As the core of the Guild sat in the office, James finally opened his eyes. Unceremoniously wiping away the tear on his cheek, James willed it, and his guild seal appeared floating in front of him. Much to the surprise of the others, not only did the guild seal appear on the round table, so too did the incorporeal, ethereal form of Jasmine appear.

She sat in a seizer position on the table and wore a flowing silk gown, making her only more enchanting than ever. That is, apart from the obvious signs of crying. James felt the sensation of being scanned and then suddenly realised that Jasmine was using a Scrying field.

Not only that, just by looking at her ghostly form, James felt the pressure and experienced that strange sensation of knowing. Jasmine was quite clearly a true spirit realm cultivator, and not only that, when he scryed her, he felt the energy of Skay’s greed spirit energy.

It seemed, not only did Skay sacrifice his soul to grant Jasmine life, he even imparted everything that he had achieved in cultivation. His soul and his spirit.

Finally, Jasmine stood up and stepped off the table. Without a word, she waved her hand through the air and a projection fell onto the wall from the roof. She then started talking. “James, it appears we have suffered a severe depletion in the cities spirit power grid. Papa ... Dr Skay wired in every reactor in the city to power that array formation, and apart from the super reactor under the tower, the rest are at readable levels of spirit energy saturation. That means they are most likely damaged.”

James sat back into his seat and let out a long sigh. “Jasmine, for a girl who was just granted life and lost her father in the same moment, you don’t need to do this.”

Jasmine turned to James with a serious expression and looked him straight in the eye. “Please, James. I need to distract myself. Feeling things is an unusual experience for me. Before, I thought I had fairly closely approached the level in which I had emotions. But I now realise, when I feel this grief ... that I understood nothing.”

James let out a long sigh and deflated a little in his chair. As the rest of the core members watched on completely stunned by this development, James firmed his expression and sat up. “Very well Jasmine. Get the cities power grid operational. Then I want you to come and see me. I’m planning ... a change of scenery.”

Jasmine gave a nod, and then her body faded and the seal disappeared once more into James’ Spirit Realm.

Exsue was then the first to figure out what just happened and in an envious fit slapped the table. “That cheating bitch! That conniving old fox! Why does she get to become a part of James! It’s not fair!”

Everyone else then very quickly connected the dots and a ruckus broke out in the office. James waved a hand to silence everyone then stood up. “Yes, Jasmine is a True Spirit realm now and has a soul. I can explain it no more than any of you can. According to her, Skay had clearly been planning this for a long time. He’s set up some device that allows her to remain connected to the network and maintain her original functionality as the guilds AI, but at the same time, she is now intrinsically different.

“She’s also just lost her father, so give her some time. For now, she will remain within my spirit realm until I feel she’s ready to put up with you miserable lot. She only knows a little bit about what’s going on, and I know less. We’re all in uncharted waters with this whole escapade of that madman’s, which means we’ll be figuring out her situation as it develops.

“For now, Kelly, the lab is yours. I don’t expect you to become a miracle worker like Skay, but apart from me, you’re probably the only person even half capable of understanding some of his work. Jessy, everyone is going to find out about this one way or another, we may as well let it come from us.

“If they believe our guild loses value from his death, let them close out their accounts. While you’re at it, get Gary up here to meet me ... in say... 3 hours.

“Goliath, meet with the Generals and increase security. We’re no doubt going to be getting a few people thinking they’ve got a leg up on us now, so we need to prevent them from stirring up the city for the time being.

“Fatty, Harvy, Exsue, you three are going on a mission. Take the Ghosts with you and get the ship ready. I’ll brief you in the war room tonight.”

Finished giving orders, James left the office in long purposeful strides. When he left, everyone just shared a strange look and then got to work.

-James’ Meditation Chamber-

In his meditation chamber, James sat cross-legged while his focus was on his spirit realm. When he arrived, he saw Gold James getting the shit kicked out him by a furious looking Jasmine. Spirit James didn’t even bother to ask what was going on and simply grabbed Jasmine arm as he flew past, dragging her to the other side of his spirit realm.

He then waved a hand and created an island in his sea, then with another wave, a table and chairs formed. James sat down across from Jasmine and stared at her for a moment. “Jasmine, how did Skay keep you connected to the system. If you’re now a spirit, and you’re linked to me through the guild seal, I can’t imagine how he did it.”

Jasmine suddenly materialised a cup from her own spirit world then looked expectantly at James. James could only give a chuckle, and with a wave of the hand he created tea from his liquid spirit energy. Jasmine tentatively took a sip and smiled warmly while looking at the cup.

“So this is what tea tastes like? It’s bitter and disgusting. But it makes me feel so warm inside.” After she had shared her thoughts, Jasmine looked up at James again and started to explain. “From what notes I can find left by Papa, the arrays he built served a great many purposes. First, they pulled in a great deal of spirit pressure.

“Unfortunately, no matter how much of your intent you pour into something, it will never become a truly sentient spirit without time. Spirit pressure may carry intent and will, but it also lacks things that a sentient spirit needs. So as to facilitate that eventuality, Papa ... he ... he had to sacrifice his own soul. With the energy provided by all of you, he could reshape his own soul into a fresh new spirit like a blank slate.

“Then using the technology we developed for the Implants, he forced every last part of my programming into the spirit using a combination of arrays created from both our worlds scientific aspects, and this world’s Daoist aspects.

