Now that Hei had acquired a lead, he asked Rhava and Shiva for information on where the Hall of the Ancients was supposed to appear. Fortunately, they knew that much.
"Then it's settled. We'll go over and take a look."
"Who's going?" asked Tianlan. "I have a few matters to settle, so it's not a good time. And there's also the issue of upping our defences."
"That's fine. We only need a beast and a human to sweep the whole thing. Mei and I will suffice."
"What about little Bai? You're going to leave her alone?"
"Hmm. I had planned to hand her over to you when the time came, but since things have happened as they have, it should be okay to leave her at the Radiant Jade. If they have any sense of gratitude, then they'll do their best to protect her. And if the worst comes to pass, then we can trust her to find a way out."
"But-"
"Don't forget that our little sister's a sharp one. She isn't easy to deal with. Besides,"
Tianlan felt a sudden sense of danger.
"If anyone dares to harm her,"
Cracks began to appear on the floor around Hei as he emanated waves of killing intent.
"Ah! There I go again. I really ought to do something about this."
He brushed his clothes as if they were covered in dust, and all strange phenomena died down.
"..."
"Anyway, she'll be fine. Have faith in her."
***
After finishing the conversation with the wolf siblings, Hei and Tianlan returned to Tianlan's abode.
"So, here's the plan. I'll spend a few days here finishing up the design for the second iteration of the communication jade, then I'll meet up with the members of the Radiant Jade who are on their way back. We'll finish cleaning the place up, then I'll take Mei and head over to the Hall of the Ancients. In the time that we're gone, you and little Bai should finish learning what you want from your respective sects, and Rhava and Shiva should head over to Spring Leaf. Give them a message to pass onto the Matriarch. Finally, when Mei and I return, the four of us will head off to gather the qualifications to enter the Academy. Sound good?"
"I have no problems with it. But how are you planning to complete the jades? Didn't you say they make use of our aura?"
"Yeah, it's a bit of a tricky problem."
It was the question of how the jades were supposed to find each other. In order to iron out the concept, Hei made use of a phenomenon that he didn't quite understand the underlying mechanisms of. That was the ability of envoys of the Heavens to find each other. By injecting his aura into the communication jades, he was able to have the data packets take advantage of whatever infrastructure existed to allow them to locate the recipient.
This was a terrible solution for a product that was supposed to enter mass production.
First of all, Hei didn't have time to inject his aura into all of the jades. And even if he did, there was another issue. Every device would have the same 'phone number'. It would be impossible for one user to specifically target another.
Obviously, such a restriction would be unacceptable.
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"But that's where you come in, Tianlan. I need someone who can see qi to get a better understanding of what's actually going on."
"Uh... Hei... My eyes are good, but there's still a limit to what I'm able to see. If you're asking me to observe the movement of qi over miles, I don't think I'm gonna be of much help."
"We just need a general idea. As long as you can see the directions things move in, then that's already a big help."
"Alright then. I'll see what I can do."
And so, Hei began to work on the second iteration of the communication jades, making use of Tianlan abilities whenever he had a spare moment.
He started by getting Tianlan to insert his aura into two new jades. That would allow them to commence testing without disturbing Su Yuying and Matriarch Radiant Jade who both had prototypes with Hei's aura in them.
Then he began tracing the movements of qi between the jades.
According to Tianlan, the data packets took the shortest path between the jades when all was clear, but seemed to travel vertically when there was impedance.
Said impedance was something Hei deliberately introduced in an attempt to test the robustness of the path-finding mechanisms. He achieved it by making use of some of the qi-blocking materials he had encountered during his activities.
He ran several tests by building anti-qi chambers which would have small openings for the qi to travel through and found that the direction was important. If the source qi could only escape in a lateral direction, then if it wasn't a direct line to the receiver jade, the signal Tianlan received would come from either above or below, depending on the angle at which the qi escaped the chamber.
For the transmissions that arrived from below, Tianlan noticed that they seemed to be making use of earth nodes to bounce the signal around until they got directly below the receiver jade. It seemed that as long as the earth could "see" both jades, then a communication channel could be established.
