Chapter 748: The Question He Could Answer

Chapter 748: The Question He Could Answer

Leon could have picked either answer and sounded confident for perhaps three sentences.

Then someone would ask why.

He knew his own Foundation circulation. He had spent months adjusting it, but none of that made him qualified to judge a forge built to hold world-sized currents. He glanced at the empty spaces in his notes, where whole stretches of the conversation had escaped him.

Don’t judge their work. Ask about mine.

[Elemental Paragon: Before choosing, I want to narrow the problem. A compressed arrangement is running steadily. One supply weakens or stops while the others continue. What must each structure preserve so that current can return?]

[Master of the Ninefold Forge: Its allotted space, and a route back into it. In mine, the partition carries the surrounding pressure while the chamber is inactive.]

[Lady of Drowned Stars: Provided the wall was built for that load.]

[Master of the Ninefold Forge: Naturally. Build it too lightly and it bows inward. But the stronger partition costs space and material even while the supply is healthy. That is the price of keeping the failure contained.]

Leon wrote load after supply stops beside a circle on his paper.

[Lady of Drowned Stars: In my sea, the neighboring currents take up the change. I regulate their exchange and preserve the weakened current’s route through the shared medium. That needs a response faster than the disturbance can spread.]

[Lady of Drowned Stars: A stronger supply does not cure a late correction. By then, the other currents have already changed position.]

That was close enough to something Leon knew that he leaned forward.

During his Foundation research, reducing one branch had sometimes changed the return of another before he was ready for it. His holding spaces had helped buffer those changes. They gave him a margin in which to adjust.

Under greater compression, that margin might be much smaller. He needed to measure what happened to the surrounding branches, not merely watch the one he was altering.

[Elemental Paragon: In my existing circulation, a changed return can disturb its neighbors before an intake correction takes effect. The holding spaces reduce that. I want to test whether they retain enough margin under compression.]

[Lady of Drowned Stars: Test the return as well as the interruption. Restoring a current can be worse than losing it.]

He added a second line beneath the first.

The Forge Master wasn’t finished with him.

[Master of the Ninefold Forge: You have described a structure that must tolerate failure, altered proportions, and additional currents. Which concession will you accept to obtain that range? Lower output? Greater control demands?]

Leon sat back. There was no mockery in the question that he could detect, which made it harder to hide behind an impressive answer.

[Elemental Paragon: Greater control demands during development. I have not determined what output I can retain. I would rather establish how the arrangement changes before fixing its final proportions.]

He hesitated, then sent the less careful part.

[Elemental Paragon: I expect to keep finding things worth carrying. I don’t want each one to become a reason to regret what I built earlier.]

[Master of the Ninefold Forge: An expensive preference.]

[Lord of Illusion and Mystery: Yes. And he continues to choose it. That is what interested me.]

Leon felt a brief, uncomfortable warmth. He had spent so much effort sounding like someone else that having her notice a real desire was almost worse than being questioned.

[Old Root: A yielding sleeve may suit the small model. You have allowed for active control.]

[Master of the Ninefold Forge: At that scale, perhaps. I would not put one around a furnace current.]

[Old Root: Nor would I. It would spend more effort responding to the furnace than doing useful work.]

A drawing appeared through the channel. Several routes curved toward a common center. A narrow band surrounded each route near its junction, with faint marks indicating how the band could tighten or relax.

Leon copied it onto his paper. The lines were simple enough. He suspected making them behave would be less pleasant.

[Old Root: The sleeve yields while its current is healthy. As that current weakens, it narrows the connection before its neighbors occupy the gap. When supply returns, it must yield again without releasing the surrounding load too quickly.]

[Lady of Drowned Stars: The return is where those tend to oscillate. Close, open, close again. I abandoned one that spent longer correcting itself than carrying anything.]

[Old Root: Yes. This is a shape to investigate, Paragon, not a finished method. You must determine its response and proportions for your currents.]

Leon traced the band with his fingertip. It could isolate a weakened branch without requiring a permanent wall of the same thickness. That didn’t make the pressure disappear. Something still had to bear it, and the sleeve had to know when to yield.

He had wanted an answer simple enough to take away and use. Instead, he had a more precise problem and an uncomfortable urge to start immediately.

I’ve spent months on worse starting points.

[Elemental Paragon: Thank you. I can test that.]

[Old Root: Record the failures. Especially the ones that appear to recover.]

[Lord of Illusion and Mystery: Go on, then. You have become very quiet, and I doubt it is because we have bored you.]

Leon thanked them and left the private channel before anyone could ask what equipment he intended to use. His room returned to his attention: a low lamp, a cooling cup, and a hand-sized plate whose previous owner had left several scorch rings on it.

He looked from the plate to the copied drawing.

He hadn’t done a single test on it yet. A moment ago, that had been an embarrassing fact to conceal. Now he was glad there were no assumptions from an earlier model to cling to.

He reached for his notes and wrote the sequence plainly. Two branches first, as Ji had advised. Establish that he could hold a compressed bead outside his body. Add a third only after the simpler arrangement behaved. Then interrupt one supply while the others remained steady, and watch what moved first.

He would need to attempt restoration even when the bead seemed sound. The Lady’s warning had been too specific to ignore.

For now, he set the sleeve drawing aside. Trying it on his first attempt would tell him very little; he needed to see how an unprotected junction failed before deciding whether he had improved it. He left a clean space in the notebook for each result. Ji had given him equipment she had used herself. He wanted to bring her something more useful than an enthusiastic account of what he hoped might happen.

The conversion crystal lay beside the box. Leon gave it a small sample of his fire energy and felt its changing colors settle around the selected output. He kept the working qi separate from his holy energy, as he had throughout the Scripture’s development.

No amount of excitement made a new experiment suitable for his own cultivation channels.

He moved the loose papers out of reach, centered the plate, and drew the first two threads above its surface. One fire, one water, with space between their routes.

They began to turn.

Leon slowly increased the pressure, watching the distance between them shrink.

***