"Your paperwork's impressive," Raiden Makoto said.
Reisen Riou gave an awkward smile, dreading more teasing.
"No, really. It's much cleaner than the Shogunate's," Makoto added, touching her forehead. Ugh, Yae's antics yesterday made me too cheeky. Scared him.
"I'm conscripting you as a scribe. A formal order will come later. Don't take this morning's jokes to heart," she reassured, then left to chat with Reisen Anko.
Reisen Riou exhaled, but his Wisdom of the Ten Thousand as One clone pinged a warning: danger.
"Danger? With Lady Narukami here?" he muttered.
A nearby miko's One System, Ten Thousand Divine Machines looked off—disconnected. Contacting his clone was sluggish, barely revealing the issue.
Rushing to the server room via Glimmer Technique, he linked the signal to his mind, multitasking data processing. In seconds, he arrived.
Raiden Ei, half-kneeling, was studying his clone—a gem amid dismantled server parts.
"Uh, you're here. I was just curious how your clone works. No issue, right?" Ei said.
"…No issue," Reisen Riou replied, mentally reeling from the Mariana Trench.
"If you need, I can share all the data—principles, materials, everything," he offered, scratching his head.
He extended his hand.
"?"
"I can transmit knowledge directly. Hold my hand—it's faster, no data loss."
"Alright." Ei's hand was smooth, cool, slightly soft.
The moment they touched, his thoughts raced, but he focused, channeling vast knowledge through their contact.
Ei frowned, processing the influx. At 500 MB/s, the 70+ TB of material, chip, and computational data would take a human 40,000+ hours of intense study. Even youkai needed similar time, except book youkai, who absorbed a lifetime's knowledge in a blink. For a demon god like Ei, it was digestible, but the speed left her grasping only the gist.
Still, it opened new worlds—material properties, electrical computation. A revelation.
Elsewhere, Makoto, Anko, and Yae tested the One System. Its office efficiency and learning aid sparked their curiosity. Torachiyo, the test subject, pushed its limits.
Her Life Level LV78+ full burst overloaded the One System—its ceiling. Sustaining that level was too draining, even for a Great Youkai like her. Still, it helped with weaknesses, like cooking or tea ceremony.
Oddly, Ritou's samurai obsessed over tea ceremony and flower arranging, reaching LV5 in both, despite Reisen Riou promoting physical training, rich diets, and cultural refinement. Swordsmanship and archery lagged, but cooking thrived under his support.
Testing done, they discussed the One System, inevitably turning to its Wisdom of the Ten Thousand as One server. They headed to the server room.
"Uh, Shrine Guardian, Lady Ei, what's this?" Anko gaped.
Are they… together?
Makoto, Yae, and Torachiyo stared, stunned.
Reisen Riou, flustered in the usually empty room, tried to pull his hand back to avoid misunderstanding. Ei gripped tighter.
"Continue," she said, then noticed the doorway. "Sister!" Her face flushed, but she didn't let go.
"What's going on?" Makoto asked, sensing no romance.
"Knowledge transfer," Reisen Riou blurted, sending fragmented data wirelessly to the group. "It's my unique ability, the One System's learning aid source. Wireless transfer loses data, so it's user-specific. That's why the One System is limited."
Makoto smirked, teasingly. Ei steamed, embarrassed.
"Physical contact minimizes loss, so it's fast," he stammered, switching topics. "Why're you all here?"
Seeing it was business, Makoto dropped the jest. Reisen Riou spawned a temporary clone to fix the server, reinstalled the main clone, freed mental threads, and resumed transferring data to Ei.
Talk about social death, he thought.
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