The underground administrative part of Golden Star Academy was filled with the quiet hum of huge ventilation fans and spirit-dampening ward arrays. Different from the bright, luxurious marble corridors above, it was in this underground system that the real power of the institution was exercised—through contracts, supply manifests, and the distribution of resources.
I got off the brass elevator and stepped onto a smooth slate path, where two private estate enforcers wearing reinforced carbon armor immediately bowed as I went by, their hands placed on the grips of their spirit rifles.
The leading guard replied in a composed and disciplined manner to Master Ryuk.
I asked whether Elder Thorne was in his office without stopping.
Certainly. Here is the rewritten text in English, adhering to all the specified rules:
Yes, Master; he was given the briefing at the morning tribunal and has prepared the quarterly procurement records that you asked for.
I nodded once and went down a hallway that was only faintly lit and lined with reinforced vault doors.
As I walked about with my human boots making a regular tapping sound on the stone floor, my mind was still comfortably divided. In the other part of my consciousness there were fifty little points of awareness deep within Arthur Vance's respiratory system which were feeding themselves. They worked with absolute radio silence, taking advantage of the coarse, foreign bacteria present in the boy's lungs to reproduce with rhythmic accuracy. The number had increased from one hundred and twenty to six hundred and then the six hundred were quickly breaking down into thousands. At this moment Arthur was probably in a lecture hall, experiencing no more than a slight, dry tickle in his throat and being entirely unaware that an alien force was threading itself into his bronchial branches.
At the same time, within my own blood vessels, the real swarm was experiencing a tremendous increase in its population.
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SWARM STATUS PANEL
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[Active Bacteriophage Clones]: 990,000 / 1,000,000,000
The swarm processing load is 0.08 per cent (negligible).
[Colony State]: Micro-Cluster (Approaching Threshold)
[Estimated Time to Milestone]: 14 Minutes
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990,000. The microscopic fluid dynamics which had frightened me the day before were now something I was completely used to; I could feel millions of microscopic tail fibres flexing against the turbulence of my blood plasma, keeping up with one another in the same flawless synchrony as a school of silver fish moving through the ocean.
I halted in front of a heavy door made of ironwood and bearing the copper seal of the Logistics & Procurement Division, then pushed it open without knocking.
Elder Thorne was sitting behind a large desk covered with holographic manifests and ledger tablets; he was a thin man with gray hair that was thinning, wore small rectangular spectacles, and had the sharp eyes of an accountant who was familiar with the exact path that every copper coin in the empire took.
He looked up and his face changed from one of annoyed surprise to a quick and careful show of respect.
"Ah, Master Ryuk," Thorne remarked, lifting himself half an inch off his leather chair and then indicating across the desk. "I never expected you to come and visit the basement so soon after the Vance boy had tried to drag your name through the mud."
"I can tell you that Arthur Vance is a noisy sort of man, Thorne," I said calmly and sat down in the velvet armchair facing him. "Flies make a lot of noise; they never decide what should be traded."
Thorne chuckled rather dryly and then settled back into his chair. "Yes, although his uncle's connections within the garrison are already talking about reviewing the academy's military supply contracts. The Vance family has a significant interest in our imports of physical weaponry."
That's why I'm here," I said, leaning forward and placing my forearms on the polished mahogany edge. "Sixty percent of the spirit stone reserves, the raw medicinal herbs, and the medical telemetry hardware at Golden Star Academy come from the Roy estate. Is that right?"
"Exactly sixty-four per cent," Thorne said, tapping a display tablet which projected a shining blue spreadsheet between us. "The rest is divided among the Imperial Commerce Guild and the mid-tier family consortiums."
Eliminate the Vance dojos from the medicinal herb pipeline.
Thorne's hands stopped moving on the tablet. He looked up, his eyebrows rising very high behind his glasses. "Master Ryuk, are you really going to cut off their entire supply chain? The Vance training halls use about twelve crates of Grade-2 Blood Condensation grass each week to train their outer disciples. If we stop that distribution agreement, it will result in an immediate breach-of-contract dispute with the Chamber of Commerce."
"I'll have them file a dispute," I replied, my voice as cold and even as ever. "The penalty fee is three hundred thousand star coins; deduct it from my personal liquid dividend at the City Central Bank this afternoon. Also, reroute those twelve crates straight to the third-floor library's private cultivation vaults—under Lina's name."
Thorne looked at me for several long seconds, attempting to read the mysterious expression on my face. Although he had been working for the Roy family since my parents were alive, the boy sitting in front of him now had an atmosphere which caused the experienced administrator's spine to tingle with a natural sense of dread.
Thorne whispered that, more to himself than to me, 'You are suffocating their young disciples while feeding an unawakened girl from a disgraced lineage' and the Vance elders will be furious.
"I let them starve," I whispered softly. "Since they wanted to bring the conflict to the public square, they can now tell their students who are paying for their education that there will be no recovery pills next semester."
A sudden and sharp vibration shook through my chest before Thorne had the chance to reply.
The pain wasn't physical; it was a resonant frequency, a microscopic harmonization which echoed directly to the cellular core of each of my organs.
The counter reached the line deep within my bloodstream.
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MILESTONE REACHED: 1,000,000 CLONES
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[Swarm Matrix Status]: Stage 1 Threshold Complete
[Colony Tier]: Promoted to -> Primary Swarm (Tier 1)
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[UNLOCKED SWARM CAPABILITIES]:
1. Microscopic Armor (Passive):
Swarm can form a dense cellular lattice under the
The skin reduces incoming kinetic/blunt trauma by 40%.
2. Active external aerosol exhalation:
Host can expel airborne microscopic swarms within a
The radius for infiltrating the silent area is 3 metres.
3. Bio-Feedback Integration:
Physical realm slightly reinforced.
The peak stage of the martial arts apprentice has been reached.
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A strong, thick form of energy shot out from my marrow and reached my muscles. My tendons contracted due to their coiled elasticity and my skin seemed slightly more dense, like a fine mesh of diamond-hard viral carapaces had quietly fastened itself beneath the epidermis.
In a world in which ordinary martial artists had to spend years swinging heavy iron swords and taking in crude herbal mixtures in order to progress from early Apprentice to Peak Apprentice, my tiny army had taken me across the threshold in less than twenty-four hours merely by breathing and copying.
Thorne blinked and with his keen eyes he noticed the slight change in my posture. "Master Ryuk? Has... has your aura just fluctuated?"
"I'm just getting rid of that morning fatigue," I said in a smooth voice, as I stood up from the armchair and buttoned my uniform coat. "Have the notice about the termination of supplies drawn up, Thorne. I want it on Arthur Vance's desk before the afternoon combat theory class."
"Very well, Master Young," Thorne murmured and lowered his head. "It will be carried out within an hour."
I turned on my heel and left the administrative office.
When I entered the empty corridor I put my right hand to my chest and closed my eyes for a moment to feel the magnificent hum of one million microscopic clones rushing through my veins.
I thought it was one million, and a quiet, predatory excitement ran through my soul. There remained nine hundred and ninety-nine million.
Now that Arthur has acquired the Aerosol Exhalation ability, he isn't the only one who is at risk. In the coming academy tournament anyone standing within three metres of me will be inhaling an invisible army before they even get the chance to draw their weapons.
I went back down the elevator towards the ground floor, at the same time thinking about the library vault on the third floor.
Now let's check how much progress her small dragon has made with her ancient immortality.