“Unfortunately, no spirit can exist without a vessel. He has notes and tests in which he tried to create a body or use a body to try and fuse the soul and the vessel. Unfortunately, all of those attempts failed. Finally, he found a way. Something that would allow him to anchor my soul.

“To anchor a free spirit, he had to fuse me with another spirit that already inhabits a body. It had very specific conditions though. Firstly, it had to be a spirit that would willing accept me, it had to be a spirit strong enough to support the fusion, and lastly, I couldn’t be directly fused to it because that would create a subconscious power struggle.

“Instead, I could only be fused to a part of that spirit. For example, your guild seal is interictally linked to your spirit. It harbours a piece of your spirit that remains connected to you but is not entirely a part of you. This was the median Papa chose.

“He didn’t choose it because it was the only one, but because he thought you would be able to protect me until I was powerful enough to form a new body myself. The price of this type of magic is steep though. I’ll be like a parasite living off you, if I try to cultivate, I’ll steal primal energy that you’re drawing in.

“And ... and ... no matter what, you and I will have a little piece of each other in our spirits for the rest of our lifetimes. Even if I manage to cultivate to the point that I can form a new body, our lives will be as one. If you die, I die. If I die, you die.

While speaking, Jasmine’s tears started to flow. She sniffled and wiped her face then looked at James with a firm resolve. “I promise James. I’ll find a way to fix this!”

James just sat and calmly drank his tea. Finally, he placed the cup on the table and looked Jasmine in the eye with a blank face. “I don’t care about that Jasmine. I can feel it. That ‘link’. Even though your explanation has cleared up my theory on it. It’s not what I asked you. How are you still connected to the system?”

Jasmine wasn’t sure what to make of James’ ignorance of the situation. He was now going to be stuck with her forever. Every time he cultivated, he would have to cultivate for two people. Not just himself, but her too.

To top it off, if they ever found a way to reconstitute a body like Exsue had when leaving the monolith, he would have to constantly worry that she may be endangered. He would quite literally be putting his life in her hands.

James, seeing her confusion, smiled gently, then reached across the table and grabbed her hand. “Jasmine, I don’t care about that situation at the moment. Your father left you in my care and whether I like it or not we’re stuck together. There’s no reason to worry about something we can’t change.

“Also ... I already have one crazy bitch who has my life in her hands. The only difference is that this one is entirely in my head.”

Hearing James indirectly calling her a crazy bitch with a teasing smile plastered on his face, Jasmine almost couldn’t contain her indignation. She slapped James’ hand away and rose to her feet. With a wave of the hand, a billowing wave of spirit energy materialised out of nowhere. James’ scrying was now an endless habit, and he could sense that this spirit energy wasn’t his.

Or more accurately, it wasn’t entirely his. When the realisation hit him that a part of his spirit pressure had refined this energy and left his mark on it, he inspected his own. Now that he looked at it, he realised that the very nature of his spirit had changed. Although still a pure spirit, it was now slightly different, like it was the amalgamation of two spirits.

James now realised just how closely their souls were tied together. Then, with a grin plastered across his face, he waved his hand down in a chopping motion and Jasmines liquid spirit energy split into half and continued on past James.

Seeing her own spirit energy being controlled, Jasmine then began to Scry James’ spirit realm and discovered the same anomaly he did. Very quickly, a war of spirit energy engulfed James’ spirit realm. As it all mingled in together, their spirits began to undergo a strange type of transformation.

Normally, the True Spirit in a spirit realm was a blurry phantom of your true appearance. But the more they threw around each other’s spirit energy, the more their spirits began to gain more form and substance. Just the action of believing it was acceptable to use each other’s energy began to create a huge paradigm shift in the duo’s cultivation.

They didn’t notice it because they were too busy having fun throwing lightning bolts and each other and laughing as they hurtled meteors at poor old Gold James. When they realised that something strange was happening, it was already too late to prevent it.

They had, in their ignorance, suddenly created and irreversible deviation in standard cultivation practice. They only actually realised because of Gold James, who had been launching balls of fire at Spirit James flying around in the air, while Jasmine tried to pin him down with lightning, suddenly froze in motion.

James intuitively sensed a difference in his clone and then glanced upwards in the same direction. Spirit James’ mind boggled as he stared up overhead.

What was normally a perfectly white endless sky, now had a mirroring spirit realm similar to James’. Not only had it suddenly appeared in James’ spirit realm out of nowhere, but it was now rapidly moving towards them. Or rather ... his spirit realm and that spirit realm were rapidly moving towards each other.

As James stared up in horror at the quickly approaching entire realm of spirit energy about to collide with them, Gold James and Jasmine flew up next to him and stared up as well. James couldn’t help but mutter as he squinted his eyes trying to figure out what the fuck was going on.

“What the fuck is that? Is that another entire spirit realm? What the fuck is it doing here?”

While also gazing up, Jasmine suddenly closed her eyes, and then just a quickly opened them in shock. She then made a loud ‘gulp’ attracting the James’ attention. Seeing herself being stared at with suspicion, Jasmine couldn’t help but sheepishly look down at her feet while mumbling something.

“I ... think ... be ... min ... maybe...”

James quirked an eyebrow then coaxed her to speak a little more loudly. “What was that?”

