Su Li repaired boats at the docks during the day, mended fishing gear, and forged iron nails. He came back for dinner at dusk. Once night fell, he slipped into the seabed ore belt and cultivated in the high-concentration aether until dawn.
His routine ran like clockwork.
Every morning, Elonore waited for him at the stone table. When he emerged from the sea, she handed him a towel, then recorded the day's core data on paper.
One line per day.
Three hundred and sixty-five lines later.
"The conclusion is out."
Su Li had just come up from the sea, water still dripping from his hair. He took the towel, scrubbed himself twice, and sat across from the stone table.
Elonore pushed over a full year's worth of data sheets. The densely packed figures and curves made Su Li give up after three seconds.
"Put it in plain language."
"The solid-state core grows ten times faster here than in the continental environment." Elonore tapped the final line of data. "But all the newly added portions... are fifth-tier structures. There's been no qualitative change."
Su Li draped the towel over his shoulder. The sea breeze blew in, salty against his skin.
"So high-concentration aether can make the core grow faster, but it can't turn it into something else."
"Yes."
Su Li looked down at his palm. Aether flowed around his fingertips, darker than it had been a year ago. Denser, too. But its essence had not changed.
He thought of that sea beast skeleton. Seven self-compressions, seven failures.
"This thing is good for retirement." Su Li stood up. "Not for ascending to heaven."
Elonore picked up her pen and wrote a line at the end of the record. Su Li tilted his head for a look.
"...You actually wrote 'ascending to heaven'