Xin found the first practitioner at noon.
The man ran a small herbal shop in a village thirty miles east. Normal front. Normal life. Normal everything.
Behind the shop, a hidden extraction point drained a local ley line.
Xin walked in alone.
The practitioner looked up from his counter. Mid-forties. Third Gate. Nervous eyes.
"Can I help you?"
"You know why I am here," Xin said.
The man's hand moved toward a knife under the counter.
Xin hit him with white fire before the hand reached the blade. Low level. Just enough to lock his channels.
The man collapsed behind the counter.
"The line behind your shop," Xin said. "You have been draining it for how long?"
"Eight years." The man's voice was shaking. "Small amounts. No one noticed."
"The line serves three hundred people."
"They ne
