When Flint mentioned borrowing twenty thousand spirit stones, Sage South Rain's eyes softened with maternal warmth.
"Take them as a gift," South Rain said, her voice gentle but firm. Seeing Flint's hesitation, she added with a slight smile, "Consider it my repayment to Master Snow."
The weight of both gratitude and guilt settled in Flint's chest as she accepted the ring-shaped container. It was similar to the one Spark always carried - a circular vessel with its center hollowed out, the void taking up roughly a third of the diameter. Within the ring, concentrated spiritual energy swirled like viscous blue liquid, the essence of fourty thousand spirit stones compressed into portable form — Yes, Sage South Rain gave her more, or rather, not just a little, but double the amount.
On the evening of Raven’s last day at work, Flint made her way to the western side of the Spirit Root Testing Pavilion with a middle-sized bag. Raven had chosen this spot for their meeting, correctly reasoning that few would venture near the testing grounds outside of recruitment seasons. The pavilion stood silent and empty, its elegant eight-sided structure casting complex shadows across the ground.
"Just my luck! That wolf is completely impossible to win over. He's even hiding from me now!" Raven burst out as soon as she arrived, her numerous rings catching the fading sunlight as she gestured in frustration.
Flint nodded slightly, her expression neutral. "I haven't seen much of him either."
A calculating gleam entered Raven's eyes as she studied Flint's face. "He's really given up on you, hasn't he? That was part of our deal, after all."
Flint's brows drew together, a hint of steel entering her voice. "I've done what I could. Are you thinking of going back on our agreement?"
"No, no, of course not!" Raven quickly backpedaled, her rings chiming softly as she waved her hands. She couldn't afford to leave empty-handed - neither the wolf nor the spirit stones in her grasp. "I'll be back to maintain the puppets anyway. Maybe I'll have better luck with Spark next time."
Curiosity flickered across her face as she shifted topics. "About this past life lover you mentioned... what's that about?" Her tone carried a hint of skepticism, as if testing whether Flint had fabricated the story.
"I... it's difficult to explain," Flint began hesitantly. But seeing Raven's expectant gaze, she knew she needed to provide some explanation. "I believe I have unfinished business from my previous life. Sometimes memories surface... and there was someone... someone important..."
"I think I know who his reincarnation is now. I need to find him," she concluded quietly.
"Oh, so it's not Spark then?" Raven mused, twirling one of her rings thoughtfully. "No wonder he seemed so... angry."
Flint nodded, though she couldn't agree with Raven's choice of words. The pain she'd glimpsed in Spark's eyes had been far deeper than mere agitation.
"Then why aren't you going to find him?" Raven pressed, arching an eyebrow with undisguised curiosity.
"My... master," Flint hesitated before settling on this term to describe her relationship with Sage South Rain, "believes I need to reach Adept Level first. The cultivator's world is dangerous."
Raven nodded, accepting this explanation. She lowered her bag onto the pavilion steps but made no move to open it. Her rings clinked softly against the stone.
Flint gripped her own bag tighter, watching Raven intently. Something about the other woman's demeanor set her on edge.
"We only agreed to trade for the Mystic Terminal, right?" Raven asked, her tone deceptively casual.
Flint frowned and nodded slowly. What game is she trying to play?
"Well, you see," Raven continued, barely concealing the excitement creeping into her voice, "this Mystic Terminal also contains some... Mystic Enigma Pavilion documentation. If you're interested in learning Soulweaver Language, these materials are absolutely essential." Her words carried a predatory undertone, like a merchant who had spotted an opportunity too good to pass up.
The dying sunlight cast long shadows across the pavilion steps as the two women regarded each other - one calculating, the other wary.
After a pause, Flint asked carefully, "You want more spirit stones?"
"Oh, talking about money is so crude," Raven replied, her rings creating a gentle chiming as she rubbed her hands together. "I've left all the documentation in there. I just want to... maintain a friendly connection with you."
"A connection?" Flint's brow furrowed. While she had extra spirit stones, she disliked this last-minute price negotiation. But Raven's emphasis on "connection" puzzled her even more.
As Raven watched Flint, her mind raced with calculations. Her job at the Mystic Enigma Pavilion - debugging and programming in Soulweaver Language - held little appeal. She'd long realized that this path would never fulfill her dreams of amassing enough wealth to collect precious gems and keep handsome cultivators as companions.
The real money lay in following the Mystic Enigma Pavilion's example - founding a sect, and having other cultivators generate profit. And here stood Flint - someone who never haggled, spoke little, and seemed consumed by work and thought. The perfect resource to exploit.
