The rain outside Workshop Unit 73 had turned into a torrential downpour, hammering against the reinforced steel roof with a deafening, rhythmic drone. Inside, the air was thick with the smell of engine grease and brewing synthetic coffee.
Chen Xi sat at his workbench, stripped down to a plain grey undershirt. His muscles ached with a dull, throbbing intensity—the aftereffect of channeling pure Kinetic Qi to shatter a Rank-A Esper's defenses. But his eyes, illuminated by the harsh glow of his desk lamp, were wide awake and burning with absolute focus.
Resting on a velvet cloth in the center of the greasy table was a sleek, silver band set with a perfectly cut, glowing blue gemstone.
Zhao Ming’s spatial ring.
"This is a military-grade spatial construct," Sylphe’s voice echoed in the quiet room. Her holographic avatar was standing on the workbench, leaning close to examine the ring with clinical intensity. "The storage matrix is stabilized by a quantum-lock tied directly to Zhao Ming's biometric signature. If you try to brute-force it with Qi, the matrix will collapse. The miniature black hole will shred everything inside—credits, materials, and weapons—into subatomic dust."
"I know," Chen Xi muttered, a jeweler's loupe pressed into his right eye. "The Ironfangs didn't build this. It's corporate tech. That means it follows corporate logic. There has to be a physical fail-safe for when the biometric scanner breaks."
Chen Xi didn't summon the Origin Forge. This wasn't about creation; it was about surgical deconstruction.
He picked up a laser-scalpel with a tip no wider than a human hair. Activating his Stellar Furnace Art, he didn't use the Qi to increase his strength. Instead, he drew the energy into his nervous system, slowing his heart rate to twenty beats per minute. His hands, gripping the scalpel, achieved absolute, mechanical stillness. Not a single microscopic tremor.
He began to cut into the silver band, peeling back the outer casing layer by agonizing layer. He had to navigate around the volatile energy pathways, using his [Machine Empathy] to feel the heat signatures of the active circuits.
One hour passed. Then two.
Sweat dripped from Chen Xi's nose, sizzling on the hot desk lamp, but he didn't blink. He finally exposed a microscopic, gold-plated logic gate buried beneath the gemstone.
"I see the fail-safe," Chen Xi whispered, his voice raspy. "It's a localized physical bypass. But the circuit is gapped. It needs a bridge to receive an external signal, and the gap is less than a tenth of a millimeter."
"I have the decryption algorithm ready," Sylphe said softly, her golden eyes fixed on his steady hands. "But I need a physical connection to transmit it. You have to bridge that gap manually while I push the code. If your hand slips by a fraction of a degree, it triggers the self-destruct."
Chen Xi didn't hesitate. He pulled a single strand of hyper-conductive copper wire from a spool. He infused a hair-thin needle of Kinetic Qi into the wire to keep it perfectly rigid, acting as an extension of his own nervous system.
He lowered the wire into the microscopic gap.
"Now," he breathed.
"Injecting," Sylphe commanded.
A tiny spark of blue electricity arched across the copper wire. The glowing blue gemstone on the ring flickered violently, cycling through red, yellow, and finally settling on a steady, calm green.
[Biometric Override Successful. Welcome, Administrator.]
Chen Xi exhaled a long, shaky breath, dropping the laser scalpel. He leaned back in his chair, rubbing his bloodshot eyes. "We're in."
"Flawless execution," Sylphe praised, her digital voice carrying a rare tone of genuine awe. "Your manual dexterity is terrifying, Chen Xi. A corporate engineer would have needed a million-credit automated laser-lathe to perform that bypass. You did it with a scavenged scalpel and a steady hand."
"Let's see what a dead man's bank account looks like," Chen Xi said, a predatory smile touching his lips.
He tapped the green gemstone. A spatial window rippled open above the workbench, depositing a pile of items onto the metal surface with a heavy clatter.
Chen Xi’s eyes widened.
First were the cred-sticks. Five pristine, high-capacity platinum chips. He plugged one into his datapad. The balance read a staggering 500,000 Pan-Asian Credits. It was enough to buy a mid-tier villa in the Inner City.
Next was a sealed, cryo-locked crate containing six vials of glowing black liquid—the Black-Lotus plasma stimulants Zhao Ming had intended to buy. Highly illegal, incredibly dangerous, and worth a fortune on the black market.
But it was the final three items that made Chen Xi’s breath hitch.
Three chunks of raw, unrefined ore. Two were blocks of Stellar-Osmium, a hyper-dense alloy used in orbital dreadnought plating. The third was a jagged, translucent crystal that pulsed with a deep, violet light. It felt warm to the touch, and just being near it made the ambient cosmic energy in the workshop churn wildly.
