Reisen Riou lay panting on the scalding cave heaven floor—not from exhaustion, but fear. He'd narrowly escaped Ei's lightning. As an Electro Specter, playing hide-and-seek with Hilichurl Kings seemed risky but was safe, his supercomputer-level brain and Thunderous Yougou Divine Machine 2.2 tracking all threats. Ritou's One System, Ten Thousand Minds ensured he dodged every attack.
"How's it feel?" Ei asked.
"Pretty great," he bluffed.
"Help me up. I need to calibrate the cave heaven's ley line coordinates," he said. Ei, back in her kimono, hauled the sweaty Reisen Riou to his feet with mild disdain. Closing his eyes, he fine-tuned the alignment. A few more Hilichurl Kings spawned, only to be instantly slashed by Ei. The deep ley line's monster density was unnerving.
"It's stable," Reisen Riou exhaled, adding rare materials to bolster the cave heaven's defenses, modeled on his LV8 firewall system—born from otherworldly phone tech and his body's defenses, perfected alongside Longevity Thunder Elixir Art, matching his archery's life force cap. Monsters had infiltrated during the cave heaven's descent, drawn by the pressure at the shallow-deep ley line boundary. Though cleared and repaired, absolute safety was needed for a testing ground, so he activated a dynamic firewall. No more monsters appeared.
"Ready for ley line research?" Ei asked.
"Absolutely. This is perfect," Reisen Riou said proudly. "The top fifth sits in shallow ley lines, where I'll build a data center and supercomputer cluster—hundreds, maybe thousands, times faster than my current setup. For cooling, I've got Everfrost Water and Star Silver devices to siphon ley line energy. The lower four-fifths split into three layers: a quarter for ley line research, a quarter for sorting, and half for storage—where we are now. Ley lines hold more than monsters and energy—Adventurer's Tomes, Hero's Tomes, even guiding ideologies. But harvesting attracts monsters, so I've carved a 30-meter arena in the storage zone. The firewall funnels intruders there for a slaughter machine, likely using Red King's laser tech."
He outlined the testing ground's design, omitting its role as a potential revival site for Yae Miko or Makoto, framing it as a hub for taboo techniques. Unbeknownst to him, Ei, though no longer mind-reading, accessed his Thunderous Yougou Divine Machine logs, catching stray thoughts via brainwave data. She knew his true intent and played along.
…
"Sorry for last night's experiment going awry, causing a ley line surge," Reisen Riou apologized to Makoto. "We expected some impact, but not this big."
"You and Ei, always stirring trouble," Makoto said, rolling her eyes cutely. Inazuma's pronoun nuances made Reisen Riou suspect she thought Ei led the experiment—a cover he and Ei had agreed on.
"Go work," Makoto ordered.
"I'll cover the burned houses and injuries—it's my fault," he said, chuckling. The few million Mora in damages barely fazed his recent spending spree.
"Makoto thinks you led it," he whispered to Ei via electromagnetic waves.
"No big deal. I'll take the blame," Ei shrugged. Let her disown me—I'll cry until she caves.
Reisen Riou dove into ley line research. Building the supercomputer and data center took a year—large-scale systems risked hardware failure if poorly designed. He studied shallow ley lines, analyzed theories, and used Longevity Thunder Elixir Art to decode 30+ herbs, integrating 20+ into Ritou's systems, satisfying Anko Renrei. Over the next six months, the Sumeru scholars finished regional soil sampling, moving to deeper nutrient analysis for crop suitability. Reisen Riou upgraded the sorting and storage zones, buying Condensed Resin from Inazuma's Vision holders.
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