Jasmine, seeing James staring at her, couldn’t help but gulp again. She then spoke a little louder.

“It might be mine.”

“You’re what?”

“My spirit realm. I think ... it’s my spirit realm.”

Gold James and Spirit James both stared up at the sky with a very quickly enlarging realm. It had dozens of spirit energies rolling about the place like a tempestuous ocean.

Goldy just pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned. “God damn it! It’s just one thing after another with you. First, you conjure me up like a puppet and lock me away to be your cultivating slave, then you bring home some stray made from an old man and computer parts, now spiritual Armageddon. I want a divorce!”

Spirit James could only smile wryly at Gold James’ poor humour. He understood that a shit storm was about to happen. Some type of spiritual calamity that would doubtlessly end in either death or cultivation deviation.

He let out a long sigh and watched on as first liquid energy rained from the sky. When it made contact, the liquid energy in James’ realm began to bubble violently and rapidly started frothing about. Quickly following that was meteors covered with fire, that collided with his own solid energy blowing each other apart.

Shortly after, a gaseous nebula fell like a descending mist and James’ wind energy began to kick up gales of wind and tornados started forming everywhere. Bright balls of light and strange shadows fell onto James’ realm and soon other strange elements.

Some had no visible tell tales of their arrival, magnetism for example. The only reason he knew it was there was because he could sense it. Both because it was energy refined by his spirit pressure and because of his scrying.

A huge sun descended over the realm and bathed everything in its flaming glory. James felt fire and light energy pouring off this thing. Lightning and plasma fell like rain and clouds filled the skies.

Along with all these energies was another spirit shaped like Jasmine. The moment it fell from the sky, it shot towards Jasmine, and the two of them merged into a single true spirit.

Gold James gave a dissatisfied grunt. “Time to get to work.”

When he finished his sentence, another strange abstract energy fell onto realm. It was similar in many ways to his pride energy, in that when it came, it pervaded all the other energy that came before it. Like a disease, it filled everything, dragged it in and controlled it like a sickening pervert controlling puppets on a string.

Spirit James and Jasmine were just standing in mid-air staring at everything in shock. The beauty of having refined this energy was that it couldn’t harm your own true spirit. James could swim in his plasma tornado, and apart from getting buffeted by the forces a little, he felt only a tingling sensation.

By the same token, when they were play fighting with spirit energy, it could never truly hurt them, even if they tried. The most they got was knocked around a little. In their spirit realm, they were invincible.

Gold James on the other hand, looked like he was getting ready for war. He undid his shining gold robe and let it blow away in the wind and dissolved back into spirit energy that filled all the other spirit energy. James’ mind boggled as he watched Gold James in only golden sweat pants, start doing warm-ups.

“Goldy. What the hell are you doing?”

Gold James just smiled at James. “You know how it is. There can only be one.”

James wasn’t sure what the hell he was talking about until he finally thought back to when he tried to unlock more abstract elements. Pride destroyed them all the moment they entered his spirit realm. Back then, pride never bothered to let those elements try and grow and weeded them out the moment they began generating.

Things were vastly different now. Jasmine had Skay’s Greed, which had matured quite a bit and was more than just a budding freshly unlocked energy.

James grabbed Jasmine’s hand and pulled her to the edge of his spirit realm. Jasmine, who was rather new to the cultivating game, wasn’t sure what exactly was happening. “James, what’s going on?”

James smiled wryly as he pulled her outside the general area the spirit energy congregated in. At about 2 hundred metres he stopped. Reconsidered, and then pulled Jasmine out to another kilometre away.

“It would seem ... we’ve deviated together. Now that our spirit realms are trying to combine, Goldy is going to have to clean house. He’s rather proud of how well he keeps all the spirit energy properly equalised and in line, now though, another boss, who greedily likes to collect every kind of spirit energy, has shown up to take control. Goldy probably isn’t going to let that shit slide I imagine.”

While Jasmine was busily trying to compute that, James turned back and watched the show. Slowly, all the spirit energy that just came from Jasmine’s realm began to swirl together and form into the shape of a huge golem.

Inside his spirit realm, distance was relative. In a moment he could take a step and cross a billion kilometres or a single metre. That also meant that his scrying field covered everything from the realm where he gathered energy and onwards out into infinitum. He watched on with his scrying as the greed energy sucked in all the energy it had managed to get its hands on, and slowly take the form of Jasmine.

The spirit energy golem of Jasmine was mashed together with different types of energy all violently colliding and mixing together. Standing where he had been before, Gold James stood with his arms crossed and stared up at the giant golem.

Meanwhile, he made no such drastic changes to the spirit energy under his control and simply let it revert to how it normally looked. “Greed! You great bloated piece of shit. I already banished you from this realm the last time you were summoned. You should cut your losses and accept that the girl’s mine now too.”

“ROARRR!”

Spirit James standing off in the distance cupped his chin in thought and started muttering. “How odd. I had some strange notion that Greed would be like my pride, and be a clone or something. It doesn’t appear to have any conscious thought at all, though.

“It’s like it’s just doing what all abstract spirit energy does and eliminating any threats to its ability to rule the spirit energy in the way it’s host desires. If I’m not wrong, this will be a short fight.”

