After I had helped Fung open some of his meridians, I began to refocus back onto my own self for the next few days, while I was not harvesting stuff in the forest.
I had been upgrading more and more of the branch-tentacles from my spirit root, and I was beginning to feel the slowness of the Qi intake, even with the Auto-regen option On. The basic atmosphere just had way too little “good” Qi floating around inside of it to be properly harvested at a decent rate. It was about the right time to see how the hell I was supposed to use a spirit stone for cultivation.
I had asked Lingfeng about the method, but he had told me to just use my “regular” cultivation method, aka the expand-contract crappy one, while I held the stone in front of my dantian, and that I should get ready for a “rush of Qi” as some of the Qi from the stone would get sucked into the dantian with each cycle. After that, I would have to “retain” the white Qi while expelling the rest of the elemental Qi once again.
Of course, I was not going to do all of that slow-ass bullshit. There had to be a simpler way, that much had become quite obvious to me, after being for a while in this world alongside Timmy. Everything had a faster, better or smarter way of getting stuff done with the aid of the nigh-omnipotent System, except that people were too fucking lazy or too dumb to bother with finding out the correct methods, or they were intentionally hoarding or blocking the knowledge for selfish gains.
I grabbed the lowest level spirit stone that Lingfeng had left with me, and I tried to see what it was made out of. The structure was crystalline with a silicate feel to it, but the general shape was that of a honeycomb-hexagon that had been abruptly cut at both ends. It had the colour of a blue PET bottle for mineral-water, but it was slightly less transparent.
From the history book I had found out how spirit stones were getting made in the first place. Most of the spirit stones usually came from Spirit Springs or Spirit Lakes, with a more rare variant being mined out of underground Spirit Veins.
The reason for this lay in the creatures that gave birth to the stones. A small aquatic creature that was somewhere between plant and animal, since it was a sort of a polyp, the Manaxite behaved in a similar fashion to an Earth-counterpart coral, in the fact that the living polyps would build more “shells” on top of the dead ones from the previous generation. The only difference was that the typical Manaxite was quite short lived, with only a lifespan of 3 to 5 days, time in which it would construct a new “cell” on top of the old one, cell which wind up containing a lot of random Qi that came about from the feeding and growth cycle of the Manaxite creature. The creatures would then continue to live and die and stack Qi-filled “cells” on top of eachother, which resulted in the existence of something called a spirit stone column. The size of the cells generally remained constant as long as the Qi and food influx in the water remained uniform, and so did the columns.
The Spirit Spring waterbeds would be filled with a series of hexagonal columns stacked together that would sprout from basically everywhere in the spring, as long as they were being kept submerged. The Sects would then come and chop off the higher sections of the columns, split them apart in equal sizes, then polish off the ends of the columns to create spirit stones for trading purposes. Spirit stones that came from Spirit Springs usually had a high content of water Qi alongside of the “white” valuable Qi inside, which was also the case with the stone I was now holding.
Because the environmental factors were decently stable around most of the Spirit Springs or Lakes, the Manaxites would create stones that were pretty much of the same quality, concentration and density, based on the main water source.
Most spirit stones would come carved with a “label” on the topmost cell by the producing Sect of origin, detailing the batch number and approximate concentration of Qi that the stone was thought to contain.
I grabbed the stone and then I extended my spirit branch-tentacles towards it. My spirit tentacles went right through the stone like ghosts, but by doing so they had also dislodged the Qi contained within, which was now floating wildly in bunches of Qi-motes around the stone. Paying closer attention to the cell structure, I noticed that each cell contained only one type of Qi each. Apparently, each Manaxite was born with a preference for “sucking in” a certain type of Qi and would stick to that type of Qi till death. Which meant that stacked on top of eachother were many cells that alternated between water, a little bit of earth, and then even less, white Qi.
I began swiping with my branch-tentacles through the cell layers, tossing out all of the elemental Qi and snagging away the white one. It felt almost like using Tinder for dating, except for Qi gathering instead. Swipe away for yes or no. I would get something like Water Qi, Water Qi, Water Qi, Earth Qi, White Qi, Water Qi, Water Qi, White Qi etc. and I would retain only the useful kind.
After I had gone through all of the cell layers, the spirit stone had now become empty, and was considered depleted, but I had stolen away all of its white Qi content without losing even a single mote.