True, building a sect would take time. But as a cultivator with centuries ahead of her, Raven could be patient. Meanwhile, she could learn management skills at the Mystic Enigma Pavilion.
"Yes, a 'friendly' connection," Raven smiled with an almost sycophantic expression, her intentions hardly pure. The rings on her fingers caught the light as she spread her hands in an inviting gesture.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"Define friendly," Flint replied tersely, her wariness evident in her rigid posture.
———
In her private dormitory, Flint propped up the activated Mystic Terminal on a stand at her desk. Before it lay an unrolled scroll marked with letter-shaped glyphs, each character meticulously drawn in dark ink.
Raven's instructions echoed in her mind: "Anyone who can channel Stasis natural aura can input text by placing their fingers on the keys and infusing spiritual energy."
Her recent flights with Seedling had further widened the crack in her mental barrier. The emotional noise she sensed had grown more chaotic, and both her Stasis and Flux spirit roots seemed to activate simultaneously. The Genesis in her throat now split in two different ways at random - either into Light and Shadow, or into Flux and Stasis. She was learning to direct Stasis and Light upward while pushing Flux and Shadow downward.
Back at her desk, Flint pressed a key, channeling a thread of natural aura. The character beneath her finger responded with a soft blue glow, like moonlight on water, as the corresponding letter appeared in the editor.
Another memory surfaced - Raven's voice: "Of course, these flat scroll keys feel terrible. At the Mystic Enigma Pavilion, they made us these wooden keystones for better typing. Each key has this satisfying spring mechanism - you can really feel it push back against your fingers when you press down. Just overlay the scroll on top - it's pure mechanical structure, no connections needed. The letters still glow just the same when you channel natural aura. Just improve the feel of writing Soulweaver Language."
Flint minimized the editor and opened "Flying Raven" - the game Raven had mentioned.
The memory of their conversation flooded back. "When I say 'friendly connection,'" Raven had explained, "I mean I hope to hire you to develop games once you learn programming. Like this 'Flying Raven' I created."
"Develop games?" Flint had shown little interest.
Instead of elaborating, Raven had asked, "You use jade tablets for communication, right? Do you know how they work?"
When Flint shook her head, Raven continued, "The Mystic Enigma Pavilion has built transmission towers everywhere that can relay information through Stasis natural aura. Right now they only transmit voice and text, but eventually, they could transmit visual information too."
Visual transmission? Flint had nodded thoughtfully. The Mystic Enigma Pavilion knows so much.
Raven had pressed her ring-covered hand to her lips in contemplation. "Think about it - your jade tablet could be larger, like a Mystic Terminal, or maybe a fifth of the size - something you can hold."
She'd gestured enthusiastically to demonstrate the size. "Then everyone could play games on these screens! In Flying Raven, players could pay money or watch advertisements to revive after dying! We could sell both devices and programs!"
"What do you think?" Raven had draped an arm around Flint's shoulders.
Though confused, Flint had found herself nodding, caught up in Raven's enthusiasm.
Raven had pulled her closer. "I knew you had vision. We'll split the profits."
Many years later, Flint would recognize this as empty promises. But for now, she just wanted to try "Flying Raven" and study its source code, as Raven had suggested.
Flint found herself oddly engaged in the game until her raven character suddenly stuck to the top of a pillar.
Is this what Raven called a 'bug'? She recalled Raven's explanation - they called it debugging because originally, actual insects would damage the runes, causing execution errors.
Opening both the source code and the Soulweaver Language documentation, Flint studied the project. It was relatively simple - less than ten files with a little over a thousand lines of code totally. After reviewing it, she suspected a faulty conditional statement.
After making changes and recompiling, Flint looked up and murmured, "Oh, it's dawn." Having no need for sleep, her sense of time was rather poor.
She tested the game again. The bug seemed fixed, though she couldn't be certain it wouldn't resurface elsewhere. However, she'd already lost interest in the game itself.
The difficulty never increases. It gets boring quickly. Would anyone really spend spirit stones to revive? she wondered.
But watching the raven navigate between pillars sparked an idea. Could she set up conditional statements to direct Light and Stasis natural aura upward while keeping Shadow and Flux flowing downward? After all, those formations that gather natural aura are also drawn with runes. This would eliminate the need for constant concentration.
She flipped through the Soulweaver Language documentation and found methods for detecting natural aura types. After careful study, she began programming her solution.
Flint had worked out the programming logic - complex in detail but simple in concept. But how to implement it? She discovered the Mystic Terminal had functionality to print runes onto certain mediums. But onto what?
She remembered the puppet workers in the Celestial Sword Sect had cloth patches with runes printed on them.
What cloth could I use? She looked around her room. Since I don't sleep anyway, might as well cut up the bedsheet.
