Testing Apparatus, Results Barely Satisfactory

The response from underground was faint, like stone knocking against stone, or wind slipping into a crack. Chen Wuya did not move. His ear remained pressed to the ground, his fingertips resting on the gravel at the edge of the test pit as he felt out the direction of the lingering tremors.

Bai Zhi stood half a step behind him, one hand already on her sword hilt—not guarding against people, but out of instinct. She knew that though the jolt just now had been weak, it had indeed traveled out—and something had indeed caught it.

"It heard us." Chen Wuya slowly straightened and brushed the dirt from his knees.

Nearby, alliance soldiers were hauling the device out of the pit. Its main resonant structure, made of bamboo ribs wound around bronze sheets, was intact, but the hemp ropes at the joints had loosened somewhat, and one corner of the lead weight had tilted.

"It did make a sound," a young soldier said quietly, "but it was like wind stirring the grass. It didn't even shake a single stone loose."

Another man crouched beside the simulated core device—a false target built from scrap iron and rocks, with sensing copper wires buried inside. He pulled out a probe, inspected it, and shook his head. "The shockwave dispersed by the time it got here. It didn't have enough force to go deep."

Chen Wuya did not argue. He walked over, crouched down, and reached out to touch the grounding point beneath the false target. The soil was slightly damp, with fine cracks spreading outward, but they extended no more than an inch or so.

He closed his eyes for a moment. Within his sea of consciousness, the Misaligned Practice Connects to Spirit system revealed a pale cyan trail—the "erroneous logic chain" that had