Time passed, and Adam stayed busy.
Meditating in the flaming wagon turned out to be a great idea! First of all, Rockette could handle all the transportation issues, moving guards and goods in and out of the Crystal Caverns. Secondly, the wagon followed along with the caravan when the merchants prepared to leave the town...
Even though no one bothered to hook up the bulls.
Driverless/Autonomous driving aside, the wagon made a great light source as it meandered along at the end of the caravan, odd as it may appear.
But while little Tianshi and Sister Quan were curious about Adam's project, they were fine to let him work away and spend time on their own objectives. Tianshi was spending time with Mr. Whiskers and the baby Bull Chickens, Sister Quan was running the taste testing and helping Sister Dian teach the children.
The guards got to do stuff, even if it was killing the stronger Spirit Beasts that the weaker cultivators couldn't easily handle while traveling. Occasionally Sister Quan also had them move stuff. So, yeah, a billion times more useful than 'defending Adam' like before.
Adam though was sinking into something like a groove. An epiphany. Inspiration.
Conceptual Clarity.
While his right eye watched the world, his left eye's blue fire watched the foam of boundaries. Fingers touched bubbles of space, Master Pockets being redesigned... then formed... wished into existence, then harvested and carefully dissected...
'Research' had made some breakthroughs, then stepped in to help with Adam's design of new tools... new abilities and methods.
And again, it all came down to a single issue... detection. Sensing.
These formations, maybe ALL formations, were shaped by the reality they were crafted in. While much more noticeable in tiny space pockets like this, things like time, energy, potential... all these energies, including boring ones like width and depth and density, they all affected the rules.
It meant that all his current formation knowledge was limited.
If he traveled FAR enough, much farther than he ever traveled before, these designs would fail.
Some things in reality were 'constant', while other things were... relatively constant. Changing so little that they might as WELL be constant. Speed of light, for example... the maximum rate at which light could travel over a distance varies based on the medium it traverses through.
The 'speed of light' everyone talks about? That is measured when light was passing through a vacuum. A theoretical vacuum, as even space has stuff in it, even if very very little. It was entirely possible to find certain gasses or solids that could reduce the travel velocity of light passing through to a visible rate, though the usefulness of this was questionable.
Formations were rules pressed onto reality, at their most basic.
So first, Adam needed to know reality... or else he would be unable to determine the rules he wished to modify.
Some of the information he was relying on was actually being provided by the Realm itself, the concept of 'Enlightenment' allowing one to unconsciously connect to the mass of impossible knowledge gathered by sentients. And Adam's unconsciousness included 'Research', so that worked out very nicely indeed.
As he filled jade slips with more and more abilities and techniques, Qi methods and pure energy manipulation applications that was SURE to be added to the 'banned' list later, Adam kept both eyes open.
And blinked his THIRD eye, as the Asura Eye appeared on his forehead, sending warm feelings of excitement and 'joining in on the fun!'.
Huh. It was kind of cute, really. The third eye wasn't helping much, but she felt like a little child who insisted on helping daddy cook even if she wasn't allowed to use the knives or touch the hot stuff... it was enough to wash the vegetables and mix things, knowing that she and her dad was doing it together.
So he let her watch the various gray orbs he was forming inside Rockette, using her senses to see inside the Martial Spirit as he continued making more random products while experimenting.
Helpful? Maybe a little. But the warm fuzzy 'I`m Halping!' emotions were more than worth it.
Letting the eye glare at the growing pile of 'pearls', Adam refocused on his goals as he continued to create more raw data for his new sensing techniques to examine.
His rate of progression was... stupid fast right now. And his first goal was to create some standardized methods for manipulating space pockets.
It was too useful now that he knew how limited formations were. Because his original idea, making some rings that could imprint formation patterns onto a surface for the children's future cultivation? That wouldn't work if they traveled too far.
