The journey west took Evan through dense forests glowing with faint veins of mana. Brumdir Ironforge walked ahead with heavy yet steady steps his armor clinking softly while the runes on his gauntlets pulsed with warm orange light. Two other dwarves followed carrying packs of tools shaped from volcanic stone.

Evan felt the shift gradually. The soft mana wind of the elven forest grew colder denser and more metallic. As they approached the boundary of dwarf territory the trees thinned and massive stone ridges rose like sleeping giants. The ground vibrated occasionally with low tremors.

“Small quakes,” Brumdir said calmly. “Nothing to worry about. But they tell us the deep veins are restless.”

Evan nodded. “Good. Restlessness means data.”

Brumdir grunted with amusement. “Strangest thing I ever heard. Most people fear quakes. You call them data.”

Evan smiled. “In my world you cannot fix anything unless you measure it first.”

They arrived at a stone gate built into the mountain wall. Two dwarves guarded it with axes carved from mana steel. When they saw Brumdir they saluted and pushed open the gate revealing a long tunnel descending into the earth.

Evan followed Brumdir inside. The air changed immediately turning warm and dry. Glowing crystals embedded in the walls cast orange and gold light. The deeper they walked the louder the hum of mana became.

Brumdir gestured to the glowing veins along the ceiling. “Mana flows through the stone like blood in veins. We sense when it grows too wild. But we cannot predict when it will explode.”

Evan studied the ceiling. The glow pulsed but irregularly. Some sections dimmed as others flared. “It looks like unstable data. Like traffic spikes without a pattern.”

Brumdir snorted. “What is traffic”

“Never mind,” Evan said. “But these pulses have rhythm. I can tell already.”

They reached a large cavern where dozens of dwarves worked mining mana stone. Sparks lit the air. Runes pulsed on tools. The workers stopped when Evan entered whispering among themselves.

Brumdir raised a hand. “Listen up This human is Evan the analyst. He brings a new method to understand mana quakes. He will build something called a dash board.”

The dwarves murmured with disbelief.

A miner shouted, “What is a dash board A board that dashes away when the quake hits”

Evan chuckled. “A dashboard helps you see patterns. It shows information clearly so you can act before danger hits.”

Brumdir nodded. “He predicted a mana storm in the elf lands. Saved villages.”

The dwarves froze. That caught their attention. If Evan could predict storms maybe he could predict quakes.

Evan set down his bag and pulled out the calibrated crystals he developed with Lyriel. The dwarves leaned close their eyes wide.

Brumdir crossed his arms. “These crystals of yours. They can listen to the stone”

“If the stone speaks in pulses yes,” Evan said. “Mana patterns leave traces. These crystals record them.”

He placed four crystals in a diamond shape and carved runes connecting them. The dwarves watched every motion as if he were performing surgery on the mountain itself.

The crystals activated glowing brightly. Evan frowned. The pulses were fast strong and uneven. Exactly the kind of irregularity that could lead to a quake.

Brumdir leaned in. “And what do you see”

“Chaos,” Evan said. “But chaos that hides structure. The pulses spike every thirteen seconds. But the secondary tremor hits every seven seconds. When those cycles overlap they amplify each other.”

Brumdir rubbed his beard. “You mean a quake comes when the pulses collide”

“Exactly,” Evan said. “And they will collide again soon.”

The cavern grew silent. The dwarves stared at the crystals with sudden fear.

“When” Brumdir asked.

Evan recalibrated the crystals by shifting their angles. The pulses aligned into an unmistakable pattern. “About ten minutes.”

Shouts erupted. Dwarves scrambled to secure equipment. Brumdir barked orders. “Everyone fall back to upper tunnels Move Move”

Evan stayed with the crystals watching the pulse intensity rise. Lyriel had warned him that prediction carried responsibility. Now he felt the weight of every dwarf in this mountain.

The pulses merged. The ground trembled.

Brumdir pulled Evan back as a wave of pressure hit the cavern. Stone cracked. Dust exploded downward. Massive shards fell where the miners had been working minutes earlier. A quake strong enough to collapse the lower ridge but every dwarf had escaped.

Brumdir stared at Evan with disbelief. “You saved us. Without your dashboard we would have lost half this crew.”

The dwarves crowded around Evan cheering pounding their chests in respect.

One miner shouted, “He reads the mountain better than we do”

Another yelled, “Give the human a hammer and he becomes dwarf brother today”

Evan laughed breathlessly. “Please do not give me a hammer. I would break my own foot.”

Brumdir clapped him on the back so hard Evan nearly fell. “You will make the first Dwarven Pressure Dashboard by tomorrow. The elders of the Ironforge clan will want to see it.”

Evan nodded. “And after that we build a full monitoring system. A network that logs pulses across the entire region.”

Brumdir’s eyes widened. “You want to track the whole mountain”

Evan smiled. “Yes. And not just dwarves. Elves. Beastkin. Anyone who lives near mana veins. A connected monitoring grid.”

Brumdir stared at him in stunned silence. “Human… your ambition is bigger than the mountain.”

Evan shrugged. “I am a data analyst. Big systems are what we do.”

As he packed the crystals dwarves followed him cheering his name.
The mountain had accepted his dashboards.
And the first cross-race analytics project had begun.