"Aetherium Core," Sylphe gasped, her holographic form flickering with erratic, excited data streams. "Chen Xi... that is a Grade-A energy conductor. It's essentially crystallized stellar radiation. The Ironfangs must have bled an entire colony dry to acquire this."
"How much is it worth?" Chen Xi asked, staring at the mesmerizing violet light.
"Millions," Sylphe replied, her voice dropping to a whisper. "If you sell this, you could buy a fully automated corporate workshop. You could buy an entire mercenary squad. You could—"
"Can the Origin Forge digest it?" Chen Xi interrupted, looking directly at her.
Sylphe froze. Her golden eyes widened, staring at him. "It... yes. The Origin Forge can break it down. But Chen Xi, if you feed that to me, you cannot sell it. You won't get a new workshop. You won't get guns or armor."
"Guns jam. Armor breaks. Workshops can be bombed," Chen Xi said, his voice entirely devoid of hesitation. He picked up the Aetherium Core. "But you? You're the foundation of everything I'm going to build. You're my partner. If this fixes you, it's yours."
Sylphe’s avatar stared at him in stunned silence. For an AI designed by a primordial, hyper-logical civilization, the concept of a host sacrificing a massive material advantage purely for her well-being caused a strange, entirely unprogrammed warmth to blossom in her code. Her holographic cheeks flushed a deep crimson.
"You... you really are an idiot," she stammered, crossing her arms defensively and turning her head away, though the smile on her face was radiant. "Fine. If you insist on spoiling me, I will accept your offering. But don't expect me to go easy on you during training tomorrow."
Chen Xi laughed softly. "I wouldn't dream of it. Initiate Origin Forge."
He placed both hands over the Aetherium Core and the blocks of Stellar-Osmium. The Stellar Furnace Art ignited, drawing on his deepest reserves of Kinetic Qi. The blinding gold light of the Origin Forge erupted, completely swallowing the rare materials.
This time, the energy didn't form a weapon. It flowed backward, surging like a tidal wave of liquid gold directly into the silver scar on Chen Xi’s wrist.
The heat was staggering. Chen Xi gritted his teeth, gripping the edges of the workbench as the primordial energy rushed into his mind, repairing the shattered, ancient pathways of the AI core resting in his consciousness.
The golden UI exploded across his vision.
[Origin Core Integrity updating...]
[2.0%... 3.5%... 5.0%... 6.2%!]
[Critical Damage threshold bypassed. Primary sub-routines restoring.]
[New Functions Unlocked for Origin-Alpha (Sylphe):]
[Spatial Matrix]: Origin Forge can now store inorganic matter and fabricated creations within a localized void pocket.
[Advanced Material Synthesis]: Allows the combination of biological cores with heavy alloys to create pseudo-organic machinery.
[Solid-State Projection]: Avatar projection is no longer strictly photonic.
The golden light faded. Chen Xi collapsed back into his chair, gasping for air, his Qi reserves completely bottomed out.
"Sylphe... status?" he panted.
A soft weight suddenly pressed against his knee.
Chen Xi opened his eyes and looked down. Sylphe wasn't a tiny, palm-sized hologram floating on the desk anymore.
She was standing on the floor next to his chair, having grown to roughly the height of a human teenager, reaching just past his chest. Her silver hair cascaded down her back, and her futuristic dress seemed woven from actual starlight.
But the most shocking change was her presence. She wasn't transparent. Chen Xi reached out, his grease-stained fingers hesitating. Sylphe reached up and caught his hand.
Her skin was warm. It felt impossibly soft, yet possessed a strange, flawless density.
"Solid-State Projection," Sylphe whispered, looking down at where their hands touched, her golden eyes shimmering with an emotion she couldn't quite compute. "I am using the ambient cosmic energy to weave a temporary physical shell. It drains my reserves rapidly... but I can interact with the physical world now."
She looked up at him, her expression a mix of fierce pride and deep, undeniable possessiveness. She stepped closer, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head against his chest.
"You spent a fortune on me, Chen Xi," she murmured, her voice vibrating against his ribs. "That makes you officially mine. If any Elite Academy girls try to make you fix their gauntlets again, I am physically throwing a wrench at their heads."
Chen Xi let out an exhausted, genuine laugh, resting his hand on her silver hair. It felt incredibly real.
"I'd like to see them try to stop you," he said.
"They won't," Sylphe declared, pulling back and looking at him with a sharp, brilliant smile, her competitive spirit returning in full force. "Now that I have a Spatial Matrix, I have absorbed Zhao Ming's spatial ring into my own architecture. Your hidden blades, Wraith, and all your tools are now stored inside me. We are perfectly integrated. We are going to build an army that will make this entire Academy tremble."
Chen Xi looked at the empty workbench, the wealth secured, the evidence destroyed, and his greatest ally empowered.
The slums were behind him. The Academy was his new workshop. And the galaxy was just a pile of raw materials waiting to be forged.