Like, if they stayed HERE, they could only travel... uh. Trillions and trillions of miles away. Or farther, depending on how he designed it. So, limited. And the whole system would break if they went into a holy land or cultivation site in a different dimension, or if they reached higher Realms or Worlds. Rules changed based on space, as far as he could tell.
So, NEW idea.
Step one, use the idea of 'Master Pockets' to design work spaces. Stable ones, with rules that didn't change and could be predicted.
Step two! Use those pockets to PROJECT the results desired into the users location, not actually build anything in a place that wasn't under Adam's control.
It would drastically simplify everything! Instead of having to scan the user, make sure they weren't on carpet or standing on people or something, designing the carving process to not go deeper or shallower based on the density and durability of the materials, hiding advancements or cultivation while meditating, allowing it to be cleaned up... ALL the various ideas he had were more complicated when he couldn't even ensure his formations WORKED anymore.
And the work around methods just made it more messy and annoying. Before THIS idea, he had been designing a massive 'Test Reality' formation that would determine the rules of that area of space, hopefully allowing him to automate a lot of the errors that could pop up depending on where they were and what they were doing.
That hard work was still useful, and became the basis of some of the new sensing methods he was incorporating into his default 'spiritual sensing' skill he and Rockette used... but adding that into EVERY SINGLE PROJECT!? No!
Things were easier when you controlled all of reality where your projects were installed.
And while he has been working on this new project for over a few weeks now (Seriously, the distance between towns is huge!), he had decided to make some major design changes.
First, no ring.
Aside from the fact that rings could be (AND WERE) stolen very easily, if a cultivator got his or her hand chopped off, it would suck to no longer be able to access your one-of-a-kind super cultivation tool set. And since the final product would also store stuff, you might lose your food and pants and stuff too.
Instead, he was borrowing from Mr. Whiskers and the original Asura Stone: Tattoos. Ink Tattoos. Preferably on the neck, though they could be put anywhere one was comfortable with Adam touching to apply it.
Because if they cut your hand off, you were in trouble. If they cut your neck off, it was no longer your problem! Or something like that.
That part was easy. Tattoos that transformed into stuff was a bit complicated still, but Tattoos that transformed into Concepts? Turned out to be dead easy! Having the concept be the 'address' of a Master Pocket was no problem. The pattern would shift over time as well, eventually becoming something that the user considered representative of the actual storage 'device'.
Should be neat to see that happen.
Passing down the tattoo would be impossible at that point, but Adam was fine with that. He wasn't creating legacies here, just a one off gift to help a new friend hopefully reform her entire Sect.
...Maybe. Maybe he wasn't creating legacies here. It wasn't impossible for these tattoos to shift to other body parts if removed from the user, or even flee to their children when the user dies.
It wasn't DESIGNED to do that, but concepts can get weird, especially when embedded into the skin of a person constantly reforming their body and sense of self through mystical means.
As time passed, Adam became more and more interested.
While normal Master Pockets for storage rings were the size of baseballs, HIS current selection were orbs the size of a large van. Aside from the stabilization formation (with repair functions, defensive features from outsiders and non user spiritual senses, and so on), Adam had cheated a bit to ensure he had enough space to work.
He made formations that simulated his 'Qi Forms', creating spiritual energy barriers in the walls that projected 'floors' and more patterns on the ceiling and floor to project 'walls'. It hurt a little to look at, but with full control of the pocket of reality he could form stable Qi surfaces...
Qi surfaces that were then available for more formation inscriptions!
He was doing his production process through a couple of stages. First, make a formation to achieve something generic. He had thousands of those now, like the 'make a Qi surface' one or the 'generate size of pocket at X address' and blah blah blah.
Second, a Formation that would examine the local 'rules' and modify the source material to work correctly in THIS situation.
Obviously the SECOND trick was stupid complex, took three days to design that one alone. And he kept fiddling with it as 'Research' had ideas or detected problems. But as it failed less and less often, it sped up the REST of his work significantly!
Because now he didn't need a billion versions of everything he designed... and NOW he was free to design a 'standardized' formation language.