Of course, a single low level spirit stone did not have that much “good” Qi inside of it in the first place. This one I had just consumed had only given me 527 “good” Qi out of it’s entire 5575 total Qi capacity, which was less that 10%
Still, it was at a much higher rate than just sucking the white Qi from the air.
This left me pondering though. I now held in my hand the leftover empty crystal lattice of the depleted spirit stone. Was there any use to be found for these things once they had become sucked dry?
Also, if I were to compare these to batteries, could they also be “recharged”?
It was worth a try to see if I could put white Qi BACK inside of the Spirit Stone.
I grabbed a few motes of white Qi from my dantian with one of the branch-tentacles, I slowly maneuvered them to the insides of one of the spirit stone cells, then I let go.
There was a chance that the cell would be unable to contain the Qi again once it had been used once, but instead, I was welcomed by a stunning revelation. The Qi placed within the cell remained stuck there exactly where I had left it, and was not dissipating or leaking out back into nature!
The spirit stones were “rechargeable” batteries, except that nobody knew how to charge them back!
I put even more Qi back into the depleted spirit stone, until it was half-way filled with only “good” Qi, and it did not seem to destabilize or manifest any sort of negative symptoms that I was half-expecting. It was now just a higher-concentration spirit stone, probably somewhere between Tier 3 and Tier 4.
And then the realisation hit me! Holy fucking shit! I can create custom concentration spirit stones!
If I play my cards right, then I will be able to buy a whole lot of low-level spirit stones, then move the Qi from inside of them to create higher level concentration spirit stones, which could then sell for a whole lot more then the cost of the initial low-level spirit stones.
Fuck, I could even create a 100% concentration spirit stone if I wanted to! I wonder for how much those go for? Can those even spawn in nature? Would something like that showing up for sale look suspicious?
But I have to be very careful about how I approach this. Creating and selling too many high-concentration spirit stones would draw unwanted attention towards me, since there is absolutely no way that a low level disciple like myself would be able to get his hands on such high value objects without something fishy going on!
They would assume that I had either robbed a high-level cultivator or that I had discovered some sort of a treasure trove somewhere, and both of those conclusions would only bring me trouble.
I could, of course, use Fungus as an intermediary and have him auction off all of the high concentration stones, because his family, being a merchant clan, did own quite a few auction houses, but then his entire family would just become curious and would begin to enquire from where Junior Fung is procuring his stones from, which would be just as troublesome.
Sometimes, when an object becomes too valuable, it also becomes extremely hard to sell, just like some stolen Picasso paintings.
Of course, there was also the option of selling the stones on the black market, but I did not want to get entangled with the shady side of the law as of yet. Not to mention that the guys from the black market would also get curious about my sources as well.
ARRGH...why can nothing ever be easy! I just found a way to make myself stupidly rich, but I can’t even properly put it to good use without also attaching an aggro gun to my temple.
Still, I’ll have to show Fung and Lingfeng this. They will probably lose all of their marbles when they find out!
Also, the sad fact is that even if I wanted to start the stone upgrade business, I still needed a large enough of an initial capital to get the ball rolling, and I was still broke.
Sure, I had enough plants and alchemy shit to fill a whole room, but most of it had not been not processed yet, and the few things that I had made, they still needed to be sold in the first place and were not even that great because they were too common. It’s a good thing that Lingfeng had been smart enough to buy me a set of around one hundred glass vials, which I had filled with the minor healing potion or elixir juices that I had brewed before.
There was a rather big reason why the easterners loved pills over potions, including the apothecaries themselves. They could be used in combat by being held in the mouth, then crushed as an emergency boost or heal, compared to a potion that you needed to first grab from the belt, uncork, then drink without spilling, which was a much more complex action to perform in combat and could cost you your life.
Also, pills needed no glass vials to contain them, since they were mostly solid or gelatinous, which meant that the production costs were greatly reduced.
For a heal pill, I would only need the proper herbs and I would then obtain the product.
For a heal potion, I would need the herbs, the vial, the cork and maybe even the label.
It was obvious which one was more profitable.
Sadly, Lingfeng had only known the recipes for a few “liquid” state alchemical products, therefore I had been forced to use the vials.
Getting my hands on some “solid state” pill recipes was my top priority for the moment.
The more annoying fact was also that the plants I was using were not getting used to full effect.
For example, Timmy was displaying only the “known” medicinal effects of the plants that I had gathered, but left me guessing about the rest.
