The rest of the day passed quickly enough. While Ian's main consciousness handled his classes and the work, the rest of his parallel minds worked without pause, sorting through the mountain of new information, breaking it into rough groups, sealing each cluster away in careful layers.
He didn't plan to dig deep yet. Not until he was sure. For now, it was enough to box the fragments up and keep them dormant, just in case any of it was a trap or an infection buried inside too-good knowledge. He trusted Mindbloom to catch anything dangerous if it tried to slip through, but caution cost nothing.
Enira lay on a operating bed, golden hair spilling over the edge like sunlight against the sterile metal. Around her, delicate scanning circuits hovered at steady intervals, recording pulses of energy and subtle shifts in her flow.
Flori floated just above her head. Thin filaments of light extended from its body, connecting to the scanners, weaving through the air in tight patterns. Every few seconds, it pulsed softly, syncing the readings and feeding them to the holo projection.
Enira glanced at Ian as he approached, her expression calm but her fingers twitched once, betraying a hint of nerves.
"Comfortable?" Ian asked, flicking his gaze over the readings.
Enira gave him a small smile. "Not too bad. A bit… warm, here," she said, tapping lightly at her chest. "Feels like something coiled up and humming when I breathe. Not uncomfortable, just…" She trailed off, rolling her wrist as if trying to find the word.
"Foreign," Ian finished for her.
She nodded. "Mm."
Ian glanced at Flori, then back at her. "You should have told me first."
Enira's eyes darted sideways, she let out a soft laugh that was half-apology, half-mumble. "I know. It just… asked. I didn't think it would happen that fast."
Ian folded his arms, watching her closely. "Next time, you tell me first. Even if you think it's harmless. Understood?"
Enira looked down, nodding quickly, her tone suddenly very polite. "Yes, yes, I'm sorry, truly." She glanced up at him through her lashes, faintly sheepish. "I didn't want to trouble you"
He exhaled, let the smallest edge of a sigh slip out. She was behaving, no point dragging it out. He flicked a hand toward the edge of the scanner table. "It's fine. But if you feel anything odd, you say something. I don't want surprises."
"You can leave now."
"Understood." Enira dipped her head, all quiet grace, though the corners of her mouth twitched, just barely, like she was fighting back a laugh at herself.
She scooped Flori up, cradling the creature against her chest and left the room.
Ian turned his attention back to the symbol structures.
Ian turned back to the symbol structures floating on the display. He picked the one with the highest pattern match. He looked at it from every side, turning it, breaking it into pieces.
He walked around the room as he thought. Hours passed like that, checking, thinking, comparing. His goal was simple: copy the structure as well as he could and send it back to the information field to see what might react.
First, he took the biochip and adjusted it to send small signals, distortions, into the information space. He tested a few simple pulses first, just to see whether it was passing it correctly.
Next, he started shaping the signals to match the structure. He used the chip to send the copied patterns back, over and over, changing the signal each time to get closer.
He tried different ways, normal fields, short codes, small projections, but nothing clear came back. So he switched to using fractals.
He thought the fractal idea might work better because every time you zoom in, it shows new layers, so he could encode the multiple lower dimension projections into the recursive structure of the fractals. He designed a structure that folded the shape into itself, then folded it again, and again. The deeper it folded, the more it resembled the high dimension structure.
He kept adjusting it. He changed the way the folds overlapped, changed the angles. Every time it folded deeper, the signal became clearer.
When the fractal looked good enough, he ran the test again. He used the chip to send the folded pattern as a signal back into the information space. He watched the output carefully.
It worked for a while, each fold added more detail, pushing the match higher. He kept going, folding it deeper and deeper, letting the structure grow more complex each cycle.
But as the pattern reached higher dimensions. Closer and closer to the structure.
A sharp burst of raw proto-energy shot out of the chip. There was a short crack, then a bright spark. The chip casing blew apart, small bits of metal and melted pieces hit the table.
Ian stepped back, watching the burnt shell of the chip smoke on the table for a moment. He stayed there, lost in thought. He couldn't figure out where that burst of proto-energy had come from. He checked every step in his mind, maybe he missed a conversion principle, or the pattern tapped into something he didn't see.
"Ian… are you okay?"
Enira's voice pulled him out of his thoughts. She was standing near the door to the lab, she must have heard the blast and come running the second it hit.
Ian turned to her, voice calm. "Yeah… just an experiment that didn't go how I planned."
Enira crossed the room fast. She cupped his face in her hands, turning his head slightly to check for any burns or marks. Her fingers brushed through his hair, down his jaw.
"It's fine," Ian said, cutting her worry short. He leaned forward, gave her a quick peck on the lips, and let a small smile slip through.
Enira gave him a look, half worried, half annoyed, then wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him tight for a second before pulling back. She glanced at the smoking chip, then back at Ian.
