Mingyue's breath stilled.
"The patriarch killed him," Jian Feng said flatly. "In a fit of rage." For a moment, Mingyue's world went silent.
Then— Crack.
Her grip tightened on the table, her nails digging into the wood. She forced herself to breathe. Then, in an eerily cold tone, she spoke. "Zan Lu." Zan Lu straightened. "Go with him," she ordered. "And do as planned." But inside— Inside, her emotions were collapsing in on themselves.
Jian Feng frowned slightly, sensing that the woman across from him had yet to reveal her true intentions. 'What was she really after?'
Zan Lu moved swiftly, stepping forward to escort Jian Feng out. He didn't know exactly what Mingyue had planned— But he did know she wanted to be alone. So, taking the initiative, he turned to Jian Feng. "If you don't mind," Zan Lu said smoothly, "why don't you show me around the city while we wait? I'm sure my Lady will have more instructions soon."
Jian Feng hesitated. But in the end, he nodded. And with that, they left.
Silence.
Mingyue sat there, unmoving. Her gaze turned distant, unfocused, as memories surfaced. Every word replayed in her mind like echoes in an empty void. From within her consciousness, Feng Xue murmured softly. "Poor child…"
Mingyue's fingers twitched. Her voice came out cracked, barely above a whisper. "I don't need your sympathy…" She stood, her chair scraping against the floor as she walked toward the window. The sky outside had turned a deep, somber hue… The last rays of twilight fading as the sun dipped beneath the horizon. Her beautiful amber eyes hardened. And as the first tear silently slipped down her cheek, she didn't move to wipe it away.
Inside Mingyue's mental space, Feng Xue spoke softly to Vesa. "Shouldn't you be comforting her?"
Vesa let out a light chuckle. "You think just anyone can be chosen by the Progenitor's blood?"
Feng Xue frowned but remained silent.
Vesa's tone carried an undeniable certainty. "We chose her as our Queen for a reason," Vesa continued. "She won't falter from something as trivial as this." A pause. "This is nothing more than a small pebble on her long, winding road."
***
Meanwhile, across worlds, Alex was having the best day of his life. His laughter echoed through the lab as his experiment showed real results. Standing beside him, Faerith looked absolutely dumbfounded, her eyes locked onto the object in his hands. After his recent exchange of items with Mingyue, Alex had been obsessed with experimenting on qi, mana crystals, and artifacts from her world. And today, he had finally cracked something big. His experiments had confirmed one thing— Qi and mana were fundamentally similar forms of energy.
The only difference?
Qi was denser, wilder—harder to control. Mana, on the other hand, was milder, more fluid. This discovery led him to a theory: If a cultivation system were adapted to use mana instead of qi, the body's requirements for cultivation would drop drastically. In theory, this meant weaker people could cultivate without years of body refinement. Of course, he hadn't tested this theory yet. He still needed a test subject. But in the meantime, he had been testing something else— The interchangeability of qi and mana in artifacts.
The results? Fascinating. Weapons from his world, like the gun Mingyue had used, became significantly more powerful when fueled by qi. But there was a catch—The energy was too much for the weapon's structure to handle, causing rapid degradation.
The only exception? Someone like Mingyue, who could control her qi output, mellowing it before channeling it into the weapon. Then, Alex had turned his attention to storage rings.
Could he replace qi with mana to activate them? At first, progress was slow. The formation inside the ring required the user to inject qi—something mana couldn't do naturally. So, Alex had to create an interface—a way to convert mana into the required input for the formation. This meant learning how the formation worked from scratch. It was tedious. But not difficult. Not for Alex.
With his own skills—and with Vesa translating some of the more foreign functions—everything moved smoothly. Soon, he had cracked the core concept. Alex grinned, muttering under his breath, "This is just like a circuit board…"
Faerith blinked, confused.
He tapped the storage ring in his hand. "The only real difference is that instead of electricity, they're using qi. They inject it into a specific material, mold it, and produce the outcome they want." He leaned back, thoughts racing. In his world, circuit boards worked by controlling electrical currents in a strict binary pattern—on or off. Layer those circuits, and you could create logic systems. Layer them enough, and you got computers, smart technology—entirely new ways to manipulate the world.
But formations? Formations had no binary limit. They weren't restricted to just on or off. They could produce infinite variations of outcomes.
Even the latest advancements in quantum computing—capable of producing three possible states—paled in comparison. Alex let out a breath. "No wonder every cultivator has their own array inheritance," he murmured, turning the ring over in his fingers. "The way they build formations isn't standardized… it's personal." He smirked. "It depends entirely on what pattern of outcomes they choose to capitalize on." Then, he turned toward Faerith, eyes gleaming with excitement. "Come on. We need to start now."
Faerith blinked again. "Start what?"
Alex's grin widened. "We're going to build software and hardware based on this. Something completely new." In Alex's hand sat the result of his latest experiment—a sleek cube, roughly the size of a 3x3 Rubik's cube, with a small screen embedded on one side.
The concept was simple. Point it at an object, activate it, and the item would be stored within its dimensional space. The screen displayed the storage capacity, current contents, and mana charge level. A necessary limitation was built in—if the mana charge ran out, the cube had 72 hours to recharge.
Fail to do so? Everything inside would be destroyed. Compared to the storage rings from Mingyue's world, this was a step down. But Alex was still satisfied. Because this? This had potential. A dimensional storage device that could be charged with a mana crystal. At an affordable price. The prototype in his hands had a decent capacity—10x10 cubic meters. More than enough for everyday use. "This is great," Faerith muttered, examining it. "But according to the data, real storage rings preserve everything inside. Why not add that feature?"
Alex smirked and tossed the cube at her. She caught it—barely—almost stumbling in the process. "I could add it," he said casually. "But I don't want to."
Faerith frowned. "Why not?" Because he knew the risks. He had deliberately excluded certain features—especially the ability to store living beings. Mingyue's storage ring also couldn't store living creatures. But that was only because it was a vacuum. No oxygen. No breathable air. Cultivators didn't understand what oxygen was, so they never considered the issue.
Instead?
They had developed an even crazier alternative—pocket dimensions. Literal miniature worlds existing inside a storage device. But according to Mingyue, those were reserved for immortals.