"How have you tested them?" I asked, the excitement evident in my voice.

"For range, only within the limits of the town," Ming admitted. "We didn't have a way to test any further. Only Siam and you have a flying mount, and he has been busy with the new beast tamers."

"But we were able to test them for security and connection protocol. Your Qi signature creates a lock that keeps anyone else from using them, and the devices use the same mechanics missives used to establish who receives a request to connect.

"The flux that we use has the smallest amount of coral added, one part to a thousand. The flux fills the array etchings and once in place the small amount of coral begins to grow, feeding on the main component of the flux like it would in the wild."

That worried me. "Can they be reversed engineered? The coral extracted and nourished so that a competing territory can create their own device?"

"I doubt it," Ming replied. "The flux we are using binds with the coral. I suppose that someone could find a way to separate the two materials, but the chances are small. We included some features that should protect the devices from theft.

"The array has a rune in place to discharge an electrical pulse and fry the coral if they tamper with the tokens. And once the flux hardens in place, it becomes reactive. Any exposure to air will cause it to ignite."

"The devices were able to resonate with the user in some manner and understand which of the Xi they had instructed it to contact."

I was satisfied with how far they had gotten and how thorough they had been. With the limitations they labored under, they had done a great job. I would need to test range, but I had populated the Beast Tamer nursery with over three dozen Peryton, a dozen Ogygoptynx, and the three Roc chicks. Finding cultivators that could fly was just a matter of time.

Siam had been buried under his new responsibilities, training the beast tamers, and making sure the animals under their care were well treated and healthy to offer his assistance in Ming's research. I couldn't fault him for his dedication or blame him for making his responsibilities his priority.

"How do they work?" I wondered.

"You inject a bit of your Qi to bind them to your Qi signature," Ming explained. "That creates a connection between you and the communicator and syncs it with you to serve as an identifying pattern.

"When you want to send messages between devices, it generates an ID connection for that person the same way you would for a missive. The tokens are able to separate individual characterizations. It filters your request using Name, Rank, Profession as an identifying variable. The device 'pings' a connection across the ether that the coral has established, to find the person that fits those parameters.

"Once found, it released a Qi dissonance to the person you are attempting to contact. Just enough to get the person's attention, a type of Qi vibration stimulates a formation so that a ringing sound or vibration within the token is projected.

"The devices connect if the other party answers and two-way communication becomes possible," he finished, his pride in his accomplishments obvious and well deserved.

"Are there any drawbacks?" I asked, hoping the question wouldn't deflate the moment of pride he was engaged in.

"We won't know about any problems with connecting and signal strength over distance until that can be tested. The only problem we noticed is a delay between when words are spoken and when they are heard between each party.

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"I've theorized that the delay will only get larger the farther the distance between devices, but you would have to be a cultivator with your perception focused on the devices to notice.

"We are talking fractions of a millisecond within the confines of the town. A delay so small that it would have never been noticed if not for the testing parameters inscribed in a series of testing arrays we created to test for that specific problem."

"How hard are they going to be to produce?" I asked. "If the testing holds up, I want to be able to mass-produce these devices and establish Xiwang as a distribution center. It will help the Fief establish trade partnerships as well as offer a product that will generate income unique to our territory."

"I'm not an expert in mass production," Ming admitted reluctantly. "What I can say is once we deliver the jade, the process for inserting a coral seed and stamping the runic formations is pretty straightforward.

"I think you can create a set of prototype equipment that can be used by someone knowledgeable about manufacturing might use to establish workstations and assemble lines. They would need to be responsible to train non-cultivators to man each station."

"I'll look for someone to deal with that then," I said, deciding it was better to keep Ming focused on research and innovation instead of the minutia of production.

"The creation of the communication device itself is a sixfold process. It starts by inserting a coral nutrient solution into a runic array stamped on four sides of a jade token. I have devised an anti-tampering array embedded on both ends so that our methodology cannot be stolen."

"Is there a way we could do something to hide additional runic circuitry like what was done with the missives? A way for someone to listen in on other people's conversations?" I asked.

"Possibly," Ming admitted hesitatingly.

She obviously didn't want to, and I understood that reluctance. Finding out Clan Velize had the ability to spy on private communications was probably treasonous. To turn around and do the same thing didn't speak highly of my own House's ethics.

"I would like a feature where a log of calls made and received can be stored. Not for the same purposes as those from Clan Velize," I assured Ming. "What I am envisioning is a process where people investigating crimes can confiscate communication devices to examine the stored logs and reconcile the call records to help in creating a timeline."

"I think that can be done," Ming said, his reluctance fading, replaced by real thought and consideration on how something like that might be done.

"But you know," he said after giving the matter some thought, "that if you do something like that, it will only be a matter of time before everyone discovers the log function, how to retrieve it, and how to delete it."

"Not if we create a cipher to unlock that stored information, and maintain control of the cipher," I said.

"We would retain control of the cipher?" Ming asked. "How would that work?"

"A person would contact us asking us to unlock that feature. We would require a reason, evidence that the information contained within the token was relevant to any investigation involving a crime, for example," I explained.

"Once we have decided to comply or have been instructed to comply with that request by the Empire or a Judge, we would send the cipher by transmitting a signal the same way we transmit voice communication.

"The runic script that is protecting that feature would be deactivated, and the stored information made available."

"That should be possible," he agreed, "but once unsealed, there would be no way to reseal that function. The communication token would be useless and have to be replaced."

"The only other addition I'd like you to add is a privacy array," I said. "Something that the user can activate so that others can't listen in on private conversations."

"You want that feature so they can activate it instead of just an automatic feature of the device?" Ming asked.

"There might be times when it might be advantageous for more than one person to hear a conversation. If I was in one of the other towns, I could have Gwen gather a group of people together and hold a discussion with everyone at once.

"It would save time, and with everyone able to hear the conversation, there should be less confusion, or people changing orders that an entire room heard," I explained. "It would also be easier to hold meetings between Sect, Clans, or Houses if each side had a group to participate."

This would just be the first version of the communication token. Once my House included members that were trained and gained higher-tiered professions, I hoped to implement a few other features with each evolution. A type of illusion array similar to one that worked with the Sects data terminals for face-to-face conversations, a text function, and a file-sharing ability.

With Qi replacing the need for satellites or bandwidth, the amount of information that could be shared across the devices should be limitless. I wasn't sure if those features could be added, but even if they couldn't, what Ming had already created would provide real benefit to every stratum of society.