"What happened?" she asked. "Don't do anything reckless like that again. What if--"
Ian didn't bother to let her scold him. His hand slid lower, palm cupping the round curve of her backside before giving it a sharp smack. The sound snapped through the quiet room, Enira let out a tiny surprised gasp, eyes going wide.
"Says the one who let something line itself up inside her consciousness without telling me first," Ian said, raising an eyebrow.
Enira opened her mouth, then closed it, speechless for a moment because, well, he wasn't wrong. She pressed her lips together, acting like she didn't hear that, but in her mind she was already thinking that she'd tell Myrra later, get Myrra to drag Ian away from his desk.
Ian narrowed his eyes slightly. "You're thinking something again."
Enira gave a tiny breathless laugh. "No… I'm not-" She tried to twist free but he caught her wrist, pulling her robe further open, letting the soft fabric slide off one shoulder.
"Liar."
Before she could react, Ian slipped an arm under her knees and lifted her up, her full curves fitting naturally into his hold, warm and pliant against his chest. She let out a soft sound that was half protest, half startled laugh as she clutched at his shirt, the loose robe falling away to show the smooth line of her thigh.
"Ian.." she tried, but he leaned in and pressed his mouth against the side of her neck, a slow, deliberate kiss that made her shiver and arch closer, her legs tightening around him by reflex.
"You need a punishment," he murmured against her skin, voice dark with a quiet threat she didn't really fear.
He nudged the door open with his shoulder. She buried her face against his collarbone, warmth flooding through her chest.
The door closed behind them, sealing the soft hush of the lab away, replaced by the low sound of her breath catching, the rustle of fabric falling, then sweet, muffled moans spilling out as he pressed her down and took his time punishing every inch of her soft, willing body.
The next day, Ian went straight back to his experiments. Even after all his checks and mental runs, he still couldn't figure out where that proto energy had come from. It didn't follow any normal conversion, it just seemed to appear from nothing.
He didn't like that he didn't know, but for now, he decided to use it anyway. If he couldn't trace the source yet, he'd test how far he could push it.
This time, he built a new type of Obryx blade. Inside this one, he added a layered core that would work like a transmitter, able to take his mental energy signals and push them directly into the information field.
Ian sat cross-legged in the work area, the new Obryx blade laid flat in front of him. He closed his eyes and focused inward. He was already skilled at building mental lattice structures for his Architect path, but this was something else, this time, he shaped a fractal structure inside his own mind. Bit by bit, he built it up, layer folding into layer, until the shape matched the flow he wanted.
When it felt stable, he directed his mental energy into the blade. The signal fed into the inner transmitter, slow at first, then deeper.
A soft woosh spread through the air. Thin lines inside the Obryx blade lit up, tiny cracks appeared along the core, but instead of breaking immediately, they filled with faint streams of proto energy, flickering between the layers like threads of liquid light.
Another woosh, stronger this time. The lines brightened then the glow snapped. The Obryx blade split clean down the center, pieces falling apart on his lap.
He held the broken halves, turning them over in his hands. Interesting. Obryx almost never broke. There were only two times he'd ever seen it happen, first, when it came in contact with that golden light from Enira, which he still couldn't fully define, and now, this.
Ian leaned closer, examining the cracks. He traced the edges with his thumb, checking the fracture lines. It looked like the inner layers had shifted, as if the very bonds between the atoms had turned directly into that raw proto energy and pulled apart the structure from inside.
Mass to energy? He frowned. That didn't follow normal principles energy conversion.
He sat back, turning the pieces over again and again, mind running through every theory he knew. If he couldn't explain it, he'd find something that could.
But after hours of searching, he found nothing useful, no known principle matched what he was seeing.
He stood still for a moment, looking at the broken Obryx halves on the bench, then at the scattered notes. If he couldn't find the reason why the proto energy showed up, then he'd focus on how to make it usable.
After a few more rounds of tweaking and failed blades, Ian finally got it stable. The final design had the right flow channels, the right balance. The proto energy didn't just build up and shatter, now it ran through, collected, and discharged on command.
He didn't bother pulling new blanks anymore. Instead, he held out his hand, focused for a moment and the raw pattern formed right there in the air. Layers of light folded over each other, the faint glow hardening into the clean black edge of a new Obryx blade.
The core lines flickered with the same thin cracks as before but this time they didn't break. They glowed steady, proto energy trapped inside until Ian wanted it out.
He turned the blade once in his hand, tested the balance. The metal felt solid, cold, perfectly shaped, weightless until his will anchored it fully.
With a slight pull of his mental flow, he pushed the proto energy forward, a clean burst of force shot out from the blade's tip, slicing the air with a faint crack. The walls flickered with the sharp flash, but the blade itself held.
Good.