Chapter 750: What the Model Cannot Do

Chapter 750: What the Model Cannot Do

The fire came back into the bead, and the bead started to drift.

Leon felt it go a heartbeat before he saw it. The little pea of compressed qi on Ji’s crucible plate gave a shiver, leaned toward the water branch, and began to stretch out of round. He moved two fingers of his left hand a fraction, pulled the water back by a hair’s width, and the shiver eased. The bead settled into its slow, even turn again. Three branches, all running.

He let out his breath.

Ji was sitting across the desk from him with her hands folded. She had watched the whole demonstration without interrupting.

"What did your left hand just do?" she asked.

Of course she saw that.

"I pulled the water back," Leon said. "When the fire returns, the water’s already leaning into its space. If I don’t correct it, the bead loses its shape."

"Every time?" Ji asked.

"Every time so far."

"So it survives the interruption," said Ji, "and then you rescue it."

"That’s—" He considered arguing and decided it would be undignified. "Yes. That’s an accurate description."

He walked her through the sleeve that tightened as the fire weakened and slackened as it returned, including the ratio he’d found after most of a night of scorched failures. Then he showed her the drift on restoration again. The arrangement still needed his correction, and he had only interrupted fire. Everything in this compressed model had been tested with three branches.

Ji listened without interrupting. When he had finished, she leaned forward and studied the bead for a long moment.

"The sleeve that tightens only as far as the branch weakens," she said. "That part is good."

Leon felt a smile start and pressed his mouth flat before it could get anywhere.

He wasn’t quick enough. Ji’s eyes flicked up to his face, and the corner of her own mouth moved very slightly.

"You may be pleased," she said. "I would be."

"Thank you, Master."

"Now." She sat back. "You know the next problem. You knew what was coming every time you cut and restored it. Your hand was already waiting." She tapped the edge of the plate. "In a real Core, nobody will warn you. So here is your next test. Have someone else cut the fire and restore it, at a moment you don’t choose. If the bead only survives when you know what’s coming, then you’ve made a very good demonstration and not yet a structure."

He hadn’t thought of that. He should have. It annoyed him slightly that he hadn’t.

"And when you’ve done that," Ji went on, "build a separate model with earth in place of fire. You already know its circulation behaves differently. See whether the same correction still works."

"Yes, Master."

Ji waited until he met her eyes. "And don’t try any of this inside yourself."

"I know, Master."

"I know you know." Her face didn’t change. "I’m saying it anyway. I’m allowed."

Leon ducked his head to hide the smile, and this time he didn’t bother trying to flatten it.

She didn’t ask about the crystal. She’d seen him calibrate it with a thread of fire before the demonstration and said nothing then, either. When he packed the plate back into its box, she pushed a second, smaller box across the desk to him.

"More plates," she said. "You’ll break those ones soon."

***

The record for the Lord took him most of the evening.

He sat at his own table with the lamp turned up and drew the bead from three sides. He drew the sleeve on the fire route, the three branches, and the ratio, written plainly. Then he wrote down every failure in order. The first three-branch model, gone in eleven breaths. The third, which had failed faster because a slow weakening pulled harder than a sudden stop. The fourth, where the sleeve had choked the fire out completely. The drift on restoration and the hand correction it still needed.

He took out everything else. There was no plate maker’s mark on the drawing and no mention of where he was. He left out the crystal, which in the record became a controlled external supply. His native realm didn’t appear, and neither did his Hearts. He read it over twice more for details that might identify the people helping him.

Then he wrote a title at the top.

On the Preservation of Dormant Currents Under Compression: Preliminary Observations.

He looked at it for a while.

She’s going to laugh at me.

He crossed it out and wrote Three-branch model. Interruption and restoration. That was better. It was also extremely short, and he worried that it made the Elemental Paragon look as though he had nothing to say.

He put the long title back, then crossed it out again, and in the end he sent the drawing and the record with no title at all, which was probably what a truly ancient being would do anyway.

[Lord of Illusion and Mystery: You sent the failures first. Most people put the success at the top and the failures in a corner, where they hope I will not look.]

[Your third attempt interests me. A slow weakening pulled harder than a sudden one. I have seen the same behavior in much larger structures. It surprises people who expect a sudden interruption to be worse. You found it with a pea of qi.]

Leon read that and felt pleased in a way that he immediately distrusted.

[One question, since you are honest about the correction. When the restored model drifts, which is at fault? Does the drift follow the returning branch? Or is it the structure receiving it, which has grown used to the gap and resents losing it?]

He stared at the message.

He didn’t know. He’d only known that the water leaned, and that he had to push it back.

[Elemental Paragon: I have not separated those yet. I will find out.]

[Lord of Illusion and Mystery: Good. That is the right answer. You are welcome to come back with a less right one if you find it.]

[You have explained why the method needs room to grow. You still haven’t told me why leaving anything out matters so much to you.]

The chat went quiet.

Leon sat back and found that his hands were slightly damp, which was ridiculous. Nobody had shouted at him. Nobody had accused him of anything. A being of unknown power had asked him a good question about his own work and then told him to come back with an answer.

That’s the problem. She asks good questions.

He put the plates away in their boxes and stretched until his shoulders cracked.

The next test needed someone else to cut the fire. After that, he would build the earth model. There would be more nights of patient scorching, and he’d do them. His body had recovered from the Grotto-Heaven battle. His Foundation was complete. He had spent months correcting tiny flows by tiny amounts, and he wanted very badly to find out what that work did when he stopped being careful.

He knew exactly where to do that.

The next morning, he told Ji he’d be in seclusion in his residence for a few days. She nodded and reminded him to leave instructions with the household so nobody interrupted an experiment.

That evening, he sat on the floor of his room, closed his eyes, and thought about the Tower.

Floor Three had been the last one he’d cleared, long before he’d crossed into this world. Floor Four was still waiting, and Floor Four did not care how well he could hold a pea of qi steady on a stone plate.

It would care how well he could fight.

Time to find out, Leon thought, and stood up.

***