On the morning of the twenty-fourth day, Xu Wuyi sensed a clearer change the instant he lifted his teacup on the stump.
Over the past few hours, the signal flowing in from the T-09 Star Realm had ceased to be merely a steady, continuous trickle. Distinct pulses had begun to appear in its waveform.
It was as though someone far away were striking the same drum at a fixed rhythm. By the time the drumming passed through the long channel and reached his perception, it had grown faint, but its rhythm remained clearly discernible.
He set the teacup back on the cut surface of the stump, stood, and returned to the Core Residence hall.
Zero One's projection lit up beside the console. "Lord, the signal strength in the anchor channel has increased by roughly thirty percent over the past four hours. Periodic pulses have appeared in its waveform, with a frequency matching the rhythm of Ji Tang's core in the T-09 Star Realm."
Xu Wuyi sat down at the console and extended his perception to the entrance of that channel.
The persistent, faint warmth of Ji Tang's core pulsed at a steady rhythm. Over the past few weeks, its synchronization with the bright spot at the Fruit's center had become a default connection that could persist without active maintenance.
But now, a new dimension had emerged within that synchronized relationship.
Every beat of Ji Tang's core stirred a distinct pulse in the channel. Those pulses traveled continuously toward the territory's core, where the patterns caught, broke down, and absorbed them as they reached the Fruit's surface.
Through his inner vision, he observed the process by which those pulses were transformed inside the Fruit.
They differed from the mental byproducts that had previously flowed in through the network. Their substance was