“Cool.” Noem squeaked. He cleared his throat and steadied himself, then leaned against the pedestal once again. “So, um, how? I didn’t feel any kind of stone Qi, and I still don’t feel any.”

The Artisan waggled a finger at Noem with a smirk. “Weren’t you listening to the city-sized statue? My Qi is made to shape, move, and influence things. Now, some kinds of Qi can already do that, but they lack one specific thing that I have in spades around here. And no, I’m not talking about the stone you saw on the surface.”

“I’m talking about this!” The Artisan held up one hand, and a blob of stone slithered up her leg to congeal into a rough orb on her palm. “Programmable matter. If you give it a command and enough Qi, it will shape itself into almost anything you can think of. But still made of the Great Quarry’s stone, of course.”

Noem accepted the piece of stone that the Artisan pushed on him with great interest. It felt like a chunk of stone that stole away his Qi, but now that he knew what it was, it still felt like a chunk of stone that stole away his Qi. That had to be the ‘give it energy’ part, but how was he supposed to give it a command? If he used a skill and focused on the stone as the recipient, would it just… do it?

He’d already forced skills into things, so why not the stone? Noem took a deep breath and focused on the rock, its Qi-stealing properties, and the insanely detailed lattice that constructed it. But before he even tried using a skill, he knew it wouldn’t work. For the sole reason that he’d already tried something like it before.

“This is digital, right?” Noem tapped his knuckles on the stone for emphasis. “I can’t use Qi to give digital commands. My system can, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to connect to this thing. It’s not broadcasting a wireless signal, and if it has any ports, I’m not seeing ‘em.”

The Artisan shattered an eyebrow and raised the glowing shards. “Yes, it’s digital. But that shouldn’t be a problem for someone who can force things to activate skills.”

Noem took in The Artisan’s words, but couldn’t make sense of them. “Force… what?”

“Like with the gemstone when you made your sister’s anchor. Or with that arrow.” The Artisan said with a gesture at Noem’s quiver. “Things can’t use skills, and unlike the bombs, you didn’t just trap skills already in progress in stasis fields. You found some way to make them use skills, and you can use that same thing to make tech work now that I’ve altered your Qi. Simple, right?”

“...Yeah. Simple.” Noem said slowly. He gripped the stone a little harder, and summoned the feeling of forcing his skill on the gemstone for the serpent’s eye. But when he played it back, it felt like it shouldn’t have worked. Just like trapping a Heavy Blow inside of an arrow shouldn’t have worked. For some reason, though, it did.

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Maybe it had something to do with all the work he’d done to get near perfect control over his Qi. He hadn’t been able to send anything away from his body at the beginning, after all, and it had taken years of hard work just to get one skill to travel along anything he held. But he hadn’t even thought that he was forcing the thing itself to activate the skill.

He raised the stone and activated Dash. For a split second it tried to go down to his back and legs, but he forced it into his arm and down to the stone. It struck the surface with a wet slap, and the stone swallowed Dash whole. But this time, Noem didn’t let go of his Qi. He felt it linger inside of the stone, rippling with potential. If he’d used it normally, his steps would’ve carried explosive power.

“So what’ll you do here?” Noem mused. He turned so he wasn’t facing the glass, then forced the skill to trigger.

The stone erupted from his hand. Directly upward. It slammed into the ceiling with enough force to pulverize something into dust, which rained down on Noem as he felt his skill drain away from him. Without a physical connection to the rock, Dash died out when all of its Qi was gone, and the stone fell right back into Noem’s hand.

His cheeks hurt from the wide smile that little show had plastered on. He twisted the stone, which hadn’t been damaged in the slightest, and gave it another dose of Dash, except this time he visualized the skill going in the direction of an empty wall. It activated with another rush of Qi, and the stone followed exactly what he’d imagined.

Noem ran up to the wall and prodded at the stone that had slightly embedded itself in more stone. “That’s so fucking cool!” He laughed. “Could I do that this whole time?”

“Probably!” The Artisan said with equal excitement. “But that’s not what I was trying to show you. Your Qi now has the exact same properties as mine. Which, as a digital entity, includes the extremely limited ability to turn your Qi into digital commands. You can send your skills to any tech you’ve got connected to your interface, and you can power all of your own stuff without a converter!”

That sounded exactly like the kind of thing Noem needed. Almost too exact. The thought that The Artisan was screwing with him briefly surfaced, but he pushed it down and ignored it. She could build an entire underground metropolis in a matter of seconds–if she wanted to hurt him, she would’ve already done so. And if she wanted to manipulate him, then he’d just have to be extremely careful.

Noem nodded and pressed his hand to the wall. He felt his Qi inside of it, and he forced a connection in the same way he did with the items in his interface. Somehow, he knew he had access to it. But he also saw just how much Qi it would take to shape even one small new room. If he hadn’t been fully convinced of the Artisan’s power, he was now.

“Almost as good as actually getting a bond.”

The Artisan visibly deflated at his mention of a bond. “I know it’s not the same thing as actually getting a bond, but it’s all I can do for you. For now, I mean.” She quickly clarified. “You already did a lot of research into your genetic structure, but I have access to stuff that’s a lot more advanced than you did. Maybe I can find out what’s stopping you from bonding, or at least find some way to bypass the requirements for getting out of the mortal realm.”

“C’mon, you know I didn’t mean it…” Noem started to backtrack, but paused. “Actually, no, I did mean it. Sorry.”

“No, I get it. I wish I didn’t, but I get it.” The Artisan sighed. She waved her hand, and Noem felt his connection to the stone deepen somehow. “Bonds are the only way for humans to get stronger past a certain point. You know that, I know that, and the world made it a thing. But let’s forget about that for now, and move on to other things.”

She leaned back, and a simple stool appeared under her to break her fall. She tented her fingers and rested her chin atop them, then raised another stool and gestured for Noem to take a seat. Which he did with mild interest.

“You know what’s going to happen in ten years. I want to prevent it.”