Didn't matter if reality didn't match Adam's new documentation, the 'Formation Adaptation' trick would figure out how to translate his schematics to work where and when needed.
With those two hurdles addressed, he felt... free. Unlimited!
It might have been a month or so, but now that Adam had the ability to research and design a SINGLE formation language, with a 'compiler' 'Formation Adaptation' script to apply it?
Progress.
MASSIVE progress.
Adam carefully made a new Master Pocket... and began to apply the components.
This was his second massive design decision: Make each 'module' of functionality modular.
More than a bit important, because part of the 'Tattoo' process stored the Master Pocket into the new user's Soul. Or at least, the portion of the Soul that was used by the spiritual network, like Mr. Whiskers did.
Though it just sat there, unlike Tianshi's little friend who seemed to purify her energy and stuff, this introduced space constraints. Not huge ones, but they were there.
Anyway, the modules took advantage of all that room normally wasted by storage rings. Who knew how many thousands of useless 'addresses' were normally gathered, considering that all of a Adam's examples were the 'successful' ones.
If a Sect sold 'good' ring could only store a few thousand things, would a bad ring only hold a suitcases worth? And what would a legendary storage ring look like?
Adam frowned. He remember more than a few stories about amazing storage rings, with living gardens or even worlds within. Some even had advanced time acceleration that let users cultivate for years without growing old or produce treasured herbs... But.
But.
He would have to touch and mess with those... very, VERY interesting Time Pockets.
An image from the Asura Eye showed him his guards, Disciple, and fellow Sect member. A subtle thing, more because the eye wanted to prove how helpful she was, but actually reminding him that messing with time should be done with more precaution than 'It would be Neat'.
Portable space pockets were common and tested, he had working examples and could catch some of the riskier issues as they occurred. Like the 'ring' that he designed which tried to implode everything OUTSIDE itself. Or the space pocket that nearly carved a gaping wound in reality's boundary.
But if there was a time pocket failure? With no data to predict or mitigate issues? Especially since, without an example 'time ring' or something... yeah, a few massive explosions would be the BEST result, and he didn't want to hide all these people in his Martial Spirit.
His guards and his people? Sure.
Random merchants? And that fat guy buying pervert oil?
No.
So for now, the modules were more basic.
Several that were related to storage, of course. One for liquids, a custom design for gathering powder or multitude of tiny objects, the modified food storage pattern, and then a random holding module.
They were similar, but focused in different directions.
Liquid storage modules had custom methods for remotely absorbing or distributing the liquid, so you didn't have to bathe in a pond to gather water for later. It would be annoying to fill up a cup with coffee if you had to stick your neck over it, for example.
Gather storage was meant for sand, snow, powder, strange rain, medicinal pollen, marbles... huh. It seemed more useful when he was designing it... Meh, someone would appreciate it at some point. If not, it would be like that bottle top opener that manufacturers put on everything even though bottled drinks were less common, a 'useful' feature that people could ignore.
Food storage was hopefully going to be improved in the future, but for now focused on storing items in individual sub clusters with as little time spent accessing them as possible. It would keep all the individual items exposed to time as little as needed, ensure that they all stayed as clean and warm (or cold) as expected.
Random holding, or Generic Storage, acted like a normal storage ring... if said ring had far more useful pockets available ranging in sizes from a singled thumb to larger than a car.
It sounded impressive, but they were all so similar it only took like... an hour or two.
Next, the 'interesting' modules!
Spirit Energy Gathering Module. Designate a location, command it to activate or disable the process, and self destruct. It used some of his testing with remote collection of liquids to mark an 'address' in reality and attempt to absorb spiritual energy from there for later use. Could filter certain energies, try to duplicate a saved pattern.
Considering this society? The ability to remotely turn it on, turn it off, and (most importantly), RUN AWAY while destroying the evidence? Seemed reasonable. If it WASN'T being used to sneak away power, one could set it up in annoying places and meditate on the power at home in comfort.