Upon Appraisal, I would get something like this:
[Leaf of Sage Grass]
Description:
This is a leaf of the seasonal grass shrub aptly named Sage Grass because of the mental restorative attributes of it’s medicinal Qi.
Herb Type: Spiritual Herb
Herb Quality: Normal
Herb Level: 2-5
Herb Medicinal Qi Amount: 3 Units.
Herb Durability: 20 days 15 hours 13 seconds until total Qi dissipation
Herb Effects:
(unknown)
Restore Qi 31% MQ
(unknown)
Induce Sleep 3% MQ (unconfirmed)
(unknown)
(unknown)
The (unknown) meant that the plant also contained some other different type of medicinal Qi stored within, but I did not know which type yet.
The (unconfirmed) part was there because I had only read in a book that Sage Grass has a mild anesthetic effect and may induce drowsiness, but I had never crafted a potion with Sage Grass for that exact specific purpose, so the effect was still labeled as (unconfirmed) because it was not yet guaranteed that the effect was the correct one. I could be any other sort of medicinal Qi, which could be confused for an anesthetic but really wasn’t, like some sort of poisonous Qi, so I first had to make a pill or potion with that specific effect using Sage Grass, for it to show up as confirmed.
Which got me thinking. There was something in the “elongated” attribute screen about using my tongue to identify ingredients.
I wonder if I could do it like this…
I put the leaf of Sage Grass in my mouth and then cast [Appraisal] while it was still on my tongue.
[APPWAIZAL]
Bkleagh...that’s bitter…
Timmy: Your Intuition has unlocked a Hidden System Option.
The [Automatic Ingredient Effect Identification] Hidden Skill has now been unlocked in your menus and is available for purchase.
You must first spend a Skill Point to enable the use of this Skill.
The skill progress bar has been added to your status screen.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
HELL YEAH! I KNEW IT! PURCHASE!
Timmy: You now have 12 Unassigned Skill points left.
Your Alchemy skill is over 25 - First Tier of the skill requirements have been met.
You may now identify the first medicinal Qi effect of a plant or ingredient when you first ingest it.
Upgrade this skill to the next level to discover the secondary medicinal Qi effect of an ingredient when ingesting it as well. (Requires Alchemy 50)
The third effect will unlock at Alchemy 75, the fourth at 100, the fifth at 200, seventh at 350 and eighth at 500+
At maximum level of this skill you will be able to identify ALL of the alchemical effects of an ingredient when you first sample it.
WARNING!
You CAN kill yourself by eating raw some of this shit, so be carefull what you put in your mouth! Cyanide and happiness don’t mix well outside of YouTube.
Well, DUH! Of course I am not going to just glug poisonous shit to see what it does. BUT on the other hand, I CAN begin to sample the shitton of plants that I already have, and are somewhat safe for consumption.
Therefore, I began to cut small samples away from all of the “safer” plants, mushrooms and even barks and resins that I had at hand, then popped them in my mouth.
Just about every medicinal plant tasted horrible. The easterners did always say that good medicine always tastes bitter, so at least that might be something.
I was also unlocking all of the first effects on all of the plants that I had eaten, and the progress bar for the skill was shooting up with the discovery of each new item. In the end, it had reached maximum, but then Timmy told me that I needed to reach Alchemy 50 first before the identification of second tier effects would get unlocked. Damn it! And I was at 35! I guess It’s back to grinding!
I’ll just get Fung to cook up some primers for me and then I’ll…
*SKROONK! SCHHHHRR! GROWLL!*
FUCK! My stomach!
I immediately rushed out, and then instantly “melted the outhouse with my explosive ass-napalm”. The ingredient induced diarrhea had been quite violent, to say the least, and Timmy seemed to agree.
Timmy: Because of your suicidal tendencies and eating ingredients without knowing how they would mix in your stomach, you have unlocked the passive skill [Lead Belly].
The skill progress bar has been added to your status screen.
Description:
The first effect from an ingested ingredient will now only be able to partially damage you, but not outright kill you.
The secondary effects can still do it though.
Upgrade this skill to the next level to mitigate the secondary effect as well. (Requires Alchemy 50, 75, 100, 200, 350, 500, you get the picture)
At maximum level of this skill you can become immune to negative effects when sampling ingredients for their alchemical effects.
This does NOT prevent you from being intentionally poisoned by others nor does not count as poison resistance.
