[MA] 209. Antinium's Hexahedron (Patreon)

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[A/N: I almost delayed this chapter but ended up finding the energy to review it.

For those wondering, I will be a friend's best man this Sunday. Well, in my country, it's actually a wedding godfather, one of a few. Either way, it killed my routine.

Things will return to normalcy on Tuesday (or Wednesday at the latest, depending on how tiring things get).

Chapters this week: 3/3

Late chapters: 3

Next release: Tuesday/Wednesday ]

It was easy to figure out what had happened: someone had found the Feng Clan's artifact in Asia; they experimented on it; they found out it could be stimulated to release unique energy that could be harnessed and turned into electricity; an entrepreneur showed up.

Thus, a nuclear power plant came to be, and the artifact was sapped for its energy.

Shen didn't care whether the power plant was a front or if his clan's Last Will only complemented the energy production. He could do nothing about it either way. He was only glad it hadn't run dry yet.

What truly mattered how was that he had found it.

He could feel the source of the qi link with his aura coming from a hollow aluminum box underwater. It was pretty weird; he couldn't feel any qi in it beyond what a random G-tier object would have. Instead, he felt a lot of mana, as if it was enchanted.

How could an item from his clan have mana? And how could mana produce a qi thread coming from?

Shen pulled it out of the water with his aura and saw exactly what he had felt: a watermelon-sized gray metal box covered with exquisite bronze drawings of animals. Despite the intricate craftsmanship, the animals were small and standing side by side in rows, like some modern gift wrapping. The same pattern repeated itself vertically and horizontally: a phoenix, then a dragon, then a turtle, a tiger, a fish, a fox, a wyrm, a qilin, and a unicorn. He wouldn't give it a second glance if he saw the thing in someone's house.

Yet, despite its simplicity, seeing it filled Shen with strong emotions—and that was after he had dampened his feelings.

The mere existence of this artifact told him his clan was gone; they weren't supposed to leave Last Will for future generations otherwise—or so it should be.

Shen had learned things somewhat went off track. Unexpected situations required one to adapt. What if instead of placing the Last Will there before they got destroyed, his people had been forewarned that they would leave the planet with the Immortal Emperor? What if they just wanted to leave an explanation behind for any clansman deployed elsewhere that might return to the wrong place?

What's more, what did it mean for it to recognize his blood? His clan might have left something for him, specifically, or he was just one of many that the artifact would recognize. It might be a trap, contain demands, or only have generic instructions to rebuild the clan.

Shen both dreaded and anticipated what he would find inside.

Part of that was realized as a curiosity: what exactly was that box? He only knew how to use the Blood Resonance and the general workings of the Last Will so he could find it, but it clearly was more mysterious than he had expected.

"Inspect," he said.

And that's when the system provided him with the most complex and prolific Inspection window he had seen to date.

=

Antinium's Hexahedron (B)

Popularly called antidron, this object is a marvel of qi engineering with no magic equivalent.

It was built for the first time in the Alliance by an excentric wandering cultivator called Antinium, who disappeared right after publicizing the first model and its schematics. Curiously, the specific hexahedron before you predates Antinium's date of birth by over twenty thousand Earth years.

Each of an antidron's six faces contains six enchantments, three of which are always the same.

Shared Enchantments: Artificial Sentience (C+), Linked Consciousness (C+), Self-Reforming (C+)

An antidron's artificial sentience enchantment is a marvel of qi engineering on its own and became the centerpiece of many security systems after its emergence. It being an enchantment prevents it from growing by itself and causing unwanted issues. Its rigid structure can only learn what is shared with it before its learning ability is permanently sealed.

Each face has its own artificial sentience. Said sentience is used primarily to keep its plate's enchantments active without interfering with the other plates. To achieve that, the crafter must sacrifice a part of their own willpower—which will only recover after a long time—and place it on each plate. The same crafter must share their willpower among all faces at the same time to prevent synchronicity issues when they are later linked in a single consciousness.

Having so many C+ enchantments active all the time and not interfering with each other also requires the crafter or others to share their comprehension of enchantment theory, Concepts, and Laws with each artificial sentience. Despite being time-consuming, delicate, challenging, and expensive, such a process is crucial to allow each face's willpower to fully understand and limit itself while not affecting its performance.