The version he was giving to the kids didn't actively drain the spiritual energies of the area, just acted like an empty area for power to fill up... if put somewhere with dense heaven and earth energy it could be pretty useful! Maybe.
He used the same idea to make the Qi Reserve Module, where the user could stuff the space with their own power for later use. Useless for Adam, but someone would probably want it, could be useful for long periods of medical work or in a fight.
No, what he spent the MOST time on was his pride and joy: The Communication Module.
The Communication Module came in two main, paired parts: Client and Server. The ones for the kids would be the Client Modules, Sister Dian would get the Server Module. It... it was a bit odd, as the actual data was stored in a separate 'Attachment Module', along with any memories, file scans, or whatever... the Server Module just ensured everything and everyone connected correctly and had proper permissions.
They mostly worked by using the Clients to send thoughts to the Server Space Pocket in Sister Dian's control, data got chopped up where needed and stored away in the Attachment Module, where it went... a bit odd.
He WANTED to do something like text messaging. He GOT something in between video, text, and raw emotion... it could be stored, and reviewed, and act like a web forum with threads and stuff. Just... reviewing it felt like listening to recorded memories or something.
Rockette was testing a Server Module for now, the modules easy enough for her to just control manually without bothering with a separate Master Pocket or whatever... but this was the best Adam could do. Like, seriously, it worked, it was good enough... right?
That said, if you sent something perverted it was going to be saved forever. And then Adam had to pause for a few hours because in an Conceptual Realm, mnemonic hazards were a thing. A scary, scary thing.
But again, the module kept ALL kinds of details that made safety attempts tricky.
In the end? He had to create many 'scans' of both civilians and cultivator minds, duplicate them once, run all data through them... and check for unusual modifications between the pair. Anything suspicious would get flagged for further tests and delayed from being submitted... it SHOULD work.
He tried a few tests where the happy and eager Asura Eye posted some Yang poison concepts, and they got caught easily enough... Still, maybe restrict communications to 'subsections' of the Server Module? So Sect members could share within a certain distance, but not get exposed to members out on a mission or something.
Meh, he would leave the options available to Sister Dian, and add a bunch more features that may or may not be needed. Not his problem, let her play with it.
The Formation Application module was not leaving his hands, too easy to use and required a LOT of information about his personal formation scripting language that he didn't want to share right now.
He wouldn't be sharing the Qi Technique Repository modules either, though he did connect to Sister Dian's future Master Pocket and posted all the cultivation stuff they had discussed there. Being able to feel the emotions and memories of the person explaining various cultivation issues was surprisingly useful for teaching in Adam's opinion, an the ability to see people discussing them in a thread like manner should be helpful as well.
But the Repository module wasn't JUST a growing library of all the jade slips Adam had developed, restricted by user access level permissions and so forth. It was able to connect to the Qi technique Application module, to force a user to correctly USE those techniques.
Was it possible to treat this like a short cut or a hot key method to attack in battle? Sure, but it would feel strange and possibly force you to react wrong. Could even kill you if you were in an unlucky situation and reacted wrong to an enemy.
No, the REAL benefit was to activate it during training and meditate on how it felt to correctly apply theoretical knowledge for YOUR cultivation base.
While that would be a thousand times better than just 'useful cultivation documentation', it would ALSO be something the lead guard would want kept for the Burning Sword Sect. Adam could practically HEAR her voice grumbling about it already.
So for now: Storage modules (Liquid, Gather, Food, Generic), Energy module (Gather, Reserve), and the Communication Module (Client, Server, Attachment).
Kids should be happy with that, and Adam didn't really trust them with more. Hell, he wasn't even going to share the jade slips teaching the techniques to make new Master Pockets, new Modules, OR the method to apply, modify, or transfer the Tattoos. Not safe for kids AT ALL.