━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━
When Fung arrived, he had found me lying on a stack of pillows and looking like a corpse. Indeed, I had taken some HP damage alongside with the explosive stomach ache effects. I should have known better. At least it’s over for now. After I had gotten out of the outhouse when the rumble in my gut had somewhat diminished, I had gone into “cultivation” mode and I had noticed that my body was getting “infested” with a swarm of weird looking and strangely colored Qi motes, which I assumed were the medicinal Qi motes from the plants I had just sampled. I had immediately begun to stretch my branch-tentacles out and push out the weird Qi, but it was hard work, since all of my meridians except the spinal one were still closed. In the end, I had still managed to toss out most of the “weird” Qi and I got better after doing so, but the whole process had been quite an unpleasant and draining experience.
Note to self - never sample more that one ingredient at a time, it’s not worth the pain.
The one peculiar thing I had noticed though, was the fact that I had discovered that even “normal” ingredients began to display status effects when I had sampled them. I had tried to appraise some corn, tomato, celery, onion, salt and pepper using the Alchemical [Appraisal] method and I had gotten quite some interesting results.
For one, it had become quite obvious to me that as far as the System was concerned, Alchemy ≠ Chemistry.
Alchemy was a lot more like a System-based recipe matchup game, rather than an accurate science like chemistry was.
When it came to Earth chemical reactions, you knew exactly what to expect out of the reaction, and there was a real-life logic behind every occurance, with the chemical atoms and molecules interacting with eachother in a way that made scientific sense.
On the other hand, the System was tossing the science book out the window and was saying “Meh I’ll do whatever I like, it’s my fucking planet!”. While I was pretty certain that there was indeed some sort of an underlying scientific explanation behind everything that the System was capable of doing, since high level science is absolutely indistinguishable from magic, from the point of view of an user it made absolutely no difference if the end product came out of a well thought-out Chemical reaction, or out of a magical mumbo-jumbo System-made Alchemical mix as long as the results were the same.
No wonder that this world was so primitive! The System did everything for them, so the people had forgotten to do things in a “manual” way or doubt the results handed to them on a platter by the System.
On this planet, weird shit happened because “Mom Earth” willed it so, and that was that! Everybody was accepting it as a fact of life.
But I did not have the will nor the time at this point to go against a System that kept its users in the dark on purpose.
For the moment, the System was my best ally, since I could exploit the shit out of all of the “hidden” options that lay within it. I only had to find all of them first. It did not matter if my actions did not make any actual sense, as long as the System THOUGHT that they made sense.
Therefore, more grinding was needed. My immediate goal had become to reach 100 Alchemy, so I could get the 4 effects discovered when sampling an ingredient because most of the herbs I had around the house only had 4 effects or less in the first place.
Since I was putting all sorts of dumb shit in my mouth anyway, I went ahead and I even put the rest of the spirit stones in my mouth and used the alchemical appraisal. Sure enough, they all came back counting as ingredients as well, the only difference being that they were considered as “catalysts” based on the Qi that was stored inside.
For example, tossing a spirit stone that mostly contained water Qi inside a recipe that was water-attuned could possibly boost the outcome effects by a significant margin. The rarest of recipes would use “white” Qi as their catalysts, so finding spirit stones that had a high-enough concentration of white Qi would sometimes become the biggest problem when crafting high level recipes. Luckily for me, I had eliminated that problem right before I had started sampling the ingredients, when I had discovered that I could manipulate the Qi stored within the stones as I pleased. All I had to do was now create either fully-white Qi-filled spirit stones or pure “elemental” Qi spirit stones of only one elemental-type to obtain some perfect catalysts for my alchemy products.
Since there were so many effects that the plants could give off, and there wasn't any real logic as to why they were doing so, I wondered if I could isolate only the desired effects and separate them from the others.
Hey Timmy, I know that there has to be some skill out there in that hidden list of yours that would allow an alchemist to isolate standalone effects from the plants! Cough it up!
Timmy: Your Intuition has unlocked a Hidden System Option.
The [Automatic Alchemical Essence Isolation and Separation] Hidden Skill has now been unlocked in your menus and is available for purchase.
You must first spend a Skill Point to enable the use of this Skill.
The skill progress bar has been added to your status screen.
Item required for this skill to work: Pill Forge Essence Separator Addon (missing).
Description:
You can now focus on extracting only one specific desired effect out of all of the available ones from an ingredient.
By extracting the single effect, you will lose some of the medicinal Qi concentration.
Current Ingredient Qi to Extracted Essence Qi Dust conversion rate: 50% Loss.