Jasmine gave him a confused look. “What do you mean should be a short fight. It’s my greed isn’t it? Doesn’t that mean it’s capable of using my subconscious control over spirit energy? I hate to tell you this James, but by subconscious understanding and control of my spirit energy most likely dwarfs yours.”

James glanced at her with a smile on his face. “Does it now? Well, how about your understanding of greed? Before you became human, you weren’t truly capable of these sorts of abstract emotions. You said so yourself. How long have you known the feeling of greed, how many times have you experienced the sensation?

“Not only that but what about lightning? How many times have you witnessed lightning personally? Not through a camera, but been there yourself? What about fire, you can tell it’s hot, and what it’s capable of, but you’ve never been burned, or stood near a warm fire on a cold night. Your understanding is no doubt beyond even the Old Madman’s was, but I doubt your experience could fill half a cup.

“Also, this is a battle between a sentient spirit with its own willpower, and a spirit energy driven by some primal subconscious command. You may not have realised it just yet, but Goldy and I are technically the same person. Although his spirit pressure is separate from mine, it’s an exact copy. That means any spirit energy refined by ... I suppose our spirit pressure, won’t be able to harm him.”

Jasmine was rather discontent with this answer, mostly because she felt he was like calling her a child, which if you wanted to be technical, was far closer to the truth than she liked. She gave a humph, pouted, and then turned back to the show.

James floated cross-legged in mid-air and watched on as the greed golem swung a huge palm filled with plasma towards Gold James. Gold James then looked around, and with a single flick of the wrist, a massive burst of liquid energy sprayed up like a geyser.

From where they sat watching, both James and Jasmine felt a sudden oppressive spirit pressure coalesce onto the water column from Goldy. Moments later that water energy blew a hole through the giant’s palm, down its arm and straight out its back.

As all that water energy poured out from the back of the golem, it dragged with it any energy it touched. James could sense from his scrying that all the energy touched by Gold James’ geyser and spirit pressure was being refined again.

This time, when it reformed, it was pervaded with Gold James’ pride energy. For the first time, James actually closely watched this happen and saw his pride energy particles stick to the green particles like tar. In a matter of seconds, those greed energy particles were engulfed in pride particles and absorbed.

The pride particles then split in half like mitosis and started sticking to the energy particles that once had greed particles attached to them. James was stunned to see this happening. While this battle raged on, he focused onto a part of his spirit realm that was slowly refining primal energy.

He watched in amazement as primal energy just suddenly appeared in his spirit realm and was then suddenly attacked by a tiny amount of spirit pressure. Presumably, his subconscious’ doing. This spirit pressure very slowly enforced James’ will onto the primal energy particle, and they slowly began to take on characteristics of his elements.

When this was happening, James suddenly began to have strange thoughts regarding everything he knew about certain energies. All his experience and knowledge of them flashed through his mind as he consciously inspected the process. Even stranger was that it wasn’t only his memories of these things.

A huge load of information he didn’t think he knew flashed past his mind. It was very methodical and perfectly memorised, which was far different from the rather abstract feeling and emotions that were attached to his own memories.

He and Jasmine then both looked at each other in shock. Jasmine’s mind was trembling at what she’d just felt, and her voice was hoarse and gasping. “What the fuck was that! I just felt ... so many things, and then this sensation, like my memories weren’t my own.”

James scratched his chin and gave a bashful cough. “Ahem. Well, that may have been me. Probably best if I not dive too far into that in the future. It seems we’re sharing a great deal more than just my soul realm.”

Meanwhile, Gold James was slowly working the greed giant down into a tiny speck. Much to James’ dismay, many of the strange elements that came from Jasmine’s realm were being refined again by their spirit force.

By the end of the very unfair and one-sided battle, James’ spirit energy had doubled. Not only that, his spirit pressure was more powerful and controllable than ever. It had a strange quality to it now that didn’t make James uncomfortable, but it was strange nonetheless.

After the fallout of the battle, and despite Gold James’ expectations, a single new element remained. Magnetism. Goldy was the first to admit that if any of those elements should be kept then magnetism would be it. After electron flow, it was probably the thing James understood best.

Jasmine didn’t particularly care what elements she had. All this was still too new to her, and she was still trying to wrap her head around everything, especially now that feelings and sensations were getting in the way.

As things calmed down from the battle, James suddenly felt Jasmine scrying. Or more to the point, he saw it in his inner eye. It very much felt like he and Jasmine had somehow become entangled in the exact same scenario that he and Goldy were in.

They had individual spirit pressures that were a merging and copy of the two. The shared a single spirit realm and its spirit energy. They could all see each other’s scrying.

Probably the only thing that stopped James from worrying was that they all maintained their individuality. The other thing was, that after some testing, James and Jasmine didn’t seem to be sharing the same thoughts simultaneously like he did with Goldy.

At least ... not unless they chose to. Which was very much an awkward moment for the pair of them when they tested it. Mostly because Gold James, out of pure spite that he now had to share his spirit realm with some hussy, would purposely focus his mind on something inappropriate so as to distract James’ thoughts in that direction.

Apart from getting slapped, James also got to witness Jasmine blush for the first time. Which he openly admitted, only in his own mind, that he would probably never forget.

At last, with everything cooled down after that huge escapade, James returned to his original question, which had started this whole fiasco in the first place. Seated at a new table, with a fresh cup of tea, he asked Jasmine; “How can you connect to the network and control everything while you’re so disconnected from the system?”