Each artificial sentience is then linked to produce a single consciousness. That allows it to make decisions based on parameters set by the crafter. It also retains a minimal margin for creative decision-making to deal with unexpected situations without growing sentience.

A single consciousness, allied to a unique crafting process, is also crucial in turning the antidron into a single object. The entire item is affected by all its twenty-one enchantments, the three shared ones and the other eighteen distributed among the six faces.

The self-forming enchantment allows the antidron to change the shape or position of its plates. It can thus adapt to different environmental circumstances that require certain enchantments to be closer or further away from others. It also allows it to store a few items inside.

The non-shared three enchantments on each plate can be whichever the crafter wants, as long as they can keep them from interfering with each other and the antidron's materials accept them.

Each plate usually has a theme or goal for ease of crafting and harmonization.

This hexahedron contains the following extra enchantments:

Plate #1 Enchantments: Resistance (C+), Anti-Aura Camouflage (C+), Anti-Domain Camouflage (C+)

This antidron's first plate focuses on protecting itself. It achieves it by enhancing its defense and hiding in plain sight.

Plate #2 Enchantments: Energy Self-Emission Veil (C+), External Will-Energy Resistance (C+), Self-Charging Energy Reserve (C+)

The second plate focuses on energy enchantments, with split goals: making itself harder to detect energy-wise, preventing intrusion from external energy driven by a will, and having an automatically rechargeable energy reserve.

Plate #3 Enchantments: Internal Preservation (C+), Internal Time Freeze (C+), Anti-Time-Freeze Functioning Allowance (C+)

The third plate focuses on preserving any object placed inside it. It also allows them to function with limited degradation.

Plate #4 Enchantments: Aerial Movement (C+), Submerged Movement (C+), Haste (C+)

The fourth plate focuses on in-world movement, usually used for accompanying the antidron's user.

Plate #5 Enchantments: Blood Analysis (C+), Blood-Locked Codex (C+), Blood-Locked Link (C+)

The fifth plate focuses on identifying users and allowing them access to information-related functions.

Plate #6 Enchantments: Short-Range Teleportation (C+), Long-Range Teleportation (C+), Self-Destruction (C+)

The final plate focuses on escape and, failing that, self-destruction.

Antidrons contain at most C+ enchantments because sharing mastered Laws is impossible, no matter the sacrifices one is willing to make. Yet, they are still classified as B items for their complexity and potential versatility. In value alone, they are closer to A- items.

Despite their ingenuity and value, antidrons are considered luxury items, having very few situations where they are the best fit instead of multiple different objects. They are often used as statements of social connections and economic power.

Antidrons can have all enchantments active simultaneously or activate them at will. Most antidrons with a self-destruction enchantment will activate it at the slightest perceived issue, erring on the side of caution.

Unless you're sure this antidron is meant for you, it's highly suggested that you sell it to a B-rank organization instead.

=

Shen was dumbfounded. It was almost like the system was fanboying over the thing. He guessed that this antidron predating the item's first appearance in the Alliance made the system keen on explaining to Shen how marvelous it was in the hope that he would be tempted to sell it—hopefully to someone who could study it to make a mana counterpart.

He wouldn't, of course. First, because it came from his clan. Second, it being such an incredible object meant either the Feng Clan was indeed gone for good, or the Immortal Emperor was involved.

It was easy to reach that conclusion. Feng Yang had betrayed his clan and left it in debt to purchase a B++ coffin and many Time stones. According to the system, the antidron's cost was close to an A- item. The values involved should be similar enough. The Feng clan wouldn't have wasted that much to send Shen a message even if they could, much less when his survival was only a possibility.

No, the antidron could only have come from them if they had invested everything they had into leaving a Last Will.

Still, Shen held on to hope. Maybe the Immortal Emperor was involved. The man had contacted Shen before. He had predicted Shen would join the tutorial, so it was obvious Shen would leave it. What if he needed to say something important outside the tutorial?

Either way, Shen was glad whoever had crafted the thing had seen it fitting to place an anti-domain camouflage enchantment on it. Otherwise, the Drow Maiden might've taken it already. He didn't think it would pass a close inspection from hers, not to mention if she had system-Inspected it, but it had been good enough to make her disregard it.