For his own personal use though, he had the other stuff. The Technique modules (Repository, Application), Maintenance modules (SO much here, none but Adam would get these), and the many, experimental and mostly useless modules.
Like the Soul Purification and Firewall modules. They uh. Well, it was a good thing no one else could try them yet. Nearly popped a few dozen copies of his Soul when he tested them. Maybe when he got more enemy combatants for 'ethical' testing.
...Might share the Trade module though. It made things much easier. Yeah, that should be safe to share.
Adam felt himself slowly awaken, his Asura Eye blinking in happiness now that he was moving again after weeks of sitting like a lump on the flaming wagon... and uh.
Ow. OWW.
He felt to the side, even as his leg cramps and other physical issues began moving his Cultivation Cells around to fix various problems. Damn it.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Sister Quan and Dian's conversation was interrupted by a fast walking Adam who leapt onto their carriage. "Hey! I'm going to borrow her..." He picked up Sister Quan's associate, the lead guard looking exasperated. "To talk about several things that are not interesting or about things I am supposed to not tell anyone."
And he was gone.
After a pause, Sister Quan snorted. "See? If he is on fire, he's fine. Normally he doesn't spend four months working on something, but like Rockette said, it was all under control."
Sister Dian was still blinking. "Why was he STILL on fire? And I could see through his skin. And some of his bones."
She waved it off. "Don't worry about the small stuff, if he isn't maniacally laughing and destroying the landscape we can figure it out later."
Sister Dian sighed. "You know him best I suppose. I guess I just expected him to... sleep, or eat something during that time. Since he is still a Houtian Realm warrior I mean.
Sister Quan shrugged. "I admit, when he kept meditating all the way through that last town we visited, small as it was, I felt a bit worried. But if Rockette says it's fine, then he was probably doing something he considered really interesting."
A distant "WHAT!?" caused the girls to flinch.
Grumbling, Sister Quan went back to her study plan for the little ones. "That said, Adam being interested can often cause the same number of issues as when he is bored."
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Adam grinned, standing on a new stage of molten magma now that the caravan had settled down for the night. "Good evening students!"
The kids sat straight. "SIR!"
He couldn't help smiling. "Now I am sure you all know how happy I am that you've all made such great progress. That you've worked closely with Sister Quan and Sister Dian, that you've really put in effort."
Adam waved, blue sparks following his fingers. "What you DON'T know is that I've been thinking about the future. As wonderful as our time has been, we all know that this is a temporary agreement between your leader and myself. That a lot of the benefits you have now are only available for a limited time."
Strange blue lines flowed over his palm. "Until now. Sister Dian?"
She looked... hesitant... but found the stage didn't radiate heat like it should, even as the rock flowed in odd patterns slowly, and joined him up front.
Adam waved his free hand at his palm. "Now, I am sure you all are as annoyed as I am with storage rings."
He missed the confusion on the kids and the exasperation his people were radiating. "The things were unable to store more than a few thousand items, were expensive, easily stolen, and worst of all? Annoying to manage."
A wave and some invisible Qi Forms had hundreds of items floating in the air. "If you only have ONE storage ring, it wasn't too bad. Sure, it was a bit annoying to get a full list of inventory, and it was far too easy to build up mountains of junk and garbage... I personally had hundreds of swords and knives from a few gangs I dismantled, that stuff just piles up if you don't pay attention!"
The items vanished. "But what if, in the future, you have to organize a dozen or more storage rings, move things around, send some to a friend at the Sect, maybe talk about trading a sub selection with others? Yeah, it's a hassle."
He began pacing, ignoring the woman next to him as he felt his dander get RIGHT up. "And I know most people can't tear a storage ring apart like me, and that a lot of stuff can be hidden away from sight. But sloppy workmanship just... BOTHERS me."
Feeling that he was getting off topic, he coughed. Yeah, a few kids seemed confused. Focus.
Adam waved Sister Dian over, and whispered. "I would like to give you a Master Pocket tattoo... basically a mark that acts like a storage ring. Where would be best? I would suggest the back of the neck or something, but it's up to you."