They weren't sure what was happening with the qi that came down from above, but they already had enough information to start making educated guesses. In any case, it was obvious that there was an extremely robust network already in existence that could aid in the creation of these communication jades. They just had to find a way to tap into it.
The next thing Hei wanted to understand was how things changed over long distances.
He had Tianlan go out to various locations, testing the performance of the jades under several real-world conditions, and they soon found that aura-infused qi had near-zero levels of degradation in its signal strength over distance. As long as there was no special material blocking it, it could seemingly cover infinite lengths.
This was something entirely infeasible to reproduce using regular qi which suffered from attenuation and thus required far greater magnitude at the source to cover the same distance.
There were some distances for which Hei was unable to produce enough power to send normal qi to Tianlan, even with the reinforcement of several formations. Those same distances were easily covered by the aura-infused qi, and at relatively low cost.
Other than that, the same phenomenon of the data packets travelling vertically when there was impedance was observed even over great distances, which gave them a deeper understanding of how the network functioned.
What they found particularly interesting, was that after Tianlan exceeded a certain distance, the qi started travelling vertically even when there was a clear path between the two jades. What's more, all such transmissions came down from above as opposed to rising from the ground.
This led Hei to look to the sky for answers.
***
"To think there was such a thing as sky nodes."
That was the conclusion Hei came to after pondering the question of how tribulation lightning located its targets.
It seemed to be a very targeted natural occurrence, not something that was directed by an intelligent being, so there had to be some mechanism through which it located its targets, and Hei came up with earth nodes in the sky, i.e. sky nodes, as his preliminary hypothesis.
To test this, he periodically went over to the roof of the Shimmering Sword Sect's ascension hall to siphon some of the tribulation lightning that would come down as their members underwent their cultivation breakthroughs.
He would then transfer this unique qi to Tianlan who was better equipped to handle the next part and assigned him the task of trying to send the lightning back to the sky.
This was something that sounded simple in concept, but Tianlan soon found out that it was far more difficult than it would seem.
Simply releasing the lightning in the direction of the sky was far from enough, and so was trying to brute force his way there by sending large doses of it up at once.
It was a task that required finesse.
***
While Tianlan was trying to figure that out, Hei began to consider what compromises he would have to make to the design due to the inferior quality of regular qi when it came to this task.
First of all, there was no way he would be able to reproduce the ease of use.
There would have to be support formations involved to amplify the signals, which meant the jades would be far less convenient to use.
Second, he had to find a substitute qi-conducting material.
Fortunately, spirit stones were a thing. They were the obvious choice.
Next, he had to find a way for the devices to store multiple contacts.
Unfortunately, his understanding of formations and the specific materials involved was still lacking if he wanted to come up with truly intricate designs, so the second generation jades were limited to five contacts that couldn't be changed once they were set.
Finally, there were the processes of taking ownership of the device and adding new contacts.
That part wasn't too difficult. Each contact's unique qi signature would act as their phone number. As long as they could physically grab hold of the device, then all it would take is infusing some of their branded qi into one of the five slots. The same method would be used by the owners of the jades to mark them as their own. Unfortunately, this way of doing things meant that non-cultivators wouldn't be able to make use of the second generation jades.
Hei hoped that these problems would be resolved as the technology advanced.
***
Tianlan looked to the sky, his eyes hazy and unfocused.
The challenge of sending the lightning to the sky had really pushed him to the limits of his ocular prowess.
After having observed thousands of lightning bolts fall toward the ascension hall, he began to see things he had never seen before.
Stars in broad daylight.
And these stars weren't just high up in the sky either. They were all around him.
He saw a flash and heard the sound of a thunderclap.
Another bolt of lightning had fallen, but its trail lingered in Tianlan's sight. He observed the way it twisted and turned, leaping from star to star as it made its way down.
The lightning within his own body was stirred and began to circulate on its own.
There was another flash. Another thunderclap. More twisting, more jumping, and more stirring.
The lightning continued to fall, each bolt moving more predictably than the last.
Then the twelfth flash came.
It was accompanied by the twelfth thunderclap.
But there was no twisting, no jumping, only stirring.
Tianlan looked to the sky.
The stars formed a jagged path before him.
He raised his hand and touched the first star.
There was a flash.
There was a thunderclap.
And then there was stirring.