To be fair to the Maiden, the thing could even pretend to have mana enchantments—relatively weak ones at that. Then again, she had to have felt the qi daggers coming from it if she knew this was what he was looking for.

Had she been fooled? Or did she just not care about the supposedly expensive antidron? Or was it something else?

Speaking of expensive things she could've felt, Shen wondered if the coffin was there or if someone had taken it, be it human or the drow.

Shen immediately noticed his thoughts going into a tangent, which he had learned to do in his training—by himself, though undeniably under the drow's guidance—and focused back on the matter at hand.

He took a deep breath, placed the hexahedron on the ground, and used a qi needle to cut his finger. Then, he made a blood drop float until it touched the box.

If it was a trap, he might die. Still, he didn't get away from the object. He was supposed to accept his clan's punishments, including a capital one. His honor had adapted to some new perspectives, but it hadn't undergone a complete overhaul.

Shen was of the Feng Clan; his life was their leadership's to reap if they wanted.

So as his blood was absorbed and golden lines traveled throughout the cube, he kneeled to accept his ancestors' Last Will.

The antidron floated a little and turned until one of its edges was downward. Then, its six faces disconnected from each other, dropping two items on the ground.

That affected the thing's camouflage, or maybe its consciousness didn't think it needed to pretend to have mana anymore, for it stopped. Shen felt it was teeming with qi.

Each floating face had a thick white gelatinous internal padding with millions of tiny golden metallic runes arranged eerily similar to a brain's nerves. Knowing the thing had artificial sentience, it might be just that.

The cube floated up a few yards and reformed itself. The edges melted and superimposed on top of each other until it became a foot-wide gray sphere. The drawings also melted and flowed on the surface until the bronze metal solidified into a single thick character: Feng.

It seemed the self-reforming enchantment could also be used to make it look cooler on top of rearranging the enchantments.

Based on the Inspection's description, Shen could guess he was expected to use it to gain information. However, he first turned his attention to the two objects it had spit out. One was a fist-sized, round, white metal plate; a recorder like the one his father had left him. The other was a foot-sized metallic red pyramid with a black Feng character; the artifact that checked his qi frequency and sent the qi daggers.

The qi thread came from the pyramid.

"Inspect," he said.

=

Pingback Analyzer (D-)

Enchantments: Blood Sense (D-), Qi-Frequency/Blood-Frequency Matching (D-), Counter-Targeting (D-), Qi Emitter (D-)

An item that matches ambient qi-frequencies against the blood stored inside it and might return a qi package to the frequency source.

=

It being D- made sense if this was just a message instead of a Last Will, giving credit to the Immortal Emperor theory. Moreover, not only it probably only contained a message, but it also wasn't even that important. After all, the analyzer thing wouldn't be around after so long if it weren't for the antidron's preservation functions.

Which led Shen to the question: how was it still working if it had been constantly drained of energy?

He pulled it with his aura and grabbed it. The pyramid faces were barely glued together. He opened it. Inside, he found a qi formation made of uncountable tiny runes inscribed on the pyramid's base. Two things were inside the formation, in clearly delimited smaller circles: a fingernail-sized white crystal and a single blood drop.

The crystal was the best Qi stone Shen had ever seen, considering how small it was and long it had taken for it to deplete. Even now, Shen felt much more qi inside it than he had in his body.

"Inspect," he said.

=

Pure Qi Stone (B-)

An unattuned qi stone.

=

As simple as the Inspection window was, it contained important information. Someone had used a B- item to fuel the analyzer. It was another sign that the Immortal Emperor was involved.

Or someone else, he guessed. Someone with a lot of means who happened to be interested in him. Shen didn't believe that was possible, though; the Drow Maiden had made it clear how not special he was. The Emperor was only a possibility because of the previous contact.

Or... Or his clan was truly gone, and he was just being overly hopeful. Why create a better analyzer if they knew it would have a lot of fuel and be inside an antidron?

The single drop of blood was telling in its own way. It meant the analyzer would only reply to him. Whatever was in the recorder was meant for his eyes and ears only. It corroborated both theories.

Shen took another deep breath and picked it up.

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