She blinked. "Why... why not my arm?"
A shrug. "You can lose an arm."
Hesitant... she instead showed her upper right hip. "If you are serious about this, then I would rather it be somewhere I can easily hide or at least keep where I can observe it. No reason to tempt people to target my blind spot."
...Ah. Good point. With a soft touch (Warm skin... No, focus.) Adam felt blue flames soak into her side, shifting colors to a sharp black pattern. It looked like Rockette's original Shard form, but should mutate into something personal after being exposed to Xe Dian's energy for a while.
With a nod, he turned back to the crowd. "Now of course, your marks won't be the same as Sister Dian's. As we have a contract together, I made hers a bit more powerful and with a few restricted features, especially as I won't be here forever to help out if things go wrong later on."
His hand floated a different, simpler simple. "This is the student mark, which she can apply. She can also change which modules, or features, are available if you wish." She couldn't CHANGE those student marks, or make new modules... but this was enough for now. He had to argue pretty hard with the lead guard to even get THAT permitted, but in the end she approved of the restrictions and inability (probably) to pass her master mark down to others.
Adam had a back wall shift into hardness, writing forming in glowing rock, surrounded by chilled black stone. "First of course, the mark lets you store stuff easily, with a few specialist versions to handle loose material, liquids, and keep food good for later. I was studying storage rings after all! If I couldn't do at least this much, how much time would I have wasted?"
No chuckles? Tough crowd. "Next, the main reason I made this for you kids. After I apply the mark, we will ensure that a sample of spiritual energy matching your personal cultivation ratio will be saved for reference. The 'Gather module' will let you build up some energy for cultivation that will be helpful WITHOUT needing me involved. It will be slower of course, and you can make new reference ratios later if your needs change in the future... but some is better than nothing, right?"
Well, they were still quiet but at least they looked more happy and less confused. "With this, you don't need me or Rockette to make your cultivation circles, and those riding the wagons can cultivate while we move with no problems. We'll still supply the energy for you on this trip though, this just means you can continue getting the good stuff when we aren't around."
It would TRY to convert non-matching spiritual energy into the needs of the sample ratio, but the formation version of 'Growth' was... not amazing. Functional, but barely.
He paused. "Right, and I added an Qi Reserve Module because some I figured some people would like to save up their internal Battle Qi for emergencies or whatever. Anyway, on to the good stuff."
A wave. "The Communication Module. This lets you contact your friends, your teacher Sister Dian, and access all kinds of useful data. Keep contact while exploring, share cool ideas with your people, maybe plan parties or whatever! And it has something like my jade slips, full of Cultivation notes, commenting threads, topic debates... should be fun!"
...Nothing? He wasn't really expecting cheers or anything, but this was like WEEKS of work! A pity clap or... or anything! "You can also send items from one storage module to another, sort your items automatically, send stuff to a friends storage or trade between... uh."
Adam felt a blush grow. It was quiet, and everyone was staring at him like a freak.
...He thought he was over this kind of feeling. Not like he had been normal for a while.
Focus. "Right, Sister Dian has a whole bunch of documentation explaining everything, and she can change the total number and type of modules you have. You can increase your storage ability by a lots, or... or the number of Qi Reserve modules, so if you have to do something complicated like the more advanced medical stuff..."
Damn it. Maybe he should have listened more to the lead guard. Maybe this was too much. He was hungry from not eating for weeks, tired, and emotionally compromised... Screw this.
With a slightly weak smile, he clapped Sister Dian's shoulder, even as the woman's eyes were glazed over, probably reading the Server documentation and massive instruction booklets. It was for the best that SHE apply the student marks anyway. Because he was an outsider, and... and it would be best for her to do it. "Now line up and Sister Dian will soon enough be able to get you guys and gals hooked up to my new Master Pockets! Rockette will make sure you are getting the right energies, and that you are supplied with power too... Let me know if you have any issues, alright?"
