On the morning of the thirty-second day, Xu Wuyi sensed the complete arrangement of the dark spots on the Crystal's surface as he lifted his teacup on the stump.
Over the past several hours, those spots had stopped being merely scattered across the surface. Instead, they had gathered into a clear pattern according to some fixed rule.
The pattern depicted the entire process of a tree growing from seed to sapling. From roots to trunk to branches to crown, every structural node was fully represented on the Crystal's surface.
He set his 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 arrangement of dark spots on the Crystal's surface reached its final form over the past four hours. The pattern is topologically identical to the tree-shaped silhouette in Ji Tang's perception in the t-09 Star Realm."
Xu Wuyi sat at the console and sank his awareness into his inner vision.
The Fruit continued rotating in his mental space. On the surface of the warm golden Crystal at the center of its inner ring, the tree-shaped pattern formed by the dark spots remained stable.
Every structural node was clearly distinguishable: roots, trunk, branches, crown, the central point of light, and the point of light at the base. All of them matched the tree in Ji Tang's perception exactly.
He studied the pattern through his inner vision for a while, confirmed that its form had stabilized, then withdrew from his inner vision and opened his eyes.
He stood and walked to the rack beside the workbench, bringing his palm close to the steadily pulsing mass of light outside the Metal Box's seam.
His perception penetrated the outer layer of the light and touched the