CHAPTER 175
### Generation
The second section crossed at the seventh hour of the third morning.
He felt it the way he had felt every threshold crossing — the specific quality of something moving from building to being. Receiving to producing.
Generating.
Bing Xi was already reading.
"Yes," she said.
"Li Shan," he said.
"Reading both generating sections simultaneously," Li Shan said. "The pattern-reading extension through the second section is—" A longer pause than usual. "I can read the hollow."
The hollow.
Ninety li from the formation site.
Li Shan's pattern-reading extending through two generating sections used as conducting bridges.
"The continuous frequency," Jian Yu said.
"Present," Li Shan said. "Intact. The faction has not reached it."
"How close are they," Jian Yu said.
"The faction is — " Li Shan was reading through the extended pattern-reading. "The faction is forty li from the hollow. Moving south."
Four days at their current pace.
"Wang Fei," Jian Yu said.
"She is at the hollow's eastern boundary," Li Shan said. "Reading sections and documenting movement. She has been there since Mo Xuan's warning."
"Wei Han," Jian Yu said.
"Moving west from the southeastern sections," Li Shan said. "He read Mo Xuan's warning and responded immediately. Two days from the hollow."
"The faction will arrive before Wei Han," Jian Yu said.
"Yes," Li Shan said. "By one day."
He looked at the two generating sections.
At the grey blade.
At the domain.
He read the hollow at range through the conducting bridge.
The continuous frequency.
The oldest entry in the archive's blank.
The source.
He could read it.
He could not reach it.
The distance from his current position to the hollow was too large even for the undocumented stage's simultaneous application.
"Can I apply through the conducting bridge," he said.
Silence.
"You are asking if you can apply the between quality through two generating sections to reach the hollow at range," Li Shan said.
"Yes," he said.
More silence.
"I do not know," Li Shan said. "The conducting bridge transmits the pattern-reading frequency. The pattern-reading frequency and the between quality application are different mechanisms."
"But they are both expressions of the between quality," Jian Yu said.
"Yes," Li Shan said. "In theory."
"In practice," Jian Yu said.
"I have no data," Li Shan said.
He looked at the grey blade.
He looked at the two generating sections.
He looked at Lin Mei.
She was looking at him.
He could not read her expression.
He looked at her face without trying to read it.
"You are going to try," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"The three directions simultaneously," she said. "Through the two conducting bridges. To the hollow at range."
"Yes," he said.
"This is the undocumented stage," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"And you do not know if it will work," she said.
"No," he said.
She looked at the two generating sections.
At the hollow's direction.
At the grey blade.
"Tell me when," she said.
He reached.
All three directions.
Through the dantian.
Through the sword.
Through the domain.
Into the first generating section.
Through the first generating section's conducting output.
Into the second generating section.
Through the second generating section's conducting output.
Toward the hollow at ninety li.
He felt the resistance.
The distance.
The gap between the second generating section's conducting output and the hollow.
Twenty-three li of gap.
He pushed through.
The between quality in all three directions simultaneously at full undocumented stage capability reaching through two conducting bridges toward the source of the between quality ninety li distant.
He held eighteen breaths.
He pushed.
The gap crossed.
He reached the hollow.
Not firmly.
Not clearly.
A thread.
One thin thread of between quality touching the hollow's continuous frequency at range.
It was enough.
The hollow felt it.
The continuous frequency in the lower layer organized slightly in response.
The way it had organized when Wei Han applied the restoration technique.
Not deeply.
Not the fourteen percent increase.
A fraction.
A thread's worth.
But the hollow recognized the contact.
And through the contact — through the thread — he could feel if anything disrupted the hollow's continuous frequency.
"I have contact," he said.
The words came out with more effort than usual.
"I read it," Li Shan said. "The hollow is responding to a distant application. The frequency shift is minimal but present." A pause. "You are touching the hollow from ninety li."
"Yes," he said.
"Through two generating sections," Li Shan said.
"Yes," he said.
"This is—" Li Shan stopped. "This is in the archive immediately."
He held the thread.
Eighteen breaths.
The hollow.
The faction four days out.
The thread thin but present.
He would feel if the faction reached the hollow.
He would feel when they tried to disrupt the continuous frequency.
And when he felt it —
He looked at the grey blade.
He had three days to figure out what he could do about it from here.
The work develops the worker.
He committed.
He held the thread.
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