Three hours later, I had a pile of planks.

  Not perfect. Some were warped—the Ether hadn't flowed uniformly through them, creating tension zones that twisted the wood as it dried.

  Others were too fragile—I'd pushed the redistribution too far, and the fibers had disintegrated in places.

  But most of them held.

  I stacked them against a flat rock, sat cross-legged in front of them.

  Now came the complicated part: assembling them.

  Not with nails. Not with rope.

  With Ether.

  I took two planks, placed them at right angles to each other. Then I took out the quartz.

  The idea was simple: create bridges between the fibers of the two pieces of wood—etheric bonds that would mimic the molecular connections of a solid material. In theory, it should hold. In practice...

  I placed the stylus tip at the junction of the two planks.

  And I listened.

  The wood vibrated. Not like before—stronger now. As if it was waiting for something. I closed my eyes, searched for the points where the Ether stagnated in each plank—the old dead sap zones, the micro-fissures invisible to the naked eye but obvious in my altered perception.

  Then I brought them together.

  Not with my hands.

  With my will. My intention.

  The Ether in the first plank trembled, as if surprised. Then it began to flow toward the second, following the mental path I traced—a tiny, fragile bridge between two universes of cellulose and lignin.

  The luminous bridges stretched, hesitated...

  And connected.

  A sharp clink resonated in my head.

  Not a sound.

  A resonance.

  As if two musical notes had just perfectly tuned to each other.

  I opened my eyes.

  The planks were still there.

  But now, they were bound.

  Not by a nail.

  Not by glue.

  By a bright synapse—a junction point where the Ether would circulate in a loop between the two pieces, holding them together through invisible tension.

  I pressed it with my fingertips.

  It held.

  I smiled.

  — Alright. We've got our flooring.

  The cave floor was uneven—bumps here, hollows there, stones jutting out like broken teeth. I spent the afternoon roughly leveling it all, creating a more or less horizontal surface to place my work on.

  Then I began assembling the planks.

  One by one.

  Bridge after bridge.

  Each connection cost me increasing mental effort—as if my brain was a muscle I was exhausting without mercy.

  By the tenth plank, my temples throbbed as if I'd run a marathon.

  I sat cross-legged in the middle of the improvised construction site, closed my eyes.

  The notification appeared without me summoning it:

  [Atomic Precision Lv. 2: +15% modification stability]

  [XP: +30 (Ingenious system: Vascular biomimicry)]

  I groaned.

  — Great. Now I know why my head hurts...

  But it was done.

  The floor was laid—a three-by-three meter square, raised a few centimeters above the raw ground by stone shims I'd hastily carved. I ran my hand over the surface.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Smooth.

  Warm.

  Alive, in a way.

  I tapped it with my fingertips—the sound was deep and full, like a well-tuned drum.

  — Sound insulation: check.

  I pressed my palm flat—the heat from my hand dispersed slowly into the wood, without escaping abruptly toward the cold ground below.

  — Thermal insulation: check too.

  I stood up with difficulty—my legs trembled slightly—and stepped back to admire my work.

  The floor glowed faintly under my torchlight—not enough to be visible in daylight, but enough to guess the etheric ramifications running between the planks like veins under pale skin.

  And then there was... something else.

  An empty space beneath the floor.

  Not large—just a few centimeters—but enough to slide a hand underneath and feel the cold air still stagnating there.

  I knelt and looked more closely.

  The planks weren't perfectly joined—there were gaps here and there where I'd miscalculated the etheric bridges between them.

  But it would do for a while.

  I rubbed my temples, feeling a headache coming on behind my eyes.

  In my drunkenness as a quantum sorcerer, I was missing something.

  The cave was fine. An emergency shelter. A refuge. But not a home.

  Not my home.

  I nearly tripped over the threshold as I went outside, the icy air hitting me like a sledgehammer. The wind howled through the trees, carrying dead leaves and that acrid smell of frozen earth announcing winter.

  Shit.

  The hut—my hut—was there, leaning against the cliff like an old mangy dog against its master. The raw wood walls, poorly joined, let through drafts that whistled between the planks. The roof, made of branches and dried earth, threatened to fly away at the first serious gust.

  Insulation: zero. Waterproofing: negative. Comfort: nonexistent.

  I placed my hand on the nearest wall. The wood was damp, almost spongy in places. Under my fingers, the Ether filaments writhed like worms under sick skin, desperately trying to patch the breaches, but without success.

  — OK. Reassessing priorities ASAP.

