Ronan ignored Mountain Lord's steady approach. He lowered his head again, studying the Virtual Work Area interface, and casually said:
"Pancake."
Mountain Lord froze for a moment, his smile stiffening slightly.
Then Ronan added an explanation: "The third pancake."
Mountain Lord suddenly understood. At a time like this, he had to understand. "The first two pancakes filled them up..."
As he spoke, Mountain Lord finally moved close to Ronan and, in a relatively relaxed posture, looked at the graphic displayed in the Virtual Work Area. Its main body was fairly close to the Configuration floating in the air.
"So this is that..."
"Eye of Knowing Configuration."
"Good name."
"A more accurate description would be a quasi-visual method of structural perception, or rather, 'a traditional technique of perceiving structures through structure.'"
Ronan began using some rather obscure terminology. At the same time, he double-tapped the graphic's main body. The displayed Eye of Knowing Configuration remained unchanged, but a large number of "parts," or rather, subdivided structures in various altered forms, appeared in the blank areas around it.
The relatively uniform connecting lines indicated that all of them had been separated from the Eye of Knowing Configuration's main body. Some were also marked with incomprehensible symbols and writing.
Mountain Lord's brows twitched repeatedly. Aside from his surprise, he was using those small movements to conceal the faint unnaturalness of his pupil-mounted camera.
Of course, Mountain Lord believed Ronan could notice it.
But since Ronan had allowed him to get this close, taking pictures and making records should not have been a problem, right?
Ronan indeed showed no reaction. If he did react at all, it was only through his operations in the Virtual Work Area.
He swiped his finger, temporarily switching away the main Eye of Knowing Configuration. Then he casually selected