She snipped off a section and activated the function to print the runes. The Mystic Terminal emitted blue glow from the back, printing runes on the cutted bedsheet.
The program was straightforward - directing Light and Stasis upward, Shadow and Flux downward. She positioned the cloth at her throat, immediately feeling the natural aura flow become more regulated.
However, two problems remained. First, she still needed to concentrate Genesis in her throat - if it split elsewhere, like in her chest cavity, it could still flow to the wrong spirit roots and cause damage. Second, she needed some way to secure the cloth to her neck.
But there was progress - the spirit roots that could now absorb natural aura were no longer absorbing Genesis. This meant she needed to block Genesis absorption in her chest cavity, focusing it entirely through the throat checkpoint.
After putting down the bed sheet printed with runes, Flint turned her attention to her sect robe. Perhaps printing runes on the back of the robe would work better for blocking natural aura.
She began writing new code for a more comprehensive blocking pattern. Time slipped away as she refined and tested different configurations. Finally, after what could have been hours, she completed the rune design for blocking natural aura.
Just as she removed her sect robe to begin printing, a thought struck her. If others see runes printed on my body, it would look rather suspicious.
Better to print them on my undergarments instead. She slipped off her inner clothing, leaving only her chest bindings, and prepared to start the printing function.
Suddenly, urgent knocking erupted from her door.
Who could that be? Hastily wrapping herself in her sect robe, she hurried to answer.
"Flint!" Seedling burst in, her fox ears twitching with worry. "I haven't seen you all day! I thought something had happened to you!"
Has an entire day really passed? Flint marveled at this realization - finding it both bizarre and somehow perfectly natural at the same time.
"Oh, I..." Flint suddenly remembered Raven's warning about keeping the Mystic Terminal secret. She backed away from Seedling step by step, then quickly shed her sect robe and draped it over the device in one fluid motion.
"I... I just woke up," Flint offered lamely, unable to think of a better excuse.
"Eh? You slept that long? Did something upset you?" Seedling moved closer with concern, her fox tail swishing behind her. "And you sleep without clothes?"
"Yes, it's cooler this way," Flint replied hastily.
"Is it because of that faithless wolf? You already have someone better - what was his name... Lenient Pine?" Seedling approached the spot where Flint was guarding the Mystic Terminal. With a playful flourish, she lifted the corner of the sect robe, revealing the large crystal panel underneath.
"Aha! What are you hiding here? Let me see!" Seedling's eyes sparkled with interest as she peered at the screen.
Flint sighed, realizing her efforts at concealment had been in vain. "Please don't tell anyone."
"Of course not! Your secret's safe with me," Seedling promised, though her enthusiasm dimmed slightly at the sight of code filling the screen. She experimentally tapped the screen a few times, then brightened when she spotted the raven character. Another tap, and she discovered the game, immediately becoming absorbed in playing.
"Seedling," Flint suddenly asked, watching her friend become engrossed in the game, "your Stasis spirit root is Deficient, right?"
"Ah, yeah," Seedling replied distractedly, then groaned as her raven crashed into a pillar. "Damn it. Game over? Can I revive?"
So you don't need a Stasis spirit root to operate the Mystic Terminal, Flint mused. Why did Raven say you needed at least Gifted level? After some thought, she reasoned it must be for printing runes, which would require channeling Stasis natural aura.
While Flint pondered this revelation, Seedling had already started another round, her tail swishing with excitement as she guided the raven between pillars.
While waiting quietly for Seedling's next game over, Flint was about to ask about adhesives when Seedling's frustrated voice broke the silence.
"I got such a high score and then just died! Why can't I revive?" Seedling frantically tapped the keystones, but the characters on the scroll remained unresponsive.
Maybe Raven's business idea has merit after all, Flint reflected.
"By the way, Seedling, do you know where to get glue?" Flint asked softly.
"Glue? You mean like what they use for posting notices in the dining hall?" Seedling tilted her head.
Flint nodded. "Yes, that kind. I've designed some runes that I need to attach to myself to guide the flow of natural aura."
"Wow! That's amazing!" Seedling's purple eyes sparkled with curiosity. "Does that mean if I stick a rune on myself, I won't need to meditate anymore?"
Flint considered this, thinking that printing natural aura-gathering formations on the clothes might actually work. She nodded slowly. "Perhaps."
"Perfect! I'll go steal- I mean, borrow a bottle," Seedling declared, puffing out her chest proudly. "Wait for me!"
Flint watched Seedling's retreating figure, her white fox tail swishing happily as she bounded away. With an affectionate sigh and slight smile, she turned back to her desk to work on coding the natural aura-gathering program.