  

  
1. Partition. Separate the cave from the living area with something solid. No way the cave's cold was going to flood the house like a tide.


  
2. Insulate. The walls. The roof. The floor. Everything.


  
3. Reinforce. Because a winter storm here wasn't a joke—it was a death sentence if the hut collapsed.


  

  I went back inside, my feet crushing bits of straw scattered on the dirt floor. The main room—the living room, if you could call it that—reeked of mildew and cold ash. The fireplace, dug straight into the ground, was a sad black hole, surrounded by poorly fitted stones that let out more smoke than they contained.

  — First point: the partition.

  Between the living area and the cave, I needed a wall. Not just any wall. Something sealed, insulating, and if possible, something that wouldn't collapse at the first gust of wind.

  — Alright. We're going to have to build this from scratch.

  No shortcuts. No magic. Just wood, sweat, and—if I was lucky—a bit of Ether to seal the gaps.

  I sighed, running a hand through my hair.

  — First problem: where do I fix the door if there's no wall?

  Answer: I had to create the wall.

  And not just any wall. A wall that would hold. A wall that would insulate. A wall that wouldn't turn into a sieve at the first frost.

  — Two layers, then.

  The first, made of solid wood, anchored to the floor and ceiling with sturdy beams. The second, lighter, but treated—with Ether, if I could—to block moisture and cold.

  I glanced at the stack of planks near the entrance.

  — This is going to take a while.

  And I'd need more than nails and a hammer.

  I'd need to understand how the Ether reacted to wood. How it could strengthen the fibers, seal the joints, stabilize the structure.

  — We start with the foundations.

  I crouched, pressing my palm against the dirt floor. Under my fingers, the particles trembled, as if waiting for instructions.

  — If I can make this wall hold...

  Then maybe—maybe—the rest would follow.

  I took out my quartz and held it near the rock wall that formed the back of the living area. The etheric veins there were dense, almost turbulent, as if the rock itself was holding its breath.

  — If I can channel this...

  I traced a vertical line in the air, following the imaginary contour of a future partition. The quartz vibrated against my palm, and I felt the Ether respond—not like a tool, but like a reluctant partner.

  — A door. I need a door.

  Not a rotten plank nailed haphazardly. A real door. With hinges. A lock, if possible. And above all, insulated.

  I closed my eyes, visualizing the atomic structure of the wood I'd stored outside. The fibers. The knots. The spaces between cells where the Ether could seep in to bind everything together.

  — We'll do this in two layers.

  A first layer of thick planks, treated—if I could—to resist moisture. A second layer, thinner, but infused with... something. Resin? No. Better.

  Stabilized Ether.

  I crouched again, this time mentally tracing the exact plan of the separation. The cave and living area formed a continuous space, an irregular rectangle carved into the rock and extended by the wood walls I'd already erected. The idea was simple: divide this space into two distinct zones, without having to rebuild everything.

  The planks would have to sink vertically into the ground, like teeth in a jaw. On one side, they would hug the raw rock wall, where the cave ended in an irregular wooden wall.

  They would then butt against the wooden ceiling of the living area—the one I'd reinforced with salvaged beams and dried clay joints.

  But I had to leave an opening.

  A door.

  Not just a hastily nailed plank opening, no. A real door, with metal hinges—if I could forge some—and above all, enough insulation so that neither cold nor drafts could seep through. And most importantly, that it would hold. Because a door that flies off in the middle of winter if the house blows away is the kind of detail that turns an emergency shelter into... well, not a shelter anymore.

  And then you look like an idiot but at least you die fast. Maybe.

  I ran my fingers along the junction between rock and wood. Where the two materials met, the Ether swirled, as if hesitating between the two textures. The rock, stable, predictable. The wood, still alive, still breathing despite weeks of drying.

  — Two layers.

  The first, thick, would be anchored directly into the ground, wedged against the rock wall. I could inject Ether to strengthen the fibers, make them more resistant to the moisture rising from the subsoil. The second, thinner, would overlay it, but this time infused with a modified resin—not pine sap, too unstable, but something more... cooperative.

  My gaze fell on the quartz pieces I'd stacked near the hearth. They glowed faintly, as if waiting to be given a task.

  — We're going to do better than a simple partition.

  We were going to make a living wall. A wall that breathed just enough not to rot, but strong enough to last decades. A wall that, perhaps, one day, might even grow with the house.

  I sighed as I stood up.

  — Alright. First problem: the hinges.

  Because a door without hinges is just a falling plank. And even I knew that was a bad idea.