“No way,” said Gaius. “You have to be kidding. That’s one hell of a problem, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think so, Master Gaius.” The sculpture rubbed its nose. “It’s just that qi and ether you manifest without the use of artefacts or sigils dissipate once they’re more than twenty metres from you. That said, simply manifesting qi from your body for an attack is far more inefficient than using an artefact or a legitimate offensive sigil.”

“What do you mean, ‘legitimate’?” Gaius stared at the sculpture. “If the Explosion sigil isn’t a legitimate sigil, then nothing is.”

“That’s an augmenting sigil, Wildfire and Ignition don’t count either, they’re auxiliary sigils that just so happened to be used by you to make your Moonshot or Straight Shot stronger.” The sculpture stuck its nose into the air. “No, no, no. I’m talking about sigils that are attacks of their own! Stuff like fireballs, lightning, the works!”

The boy sighed. “I’m not sure if we had this discussion before, but all my knowledge about drawing sigils came from a cheap-ass guide I brought in Heritage Basestation.”

“Which had a really destructive Explosion in it,” said Nexus. “Come on, maybe there’s others you skipped over because of the name. Something like Icemaking, or Windcalling.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll look through it again later. Back to the topic at hand,” said Gaius. “Are you really certain that any type of energy I manifest will vanish past twenty metres?”

“‘Returning’ is a more accurate word, Master Gaius,” replied the sculpture. “It loses its form and returns to you. Missing attacks you manifest yourself won’t waste any energy, as a silver lining.” The sculpture cleared its throat. “You should be happy.”

Gaius didn’t know how to rebut that. For one, he couldn’t remember any instance in which he had manifested qi to strike an enemy far away…or him manifesting qi at all, in the first place. If he did, it was probably for something unimportant too.

More importantly, the artefacts he had on hand were good enough so far. Granted, the paranoid, ever-prepared assassin inside him was uneasy with this development, but it wasn’t something he chose of his own volition either. And besides, said paranoid assassin never used qi back on Earth either, so what he didn’t have at the start wouldn’t affect him much.

“Now that I think about it, it is really nothing much of a loss,” said Gaius. “I was overreacting. After all, whether any direct manifestation of mine can last beyond twenty metres or not never affected me before, and I don’t think it will now.”

“That’s the spirit.”

The boy cupped his chin, and racked his brain for other things he knew he wanted to ask, but didn’t have the words for.

“Oh, right!” His eyes lit up. “Any news on Heritage Basestation? It’s been three months, and by any reckoning, the passageway to the basestation should be up and running now.”

“You just had to ask the question that I couldn’t answer, did you?” The sculpture shook his head. “No, nothing. I’ve been keeping watch, but nothing of the sort has appeared in the three months you were unconscious. I haven’t spotted any Harvester either, save for those from the human forces.”

The boy’s emotions turned jittery for a moment, before Gaius smoothed over his emotions. He took a deep breath, and said, “What new changes have occurred in the Southern Continent?”

“Insanity, in a nutshell. You weren’t the only one encouraging wars,” Nexus replied quietly.

“Other players in this mess, hmm?” said Gaius. “Tell me more.”

“A beastfolk resistance has been growing steadily in the past three months. I never noticed them at first, but as they absorbed more beastfolk refugees and killed more organised bands of human refugees, they became more and more obvious,” said Nexus. “But that’s not all. I’ve found some levels of similarity between the Northern military and this resistance in terms of operational doctrine. This particular troop has a platoon of fliers, whose size increased four-fold over the past two months.”

Gaius was suddenly reminded of the one-sided massacre he’d seen during the Battle for Centoria, the final clash between the titans of history and that of the future. “An entire platoon of…”

“An entire company of Squires, Master Gaius,” corrected the artificial intelligence. “An oversized one.”

“Pincer and reserve. With the astronomically low chances that any refugee group has a hundred and sixty Engines…this company is using Dynamos,” Gaius murmured. “In conclusion, someone from the North has been poking around their Southern counterpart, eh?”

“That was the conclusion I arrived at too,” said Nexus. “But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

“The enemy of my enemy, eh?” Gaius rolled his eyes. “At least we aren’t strange bedfellows. Ultimately, my goal is to draw out the Demigod Nox as soon as possible, or at least be in range when he uses his powers. If there’s a well-trained army backed by another power…”

“You don’t really care that much about the process, do you?”

“Oh, I do. But I prefer having my sister awake more,” said Gaius. “Now, let’s move on to the next issue…”