional. He had secretly charged it completely during one of the few hours when electricity flowed through Sector 11 before the usual shutdown.

After that, the rest had become simple.

Using the copper pot, he copied the fully charged battery again and again until nearly twenty identical units stood side by side like a crude energy bank.

Thick copper wires connected them all together.

From there the wires ran into a machine Tyler had assembled piece by piece from whatever Sector 11 could offer: broken heater coils salvaged from industrial cookers, iron rods from collapsed machinery, ventilation fans ripped from old tunnel units, cracked ceramic plates used as insulation, and metal pipes bent into a crude chamber.

At the center sat a reinforced iron container lined with layered heating coils.

Inside that chamber rested several pieces of Carbonyx ore.

Black stone marked with purple veins that remained strangely silent inside the iron tray.

Tyler adjusted one final connection and stepped back.

The batteries hummed faintly. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

Then the current surged.

The coils glowed red almost immediately, then gradually shifted into orange before turning white as the heat rose higher and higher. Temperature spread rapidly through the chamber until even the surrounding air began to shimmer. The ventilation fans screamed while forcing hot air outward, but despite that, Tyler could still feel the rising heat pressing against his skin from several steps away.

Inside the chamber, the Carbonyx finally reacted.

The purple veins brightened faintly at first, as though something within the ore had acknowledged the heat. A few seconds later the hard black surface began to soften. The mineral slowly lost its rigid shape and turned into thick dark liquid, while the purple lines dissolved through it like dye spreading inside heated oil.

Tyler narrowed his eyes and waited longer.

He increased the current again.

Several wires sparked violently, and one battery released a sharp hiss under the strain, but the result inside the chamber did not change. The ore continued melting until all distinct structure vanished, leaving only molten black residue at the bottom of the iron tray.

When it became clear that the process would go no further, Tyler shut everything down.

The machine fell silent except for the ticking sound of cooling metal.

He stepped closer and studied the result carefully.

Inside the chamber remained only a pool of dark liquid that slowly hardened as temperature dropped. It showed no sign of producing electricity, and nothing about its condition suggested that any hidden property had been awakened through heat alone.

"So heat alone isn’t enough," he muttered.

He crouched beside the chamber and stared at the residue carefully.

Old Lady Veena had said Sector 2 refined Carbonyx into continuous electricity.

That meant one thing:

The Capital was not simply melting ore.

There had to be another process.

A catalyst and a Pressure?

Or a Chemical reaction?

Or something extracted first before refinement.

His thoughts drifted back to the hidden facility beyond the spatial fissure.

The dead half-magma creature.

The injections.

The strange liquid taken away through the portal.

And the different-colored ore embedded inside that corpse.

Tansy had recognized it immediately as similar to Carbonyx, yet it had clearly not been ordinary ore.

Tyler’s eyes sharpened.

"This means Carbonyx itself may not be natural ore at all," he said quietly.

Perhaps what Sector 11 mined was only an altered product.

A diluted form.

A byproduct born from something living.

He looked again at the molten residue.

Then at the rows of copied batteries.

A slow realization settled.

"Electricity," he murmured. "The ore might react to electricity... not just heat."

After reaching that conclusion, Tyler dismantled part of the machine and rebuilt the center for a second experiment.

The heating chamber was removed, and in its place he fixed two thick copper rods opposite each other using ceramic blocks as support, leaving a narrow gap between them. Fresh pieces of Carbonyx ore were placed carefully in the middle.

The copied batteries remained lined up across the garage floor, connected through heavy cables that fed directly into the new setup. Every wire had been tightened by hand, stripped clean, twisted, and reinforced with metal clamps taken from broken equipment.

Tyler checked every connection twice before stepping back.

Then he pulled the switch.

A sharp crack burst through the garage.

Blue-white current leapt instantly between the copper rods and struck the Carbonyx with violent sparks. Sudden flashes reflected off the cracked walls, turning the dim garage bright for brief moments while electricity pulsed repeatedly through the center.

This time the ore reacted, but only slightly.

The purple veins inside the black stone brightened faintly, almost like veins under skin catching moonlight, but the effect lasted only a heartbeat before fading again.

Tyler narrowed his eyes and increased the current.

More sparks exploded outward.

The wires vibrated under pressure, several battery terminals hissed softly, and the copper rods began glowing faintly near their tips where current concentrated most heavily.

Even under stronger discharge, the Carbonyx itself remained nearly unchanged. It neither melted nor transformed, and no visible energy emerged from within it. Only faint scorch marks slowly appeared across the surface where repeated sparks struck the same points.

Tyler adjusted one cable and forced more power through.

This time the sparks became louder, snapping sharply like miniature lightning trapped inside the machine.

The purple veins lit again, slightly brighter than before, but the effect ended just as quickly. The ore simply endured the electrical discharge without revealing any deeper reaction, as though whatever hidden property it contained still remained dormant.

A burning smell spread through the room.

One of the cables began smoking near the battery line.

Tyler quickly shut everything down before the wire burned through completely.

The crackling stopped.

Silence returned.

Only faint heat remained around the copper rods.

He stepped closer and picked up one piece of Carbonyx using metal pliers.

The surface had darkened slightly where the electricity had struck repeatedly, but otherwise it looked exactly the same as before. The ore had endured both heat and direct current without producing anything that could be called refined Carbonyx, which meant the true process used by Sector 2 clearly required something far more complex than brute force experimentation.

"Electricity doesn’t works too." He sighed.