...Not even a sir. Yeah. "Great!"
Adam vanished into a Ghost Rockette's holographic jaw.
Sigh. Sometimes he forgot not everyone was used to his more... bizarre habits.
...He should go cuddle the bull chickens.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Sister Quan felt numb. The lead guard sighed next to her. "And this was the 'acceptable' parts. Don't get me started on the stuff we DIDN'T allow him to share."
She just looked at the stage where a jerky moving Sister Dian was applying the new 'Student Marks' to grant these 'Master Pockets' to mere children. "Did... Did he just make mass produced storage rings? Without the rings?"
The guard snorted. "THAT would have been fine. Or at least, within his levels of crazy stuff. No, it's more than that."
Sister Quan turned as the woman continued. "He not only designed SOMETHING insane, it only costs Qi to apply it. To duplicate it. Oh he has built in protections, and if anyone tries to FORCE Sister Dian to use it against her will it will be... interesting... But yeah."
She sighed. "His 'storage module' holds more than all our rings combined. His specialized ones hold even more, and have special features to make them easier to manipulate. If putting everything you own into your Soul for safe keeping isn't enough, you can easily add ANOTHER Storage module."
They watched more kids start to gossip as they were granted this marvel. "It has something like a store, and a trading option, and the version he made for us has the ability to convert a place into a warehouse or storefront... we could send mission items directly to our Sect. From anywhere. And that isn't even the part he is proud about."
Sister Quan looked hesitant. "Maybe I should check up on him. He seemed... a bit down?"
The guard sighed. "We argued a bit. He showed up, had a much longer list of features he was considering sharing... it would start a riot. Just the stuff he offered... a tattoo that filters energy into stuff that works best for you? And don't even mention the artificial Qi Reserves. That single handedly lowers the difference between two Cultivators, even if one had a terrible foundation before reaching the next Realm."
Sister Quan absently nodded. "I assume you charge it for a day and have double the available Qi?"
The guard snorted again. "Charge it for a few YEARS maybe. If it has a limit, I couldn't reach mine." She showed the mark on the side of her neck, lowering her face guard. "It feels like a hole that you can store away power like endless water, ready for retrieval at any time. Aside from your low Qi recovery rate, you could pretend to be a higher level of cultivation if you put the time and effort in."
Should she go after him? He did look... a bit disappointed. "What was the communication thing he was talking about?"
The guard frowned. "It is a bit odd. Ours is more robust of course, and Rockette controls access, but... he took all those things he created, all those jade slips, marked them with access levels, and create something like the Burning Sword Sect's Repository of Knowledge Pagoda in your head. Somehow."
She blinked. "What?"
A nod. "Easier to use, easier to understand... and you can leave comments or modify copies of any of the data easily, though it has to be reviewed by Rockette before marked as 'confirmed' or counter argued. And there is another area that is LIKE the Repository, but is all empty... where people could argue and whatever, or even have conversations that are restricted to them alone and Rockette. As if you could have a private conversation anywhere using only your thoughts..."
The guard sighed. "It will make our Sect horrifying to our foes. Silent communication, recon missions with instant results, even the full destruction of our Sect could no longer destroy the history or documentation of our ancestors. Our goods would be unstealable, our caravans unraidable... it was mind blowing."
Still... Sister Quan looked at the now empty stage.
Adam had bounced on there like a child on his birthday... and left like no one else came to it.
She nodded. "I'm going to go check up on him, just in case. Could you help Sister Dian with her mob of munchkins?"
The other woman groaned. "I suppose. It's not like I hate kids, and I DO know a lot about this after Adam walked me through it... but look at them!"
The yelling kids didn't exactly display the calmness of cultivation. More like a sugar rush of energy, now that they realized they all had personal treasures impossible to even SEE at their Sect.
Poor Dian looked overwhelmed. "NO! I will KNOW if you store stuff that isn't yours! Put back the seats!"
