"You're gonna waste away like this," Reisen Anko said, poking Reisen Riou, sprawled on a lounge chair, groaning after her martial practice.
Post-breakthrough, Reisen Riou had grown lazy, irking Anko. Lately, he'd slacked even more.
She couldn't do much about it—his shrine duties were still handled flawlessly.
He'd even hoodwinked half of Ritou's residents, recently swaying an entire low-rank samurai family.
Well, not exactly hoodwinked.
The family, failing to reform, lost most of their assets. Other Ritou families eyed their holdings. To avoid being absorbed, they pledged loyalty to Reisen Riou, registering under Ritou Shrine.
He didn't let them down. He pulled strings to transfer them from the Kanjou Commission to the Tenryou Commission, secured forging work, and preserved their samurai duties and land, averting collapse.
He personally taught them forging, too.
His Transmit ability let him share theoretical and practical experience effectively. In just half a month, they could occasionally craft 2-star weapons, hitting Forging Practice LV3.
Too bad he couldn't appraise levels directly. In his past life, unlocking a higher system tier would've granted an appraisal skill, revealing stats at a glance. Now, he needed data to estimate.
"Let me waste away," Reisen Riou groaned.
He wasn't truly resting. He was digging into his abilities.
As a phone youkai, his growth was slow—because he lacked a plan.
Taking on that samurai family as vassals sparked an idea: become an E. coli, parasitically boosting a host to grow stronger himself.
Sound familiar? It's a system.
Unlike typical systems, he couldn't directly empower others. He could teach (Transmit) and evaluate (proficiency levels).
He couldn't tag along or guide constantly, which posed problems.
His "resting" was soul-diving into his mind-space to solve these issues.
He planned a trial with Ritou Shrine's mikos and the vassal samurai family.
Hardware was the hurdle: a server holding his theoretical knowledge and experience, plus a personal terminal with data display, evaluation, transmission, energy storage, health monitoring, holographic projection, and communication.
Holographic projection and health monitoring blended local spellcraft with his innovations.
The server was manageable—he understood human brains and phones, merging them into a decent setup. Energy was tricky; ambient elemental power fell short. Ley Line energy solved it.
The terminal was tougher. Integrating everything, it weighed 12.5 kg, head-sized, and fragile—one bump could break it.
He needed better integration, optimized design, reduced weight and size, and improved durability—not indestructible, but not glass either.
Lying there, he was on his third design iteration. Size was down to an apple's, but energy consumption and a new heat issue persisted.
"Air cooling for heat. Khaenri'ah's got that tech," he mused. "Water cooling's an option—Sumeru's got it, but it's too crude for small devices. Air cooling it is."
"More vents, though, weaken the structure."
"Maybe a modular design. One-step perfection's too hard."
After tweaks, he crafted a theoretically viable terminal, balanced in all aspects.
As he prepared to forge it, a notice appeared: the decennial Narukami Festival and Sacred Sakura Cleansing were starting.
He stood, noticing Anko had bolted—likely to the Grand Narukami Shrine, her own invite in hand as a Shrine Guardian.
Asking a junior miko, he learned the festival was three days away.
No—last year's chaos meant it'd likely started already.
He cleared budding Ley Line clogs, then flashed to Narukami Island via Glimmer Technique.
His refined Glimmer Technique and boosted stamina, post-breakthrough, supported Ritou-to-Narukami travel.
Leaving at noon, he reached Ritou's port before dusk.
Inquiries confirmed the Narukami Festival hadn't officially begun, letting him breathe easy.
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