Jasmine, in much the same way as before, tried to deflect the topic of conversation. “Like I said before, Skay prepared in advance and built a machine. Do you think, that our cultivation will be simultaneous now?”

James, seeing her awkward effort to deflect, only grew more suspicious. “Jasmine, we only have the one spirit realm now, and a shared willpower. I suspect we may be permanently stuck together. However, as troubling as that is, we can’t change it yet. More importantly, what aren’t you telling me?”

Under the intensifying stare of James, Jasmine began to fidget uncomfortably. Seeing her reluctance to say anything, James suddenly had a thought. He then returned his focus to the real world and discovered something he was afraid to ask questions about.

In his defence, he’d just had a moment of crisis and spent the last few weeks reaffirming his own pride. He hadn’t spent much time inspecting his body, and certainly never made an effort to scry his body. Under the intense scrutiny of his scrying, James discovered two strange things.

The first was a series of spirit pressure pulses. They were unerringly accurate and specifically targeted.

The second thing he discovered was a very out of place, wafer-thin 5mm by 5mm chip right in the middle of his brain. Under his scrutiny, he discovered that this little chip gave off an endless number of different kinds of energy all pulsing at a frequency beyond his ability to comprehend. Not only that, they were so tiny that they were just as hard to recognise as previously mentioned pressure pulses.

Jasmine, now having a shared scrying vision with James rushed to try and explain. “It’s harmless James. It’s just a little wireless chip created on a molecular level. It’s so minute and harmless you couldn’t even detect it since you woke up after Latsoe’s attack.”

James, who had now returned his focus to his spirit realm, was visibly shaking. “Fuck! That fucking Madman! He’s fucking turned me into some kinda wi-fi cyborg! Piece of shit crazy old goat fucker! He was fucking poking around in my brain?! Motherfucker!”

Jasmine could only cringe and watch James go off into a rant about irrational fears being entirely rational near Skay. Half an hour later, James finally sat down at the table again and his bloodshot spirit eye’s focused in on Jasmine like a hawk eyeing a mouse.

“How does it work?”

Jasmine, seeing she wasn’t about to get blamed for this debacle, could only sigh in frustration. “Well, it’s a quantum computer of sorts. Papa had the idea of trying to entangle two spirit particles. To say he was successful would be an understatement. Normally, when two ‘real’ particles are entangled, they respond in an observable manner to any change in their partner. Regardless of distance.

“He found that if he used enough spirit pressure on two spirit energy particles, then he could force them into an entangled state. He could then separate those two particles using his pressure and then place them in corresponding devices that I need to interact with. For example, he launched some up to the satellite, placed some in the endless forest quantum antennae and left some here in the base.

“The key difference from normal entanglement and spirit entanglement is that normal entangled particles change state, like rotation speed and direction. Unfortunately, we have no way to measure that with spirit particles. Instead, with spirit particles, we can observe a change in state between different types of energy.

“Following this line of reasoning, he developed an array pattern that can interact with the old computer systems binary processing capabilities and change the nature of an energy particle. The best part about this is that spirit energy takes up no space. Energy particles aren’t bound by space, and an infinite amount can inhabit the space of a single electron.

“The only limitation is my ability to focus my scrying field to that level and be able to pick apart the individual particles. This way, by observing the reactions of the particles, I’m then able to influence a similar set on our chip that allows us to instantly send a signal back.”

James wiped his face for a moment and sighed. He then quirked his head as he had a sudden new thought. “How is it that you can still process all that information. You don’t have a body, so it’s not like your processing information with a brain. Your vessel, which is my guild seal, most likely has no such ability. How exactly is it that a soul can exist in an inanimate object and still process so much information.”

Jasmine shook her head at the question. “I’m afraid, even Papa couldn’t answer this question. As a machine made spirit, I still mostly think logically. It actually quite hurts my mind to consider the prospect that I no longer possess any physical form at all. In answer to your next question, yes, I can instantly recognise the patterns and changes of the spirit particles in your head. It’s as easy for me as 1+1 is for you.”

Finally, James stood up and began pacing around in his spirit realm. He hated the thought of having something in his head. While he cupped his chin and his mind raced, he asked Jasmine another question. “Is there any reason why Skay picked that spirit material for the science project he put in my head?”

Jasmine shook her head. “No, he had to remove any foreign spirit pressure from it anyway, so he simply chose something durable, that wouldn’t conduct, and was easy to force spirit particles to attach to.”

James gave a nod and then sat down cross-legged in the middle of his ocean. His mind focused in on the spirit particles on the chip once again. He could tell that these particles were most definitely free particles. The one’s Jasmine was changing, were obviously refined particles.

James then focused his mind and concentrated all of his willpower. He was about to try something that he’d never even imagined trying before. With his focus directly on the refined spirit particles that were fused to the little chip, he willed those particles to return to his spirit realm.

In an instant, they returned. In the grand scheme of his spirit realm, a few thousand spirit particles was nothing. Scrying was the only way you’d ever pick them out. Before they had a chance to go and join their brothers in the rest of the spirit realm, James once again focused his will on them.

Moments later, a relative billion kilometres away from where his energy normally gather, James suddenly reappeared. With a wave of his hand, the normally flat white ground rose up into a wall. James then waved his hand again and those spirit particles he’d just brought back stuck to the imaginary spirit realm surface like gum.

