Thinking’
“Talking”
“Attack”
Act 5 (Part 1) — The Contract and the Crimson Ring
[ Location: Yagami Star System — Kiana’s Laboratory ]
[ POV: Kiana Kaslana ]
The next morning, I walked into the main research bay with a steaming mug of hot coffee in hand.
Setting the mug beside the terminal, I tapped the console to wake up my assistant.
“Void Archives,” I called out.
“Initialize Project Magical Girl.”
The central holo-display flickered to life, bringing up the engineering checklist and safety locks needed for the build:
-> Amber Stones (Base material for mass production)
-> Soul Resonance Equation (To anchor human consciousness)
-> Soul Storage Sub-Space (Linked directly to the central mainframe)
-> Path Energy Amplification Module
-> Biometric & Soul Ownership Recognition
-> Emotional Energy Conversion Formula
-> Lord Ravager Emergency Shut-Down Protocol
-> Dynamic Battlesuit Generation Module
-> Central Emotional Regulation Terminal
‘If my memory serves, I need to build in a hard limit to stop corruptive mutations no Witches on my watch.’
I opened a blank simulation environment to design the biological terminal that would collect and filter negative emotions.
Project Kyubey was officially go.
I spent the next hour drafting the core logic in the virtual sandbox.
The trickiest part was maintaining a strict, dynamic balance between positive and negative emotional states.
Any excess negative energy pulled by the terminal had to be routed through an automated conversion loop to be safely refined into usable positive energy.
I started coding the emotional rules:
Rule 1: Positive and negative emotional states within Kyubey must remain in absolute balance at all times.
Rule 2: The baseline energy conversion ratio between positive and negative output is set to 1:2.
Rule 3: Battlesuit generation scales directly off the contractor’s natural Pathstrider resonance.
Rule 4: Any leftover emotional energy venting from Kyubey goes straight into an isolated Imaginary pocket space the Warp.
Once the blueprint was locked, I raised my hand.
Golden seals materialized around my fingers as I tapped into [ Truth ] and [ Void ], carving out a clean sub-space anchored by the emotional conversion logic.
With the pocket realm stabilized, I channeled [ Truth ], [ Rebirth] and [ Sentience ].
Using that dual balance as a baseline, I created two Primordial Minds within the sub-space one for positive energy, one for negative.
‘That way, if I ever expand the Warp into a full realm down the road, I won’t have to deal with annoying Chaos God drama.’
Just to be safe, I used [ Truth ] to bake the Imagine Breaker Protocol directly into the dimensional laws.
If the Warp ever became corrupted, the protocol would trigger an instant hard reset: purging the sub-space back to its starting state, wiping external corruption, and resetting the Primordial Minds’ personalities.
I added one extra rule if those minds ever split into smaller entities, they were forbidden from breaking the balance or trying to destroy the other side.
Any attempt would instantly trigger the reset.
“That should keep any Warp entities from losing their minds.”
I raised my hands again, combining [ Truth ], [ Sentience ] and [ Rebirth ] to construct Kyubey’s physical form.
Light gathered in the center of the lab.
As the glare faded, a small creature blinked into existence on the assembly platform.
It had pristine white fur and four ears two like a normal cat, and two longer, rabbit like ears draping over its shoulders.
Its eyes were deep crimson, framed by glowing golden rings floating around its ears, and the tips of its lower ears split into three soft, pink and white tails.
Kyubey opened its red eyes, looked up at me innocently, and hopped right into my lap.
I couldn’t help but chuckle as I reached down to pet it.
The creature gave a tiny paw wave.
“I will follow all your commands, Creator.
Mew~”
“Good creature,” I murmured, scratching behind its ears before setting it back down on the console.
With its terminal active, I linked its neural matrix to the Warp sub-space, granting it partial administrative rights in the physical world.
I pulled up the Amber Stone simulation and started tweaking its universal logic.
According to the numbers, routing Path energy through a Soul Gem would give a Pathstrider a 25% to 30% energy boost, depending on their individual compatibility.
Once the math checked out, I activated [ Truth ] and synthesized ten working prototype Soul Gems, locking in their base protocols.
With the prototypes sitting on the desk, I designed an automated assembly line, fine tuning the fabrication loops until the workflow ran without a hitch.
I leaned back and looked over at the floating cube.
“Void Archives, run a cost analysis for mass-producing one Soul Gem.”
The golden cube flickered as he calculated the numbers.
“Based on current IPC material rates, manufacturing will cost roughly 10,000 Credits per unit.”
I nodded.
“Reasonable.”
Void Archives offered a sly, projection-only smirk.
“If I may suggest, Miss Kiana…
to make sure the IPC doesn’t profit too much off this, we should set the wholesale price to 20,000 Credits, while claiming our manufacturing cost is 15,000.”
A grin spread across my face.
“I like how you think.
Let the IPC see what a bad deal feels like for once.
For other factions, we’ll bypass the IPC entirely and deal directly with the Xianzhou, the Astral Express, and the Family.”
I picked up one of the prototype Soul Gems and pushed my energy into it, clicking the core into combat mode.
FLASH—!
A blinding wave of light swept through the lab.
My everyday clothes dissolved into streams of pure golden energy, reweaving themselves into the iconic Herrscher of the End outfit from my past.
A fresh surge of power hummed through my veins.
I closed my eyes, gauging the exact shift in my output.
“My power jumped by a full one percent…” I murmured, looking down at my glowing sleeves.
“Honestly, pushing my output up even one percent is better than I hoped.
I was expecting half a percent at most.”
I smiled, watching the golden light dance across my fingers.
Project Magical Girl was officially ready for deployment.