Timmy, what’s a Separator Addon?
Timmy: [Pill Forge Essence Separator Addon]
Description:
Attach this addon to the bottom of your pill forge to allow it to host the Medicinal Qi Essence Separation Process
The amount of Lost Qi and the number of Medicinal Qi Essences that you can isolate at one time is based on the Quality, Level, and Material of the Pill Forge and Addon used in the process.
Timmy: Your absolutely pathetic Pill Forge currently has 0/2 supported addons. Check with the Smithing Guild or Marketplace inside of the Sect for availability.
Timmy: Even if you somehow find the addon, you will be able to separate only one single essence by using your broken-ass Pill Forge while losing the entirety of the rest. Upgrading your Pill Forge and your Separator addon to higher quality items will allow you to isolate more than one essence at a time and increase the concentration retained.
Bleh, I did not find it so surprising at all that the results were based on the tools used for extraction.
"Hey Fung, do you have any idea what an Essence Separator Addon for a Pill Forge is? I think I need it for some recipes."
"No idea, but we can check with the Apothecary Guild, Marketplace or even Smithing Guild to see if they have one available."
"Ugh...sure...but I’m broke."
"No problem, I can cover the cost. It is the least I can do for the techniques you have imparted to me. I could never repay you even in an entire lifetime for such valuable information!"
"Hmm, then can we get a better Pill Forge? This one sucks ballz and is cracked all over. We need some better stuff for making higher recipes."
"We most certainly can. I shall inquire home tonight whether any of our Auction Houses have any high quality Pill Forges within our level range."
Ah, it’s good to be a rich spoiled little brat, ain’t it Fung!
I had forgotten about the Level Requirements bullshit. Fung will be able to only use a forge that is fit for his level bracket, unlike myself that can use anything, since he does not have the module.
I wonder if there’s anything that can be done about that though.
Timmy: Well, you could share your module with him if you wanted. As long as he would remain in your party, you could have him benefit from it as well, if you so desired.
Timmy, you surprise me! Did you just offer me some free info without being milked for it? Won’t Momma System get angry at you?
Timmy: Even “Momma System” has loopholes. If something was not specifically forbidden to me to speak about on the censure list just because Momma forgot to add it, then it means it does not count as an infraction and I can spill the beans freely. I AM a module meant to assist YOU first and foremost, and NOT the Momma Planetary System. It’s what you paid for, right?
Wait, you said something about Fung being in my party. Is he not considered to be in my party right now? I mean, he’s been following me everywhere. He should at least count as a pet, right?
Timmy: Fung is currently NOT in your party. Inviting a person to join your party means that you both agree to split the loot and the EXP gains based on an initial set of pre-agreed rules like “equal distribution”, “round robin” or “free for all” etc.
"Hey Fung! I need to test something! Just agree, ok?" Timmy, add Fung to the party screen.
"Agree to w...hat the fucking blue blazes is that!" Fung jumps up while waving his hands in front of his eyes. "It just popped up right in front of me!"
"It’s just the party-join agreement popup, you numbskull! Just hit agree."
"What’s that?"
"It’s a way for us to see eachother's statistics even if we got separated."
"Something that handy exists?"
"Fung, this shit is as old as the world! It’s just that most people have forgotten that it exists in the first place, because everyone in this world is a backwater moron. I’m pretty sure that we can even message eachother at a distance if I can figure how to use it properly."
Timmy: Party Chat requires for you to first set up a Host Server and link up the desired party members together. Visit your nearest Weirdwood Facetree to purchase a Server. We accept all grades of spirit stones, but if you want to also have the Videochat option enabled you need to use tier 4 spirit stones or higher.
Ugh...figures that some dumb shit like that would be involved.
"Hey Fungus, what’s a Weirdwood Facetree and where can I find one?"
"The Sacred Tree? There’s one in the courtyard at the Buddhist temple. What do you need one for?"
"Apparently, I gotta find one and then “pay tribute” in spirit stones to it for the extra options to work. Can you show me where it is?"
"Sure, it’s just up the mountainside. Follow me!"
We both then left my house and then climbed a few levels to reach the local Buddhist temple. The tree lay within the backyard of the temple alongside with a myriad of deity and hero statues. It was a huge-ass old white-barked-tree similar to a birch in color, but with red-autumn leaves similar to that of a maple stretching all over us. The most striking feature of the whole tree though, was the very human-like face that was sprouting right out of the tree-trunk and was facing in our direction. It looked like a very old and long-bearded man that had fallen asleep, and was waiting for someone to come and wake him up. It looked like some sort of legendary tree of wisdom and I was wondering if the damn thing wouldn’t just suddenly start talking back at us.