When he finished, he turned back to see Jasmine and Goldy both staring at the wall. He gave a grin then began to explain. “In the spirit realm, everything is to my whim right? Spirit energy takes on the form I feel most comfortable with it having. The ground opened up into a huge pit when I imagined my water element becoming a calm ocean of clear fluid. If that’s the case, what’s to stop me from imagining other stuff.

“You can consider this the communication wall. The beauty of it is, you hardly need to focus inside the spirit realm. You can stack infinite quantum entangled particles here and just at a momentary glance be able to tell them apart. If even I’m capable of something like that in my spirit realm, then I’ve no doubt you can.”

When he finished, James gave Jasmine a smile then turned back to his wall. He then focused his mind again and tried something he’d never once tried before. He channelled his spirit pressure into the chip again, then tried to will the free energy particles into his spirit realm. At first, there was a great deal of resistance, but after Goldy and Jasmine were called in as the big guns, the free energy particles got sucked in just like primal energy does.

The moment the free energy particles appeared in his spirit realm, James sensed that small subconscious force that normally refines primal energy. With his remaining spirit pressure he willed that force not to influence these particles, and like a puff of smoke, it was gone.

James then sat down on the ground with a long exhale, like he’d just finally relaxed after hours of back breaking labour work. He then glanced over at Jasmine. “Now, take that fucking thing out of my head.”

-James’ Office-

As James walked out of his room into the office, he saw Gary seated at the round table. He gave him a strange look as he asked him; “What are you doing in here Lackey 1?”

Clearly, James took some form of perverse joy in forgetting Gary’s name. Gary, on the other hand, didn’t seem even slightly phased and simply stood up and gave a bow. “You requested for me to meet you. That was 4 hours ago.”

James cupped his chin and stared at the ceiling for a moment, then with a click of his fingers gave and ‘ah!’, to signify his sudden remembrance. “Good ... ahh, yes I did call for you ... about ... um ... honestly, I think I forgot why I called you here. Tell you what, just sit there and wait for me to come back. I’m rather busy with something else right now and it’s distracted me.”

James then strolled out of his office, allowing Gary to broach no argument.

-The Lab-

In the operating room of the lab, James laid face down on an operating table as Jasmine drilled a hole in his head and removed the chip with a whole bunch of operating arms attached to the ceiling. Much to his dissatisfaction, he discovered that even when his body fell unconscious now, he simply lost that focus and returned to the spirit realm.

In a way, this was good, because it allowed him to continue cultivating. In the same sense, he hated the feeling of being completely disconnected from his body. Luckily, the surgery was quick, and the moment it was finished, he willed himself back to his bodies focus and started pouring energy into it to clear the effects of the sleeping agent.

When they were finished, James looked at the little chip in a glass bottle with revulsion. Then with a hand closed around it, he poured in energy from everything he could and turned the glass bottle into liquid and the little chip into dust.

Once that was done, he called over Kelly, who was busily pouring through Skay’s notes in the lab. To say that sloth is only a representation of being tired and lazy would be wrong. It’s also used to describe idle hands that aren’t doing productive work.

On the contrary to that, Kelly was incredibly productive, the problem was that she hated to be focused on a single thing. She was far more free flowing and jumped around from project to project with for no rhyme or reason. More often than not, she would end up completing projects that were far from what she originally set out to do.

And in 9 out of 10 cases, these completed projects were dangerous beyond compare. As the bible says, ‘idle hands are the devil’s plaything’.

James then sat down and released the guild seal from his spirit realm, allowing Jasmine to experience the lab first hand for the first time. Unsurprisingly, she didn’t seem particularly impressed. After all, she was still connected to the system and could construct a 3D image of the lab in her head using the surveillance systems.

As James sat down, he began to flesh out an idea he’d been having. “Jasmine, how far along is your ... Dropship?”

“The drop ship has only just begun James. Regarding designs and planning, it is already mostly finished, in terms of physical construction it has perhaps more than year until completion.”

James cupped his chin and stared at the ceiling. He then stood up and began pacing. “From what I understand, the drop ship was built for war correct? What if we retrofit the design, and build it for something else? Would that be possible?”

Jasmine gave a nod. “Certainly James. For the moment we essentially only have the frame of the ship completed anyway. We can redesign the interior for whatever we want.”

James’ pacing stopped and he then glanced at Jasmine and Kelly. “What if I wanted it to become a mobile Guild HQ? The lab, storage, manufacturing, everything. Do you think that would be possible?”

Jasmine crossed her arms and stared at the ground for a moment as she considered the possibility. Finally she sighed and shook her head. “I’m sorry James. To have the same capabilities of the lab, the ship would need to be almost 3 times as big. Probably more.”

James nodded his head then smiled. “What if, we could get our hands on some of that space stone? Do you think it would be possible to create a similar space bending phenomenon as the Jetsu mountain ranges have? Increase the space inside the hull to 100 times? Do you think that’s possible?”

Kelly, who’d been rather disinterestedly looking at her fingernails, finally perked up at the prospect of playing with space. “You mean to say that there’s something that can do that sort of thing?”

