SSS Ranked Awakening: All My Skills Are at Level 100

Chapter 744: The Core He Has Yet to Make

Ji listened to the account without asking Leon to demonstrate how he had killed Mardoc.

Her study door was closed. Leon had brought the copied inscriptions and Tian’s log, along with the sealed record of their harvest. He placed the documents within her reach as he spoke.

He distinguished what he had seen from Tobin’s translations and his own conclusions. The realm was old. Its inhabitants had histories stretching back generations. The new connection had led into a place that once welcomed travelers from several worlds.

The gateway’s return supported the old calendar, but one successful prediction did not prove the cycle would repeat forever. Ji asked about the signs Tian had recorded and marked two passages for Elder Ruan to examine.

When he finished the account of the gates, Ji sat back.

”We treated it as an unopened resource realm,” Ji said. ”The next expedition will need to remember whose home it is.” She set the pages aside. ”Now tell me about the man who wanted your treasure.”

He told her that a native cultivator had come for the treasure, half a step from Earth Immortal by his own people’s reckoning. That he had refused to give it up. That the man had tried to kill him, and he had killed the man instead, behind walls, with the witnesses moved out first.

He didn’t tell her how.

Ji’s eyes rested on his left side, where he was still holding himself a little carefully.

”Half a step from Earth Immortal,” she said slowly.

”Yes, Master.”

”And your public reading remains Peak Golden Core.” Ji regarded him steadily. ”How close was it?”

”Very,” Leon said.

”Would you do it again?”

Leon remembered Mardoc’s outstretched hand. ”For what I brought back? Yes, Master.”

Ji studied the way he protected his left side, then returned her gaze to his face.

”Next time something like that comes for you,” she said, ”I’d like you to come home first. If you can.” She held up a hand before he could answer. ”I know you couldn’t, this time. I’m saying it anyway. I’m allowed.”

”Yes, Master,” Leon said.

The allocation followed their existing agreement. His priority had not disappeared because the harvest exceeded their expectations.

The entrants would receive their shares, and Bai Heng’s preparation notes would enter the alchemy archive under his name. Ji approved Leon’s request to recognize the gatherers who had worked through the storm. Personal specimens and the treasure claimed under his discovery right remained in his allocation.

When the lists were done, Leon took the crystal out of his ring and set it on the desk between them.

The colors moved through it, slow and endless, around the clear still center.

He explained the sample calibration, the supplied or ambient energy it could take in, and the limits he had measured. The first trial had recovered about two-thirds of the input; other conversions varied. It could not create energy or replace the Scripture’s work inside him.

Then he showed her. He gave it a thread of fire and held it over a lump of mismatched ore from his ring, and the warmth came off the top of it into his palm.

Ji watched the ore crumble. She didn’t touch the crystal.

”So you can take what you have,” she said, ”and make it what you need.”

”Within those limits,” Leon said.

”For your Scripture, that is an excellent find.” Ji smiled at him. ”You’ve brought back something particularly suited to you.”

”I intend to use it for the next section, Master.”

”Then keep it close.” Ji left the crystal where he had placed it. ”It belongs in your cultivation room. If I ever wanted to exchange for something you found, I would offer you equal value or more. I have no reason to ask for this.”

”Tobin and Orrin saw its basic function,” Leon told her. ”The others knew it was valuable. They didn’t see my cultivation.”

”Then we can limit further attention, rather than pretend nobody knows,” Ji said. ”Your allocation will list a cultivation instrument. Its precise function stays out of the general record.”

Leon put the crystal back in his pocket.

For a moment he simply sat there, relieved. He had never expected his master to snatch it from him. Still, explaining why he had risked himself for it had felt different from knowing she approved of where it belonged.

Ji poured more tea into his cup and waited. He knew she had noticed him glancing at the blank paper near her elbow.

”May I use that?” he asked.

She slid the paper across. ”I wondered when you would ask.”

He began with the common center, then drew the returns around it. His first line was crooked. He turned the sheet slightly and kept going, already more interested in the space between the branches than the tea warming his hand.

”There’s something else,” he said.

Ji raised an eyebrow.

”The Foundation section is finished,” Leon said. ”I tested it. It holds when I change what I’m feeding it, while I’m moving, in combat. I’ve cultivated it to Peak Foundation.” He paused. ”Which means the next thing is the Core.”

”What do you want it to do?” Ji asked.

”Accommodate changes without making each addition a dangerous reconstruction,” Leon said.

Ji leaned back, and he could see her interest sharpen.

”A conventional Core engraves a defined arrangement,” Leon continued. ”That gives it stability. I know techniques can evolve afterward, but mine needs room for more branches than the arrangement it begins with. I want expansion built into the structure, rather than treated as damage to repair.”

”How would you hold it stable while the arrangement changed?” Ji asked.

”A shared center that stays neutral while the branches carry their own elemental properties.” He turned the crystal so its clear center caught the lamp. ”This helped me think about it. I’m not proposing an empty space. I want the center to support the circulation without fixing every branch permanently into one pattern.”

Ji leaned forward to examine his sketch. Her silence lasted long enough that he began checking the drawing for a mistake.

”I haven’t seen a Core built on that principle,” she said. ”You’ll have to prove the center can keep supporting the whole structure when its loads change.”

”I thought of starting with two branches,” Leon said.

”Outside your body,” Ji said firmly. ”A neutral center still has work to do. If it cannot carry the compressed circulation, the Core may collapse before you have time to correct it.”

Leon nodded. ”An external model first.”

”Good.” She stood, went to the shelf behind her, and took down a long flat box. She set it in front of him. Inside were a dozen small crucible plates, each scarred from long use.

”These are from my own early experiments,” Ji said. ”Build a small circulating model on one. Then add a third branch without stopping the first two. We’ll examine what it does before you attempt anything inside yourself.”

Leon lifted one of the scarred crucible plates. Ji had once sat over this herself, trying to make something hold. He liked that more than he had expected.

”Yes, Master,” he said, and took the box.

At the door, Ji added, ”And Leon? Bring me the failures too.”

He looked back at the dozen plates in the box.

Let’s see how many I need.