But nothing like that happened. I approached the “face”, but I could now see that it was only a bunch of protruding wood knots that made the bark stand out in such a way that made it look like a face was plastered on the side of the tree from a distance.
The moment I touched the face though, I got a popup.
Timmy: System Communications and Rental Hub detected.
A list of System available services has been unlocked.
Tap on ⊞ to see the whole list.
The list was bigger than I had thought. Besides the Chat and Videochat options, there were a myriad of other “blessings” that could be purchased with spirit stones, and there were even grades of power and length for each blessing. The more you could fork out, spirit stone wise, the longer and stronger the blessings got.
There were even shadier “deal” options that required the sacrifice of an item or even the sacrifice of a person to receive a more persistent type of buff. I shit you not, I even saw “sacrifice virgin” as an ingredient. Geez! I should find some way to pop my cherry soon then, just to avoid getting targeted by virgin hunters I reckon.
The thought of using Fung for the deed briefly entered my mind, but I rapidly brushed away that dreadful stray neural discharge as I was overwhelmed by an accompanied nausea at the mere consideration of it. No, if it were to be someone, it’d have to be that hunk from the training fields that does those fancy moves every day. Come to think of it, does it count as popping my cherry if I do it with a lady instead? Or with a phallic shaped object? I could pretend that I just fell on the end tip of the broom shaft and be done with it.
Timmy: “Virgins” required for such sacrifices mostly refer to “pure souls”, rather than physical virgins, but usually the bad guys just take it too literally. YOU are NOT a pure soul, so you don’t have to worry about it. Their ritual would just fail if they ever used you as a sacrifice.
Aw gee, thanks a lot Timmy, that’s a great consolation, that I ruined their ritual after becoming DEAD.
Anyway, the options I was interested in fortunately had nothing to do with ritual sacrifices of virgins. Setting up a “chat” server only required spirit stones, and it was quite cheap. It also did not matter what type of Qi was contained within the spirit stone, so I could, in theory, milk out all of the good Qi, then use the leftovers to “pay” for the server upkeep.
Paying came in the form of the old man’s tree’s face opening its mouth and swallowing my spirit stones, once I had placed them within. I had used my tier 3 spirit stone for the payment, of course, after I had squeezed it dry for all of the useful Qi. The “server” had been now paid for 1 year and 3 months, and could host up to 5 party members at a time. Any new recruits that I could invite would get connected automatically to the server once they had agreed to the party’s basic ruleset and would be able to use the party chat feature.
Ok, let’s see how this shit works.
"Test! Test! Fung, can you see what I am writing to you?"
"ARRGH! WHAT IS THAT! WHY IS IT IN FRONT OF MY EYES AGAIN! IS THAT YOU TRINA? HOW DO I TURN THIS THING OFF? I CAN’T SEE WELL WITH THIS MENU STICKING OUT IN FRONT OF MY EYES! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY BLESSINGS OF THE MOTHER, TRINA?"
"Your what?"
Ah wait, I think that’s what he calls his interface. Duh, facepalm.
"Just use your mind to resize the menu and park it in some corner of your vision where you can still see it, but won’t get in the way. And stop screaming. Turn off the Caps Lock!"
"HOW DO I DO THAT TRina...never mind I found it. Sorry! Ok, I moved it to one side! This is fucking awesome! It’s like I’m some sort of telepath! How far does this thing reach?"
Timmy, how far DOES this chat feature stretch out to?
Timmy: All across the world and even to the Moons.
"It can even go as far as the Moons, Fung! You will never be out of “range” of another person ever again if you stick with me!"
"Hah! The military implications that this thing could have is just HUGE! Just think of constantly being able to command your troops while using this “chat” feature and not have to rely on signaling flags instead! You would be able to outmaneuver an enemy silly!" Fung suddenly hugs me in his excitement.
"Let go, you big lug! I can’t breathe!"
"Erm..sorry...I got carried away." Fung puts me back down.
"No problem. I can understand why. From your perspective, this is some sort of ancient, long lost magic that has suddenly been brought back to life, and not just some basic interface feature. Fung, you should get used to more of this sort of stuff happening if you are going to follow me around. You people are way too backwater, I swear!"