James cupped his chin in thought. “Well, probably not exactly the same way as the Jetsu mountain ranges. Instead, if we could find a way to automate the spirit pressure exerted on the space stone, we may be able to find a way to simply fill space stone with say ... all the automated machinery. Then we just need a way to get resources in and the products out.”

Jasmine finally started to pick up what James was thinking. “Well ... if our theories are correct, then the internal storage space of the space stone is dependent on the free space energy residing in it. If we could find a way to exert enough spirit pressure, and force all the free energy into a smaller area of space stone, we may be able to create a space as big as this lab inside a rock the size of your fist.

“If we are capable of that, then we could most likely design an array to simply exert pressure on the rock along with the will to absorb everything in a set area. And vice versa, we could set up an array that pulls everything in a certain area of the inner space out into reality.”

James then picked up from this thought. “In addition, we could redesign our factory again. Use the latest research into spirit pressure and arrays that we have. You would be able to keep an eye on everything in the factory with our entangled spirit particles, and if we can find a way to utilise the pressure arrays properly, then it would be possible for you to purify materials to the 80th or 90th percentile.

“Not just that, but you would most likely be able to create fused particles with different types of free energy, and even ... potentially, you could impart a soul onto something.”

That thought finished in his head, James suddenly had realised something. This whole time he’d been forging things, he never once considered using arrays to help him purify or fuse free energy particles in his materials. Not only that, he’d never considered forcing the free energy particles into a smaller area.

If he did that, he might be able to both increase the purity of his artefacts and increase the level of free energy they had. It would essentially be the same as creating spirit essence by taking all the energy of a material and densely packing it into a small space.

James and Jasmine then spent the afternoon filling in Kelly on how forging worked and how spirit pressure was integral to that. They then discussed the other uses of spirit pressure in forging and array patterns. Finally, night came, and James remembered he had a mission to give the others.

-War Room-

James walked into the war room and found Exsue, Harvy and Fatty all waiting for him. He walked up to the 3D topographical map of the continent and then focused it in onto the Black Lands.

“I have a rather important mission for all of you. Fatty, you will be a necessity on this mission. I’ve received reports that there may potentially still be a space stone deposit located in around this area of the Black Lands.”

James then indicated a small area in the Black Lands south of the Hastoel Border. “It’s about 50 km in. From the information we’ve been able to gather, the Black Lands is named as such because it’s internally on fire. Everything that enters becomes black soot. The further into the black lands you walk, the hotter it gets.

“Luckily for you guys, Jasmine will be sending her latest batch of drones with you. Hopefully, they should be able to prevent the Gunship from being completely incinerated. Your task is to go here and find the space stone deposit. If you can, bring back some samples.

“Fatty, this is only a theory, but I suspect that scrying will very much give you a similar experience to what you would feel if you applied your pressure directly to a space stone. If it’s anywhere within your scrying field, you should perceive the space stone’s internal space.

“Harvy, keep a low profile. If you can, keep the bird high to avoid alerting too many people. If someone finds out the gunship has finally left the empire, there will be a frenzy as they try to claim it. If all else fails, just hit the big red button and get your asses back here at maximum speed.”

With that said, the trio left to start their mission.

To James’ surprise, they’d returned in a matter of hours. Apparently, it didn’t take too long, and the shielding arrays of the gunship managed to withstand the flames by themselves for most of the journey.

According to Jasmine’s reports when she scanned the ship on landing, the ship was going to need the shielding array repainted, and the spirit reactor replaced.

When James met the trio in the hanger, he discovered them to be covered from head to toe in black soot. Fatty handed James a little bag, inside of which was about 20 space stones all of different shapes and sizes but none being bigger than an inch in diameter.

“James, dude. There’s something weird about that place man. It’s like the flames were alive. It’s like they knew why we were there. I’m tellin’ ya man. The flames let us go, because they knew we’d come back. They’re setting a trap or something.”

Hearing Fatty start rambling on about a new conspiracy involving living flames, James just glanced at Exsue and Harvy who both shook their heads and shrugged, indicating that they didn’t see any evidence of the flames showing any sentience to the degree Fatty described.

James thus promptly ignored Fatty while nodding his head as if he was listening. Meanwhile, he was busy probing the space stones with his scrying field. With Jasmine’s assistance, they determined that these 20 odd stones had about 8000 cubic metres of space. Which is equivalent to about 20m in width, length and height.

For reference. Their present auto factory took up floor space close to nearly a kilometre in length and width by itself. It then had at least 50 metres of height onto of that. That meant these few stone would fit about 1/20th of their lab as it is now. To increase frustrations on that front, it didn’t include their storehouse underground which was almost double the size of the factory, albeit mostly empty.

To top it off, James forgot one important thing about the space in the space stone. It had no time. Even if he wanted to build a factory inside it, the factory would never be able to operate.

It then suddenly hit him. James realised that he was too single-minded. Why the hell did they need a huge factory in the ship? The whole idea of the ship was to have a mobile base so he could explore the continent. All it really needed was a small auto factory area, a forge, meditation rooms, and a small alchemy lab. A huge factory would just be a waste of space.

With this thought in mind, James revised his plan. Instead of creating a huge factory, he would use the space stone solely for storage. That would be the biggest space waster of a ship that size anyway. They’d then design a far smaller auto factory with very refined forging capabilities.

It was only going to be used for ship repairs and basic stuff anyway. James planned to increase his own forging skills instead of relying on Jasmine’s factory. With that thought in mind, he returned to the lab and started going through the detail of what he wanted with Jasmine and Kelly.

Once they were done, it was the next morning, and James returned to his office.

-James’ Office-

When James arrived in his office, he found the still very, very patiently waiting Gary, who looked like he was currently sleeping with his eyes open. The giveaway that he was asleep was the drool from his mouth and the soft snoring emitted with every breath he took.

If James had to guess, he had entered his spirit realm to cultivate and left his eyes open, then feel asleep in that state. James simply shook his head, sat down at the table and kicked Gary in the shins.

Gary then went through the short moment after being startled awake where you’re shocked, then dazed and confused, then at last realisation dawns. Gary then shot to his feet and gave James a bow.

James just sighed. He had no idea why Jessy chose this guy, but James was the first to admit that nothing bad had ever happened while he was in charge. Perhaps out of pure luck, perhaps because someone had been watching out for him, or perhaps Gary carried himself the way he did precisely to reduce people’s expectations of him.

“Gary, I’m going to be taking the core members and leaving this city eventually. This means you will eventually be left to run the guild in my absence and as such, you will need experience. Therefore, as of this moment, you are the Vice Guildmaster of the Dark Brotherhood. You will be taking on the responsibility of the guilds expansion, recruitment and business. Everything that the core members of the guild once handled will hereby be taken on by you.”

With that said, James flicked a little cube over to Gary. As opposed to the normal coms cube that James gave to customers, this one was painted red. Not only that, but it had a great deal more features in it. With this cube, Gary could control almost everything in the guild and city. Jasmine had re-written a new AI to run everything in her stead so as to shirk any responsibility.

This one wasn’t quite as charming as Jasmine herself had been and was firmly bound by a single rule, obey the guild master. It also enjoyed having to go through the process of committing to a heavenly oath the same as Jasmine did.

Amusingly, Jasmine had no need to create it. Since becoming a True Spirit in James’ spirit realm, her ability to compute was several magnitudes more powerful than before. Which completely blew away James, seeing as he’d have thought she was piggybacking off his brain or something.

To his consternation, Jasmine appeared to have no real connection to James’ body at all. The only exception to that being their shared spirit realm. Regardless of that, Jasmine’s comprehension and computing power were now so far beyond anything they could have imagined, it was a certainty that she could have run everything in the city herself and it would be no more difficult than turning on a toaster.

This brings us back to the new AI. It had no personality whatsoever ... at least, not yet. Apparently, it was like a baby right now and had to slowly adapt and learn. Eventually, one day, it would most likely reach the point that it could become somewhat independent like Jasmine had.

Gary held the red box in his hand and turned it over a few times. He then pushed the only button on the surface of the box, and a beam of light shot directly into his eyes. The common symptoms of suddenly getting an implant became apparent, and a few minutes later he was awake again.

James smiled sinisterly and stood up. “There you have it Gary. You are now in control of the city, the guild, and everything that entails. Good luck buddy.” He then strolled out of his office whistling proudly and acting as if a huge weight had just been lifted from his shoulders.

As he left, he had Jasmine allocate as much of the guilds time and resources as she possibly could towards the completion of the new ship.

James had made this decision after Skay’s death. There were two reasons he’d stayed here for so long and never travelled.

The first one, was because Skay was perfectly happy staying here. James realised now that Skay cared only about his life’s goal. To achieve that goal, he never had to leave this place. He encouraged the idea of the guild and taking control of the city so that he had a means to get the resources and knowledge he needed to achieve his goals without ever having to leave and lose focus.

Everything he’d built and experimented with until now had been side projects to further that one eventual end.

The second reason he’d stayed here so long was that he was a coward. He readily admitted that he was afraid to travel. Gold James seemed to bleed from every orifice when James had eventually admitted this personal fault to himself. Or rather, to Goldy.

It was as if admitting such a thing had severely damaged his pride. However, it seemed his pride was indestructible, because he suddenly felt proud of himself for being able to admit that flaw and Goldy bounced back better than ever.

The fear didn’t just come from the potential of being killed. In fact, that was the smallest contributing factor. No, for James that fear was kindled by his once irrational fear of having his mind read. With the discovery of an ability to reduce that likelihood to close to zero, he now had nothing else holding him back.

James knew, long before they even left the Gau Clan, that he would have to travel this world and explore. He knew that the key to becoming a powerful cultivator, and to survival, all came from experience. Without ever leaving the city, he knew he’d never gain that experience. He’d never be able to properly forge himself.

His lack of self-control and experience was plainly evident when James allowed himself to be consumed by his ego and arrogance. Pride and arrogance are separated by a very thin grey area, and for a time, James had stepped into that grey area, nearly costing him his life.

With this comprehension of himself, James was now certain of what he planned to do. He would cut loose the guild to expand freely, which was something he’d been limiting until now. He’d place Gary at the head of the snake, and let him manage everything.

Then like a no-good spoilt child, he’d run off gallivanting around the country, only to return when he needed money and supplies. All the while, Gary would be stuck here in Tech City, and would suffer the endless torment of running a business.

To be fair though, Gary had it pretty easy. Mostly, he would just be a placeholder for the core members, and the AI would basically do all the work for him.

Nonetheless. This meant James was preparing to cut his ties to this place, and truly start his adventure.