Jin Shu flipped open the cover of the pendium, expeg a secrets or profound diagrams—but the page was pletely bnk. “Why is this empty?”

  “The book was merely a vessel for information,” Nano expined. “Think of it like a hard drive, capable of st knowledge. It is, in essence, a type of knowledge-st artifact.”

  Jin Shu frowned. “So, what am I supposed to do with a bnk book?”

  “I could do oer than simply reading it to you,” Nano offered. “If you permit, I ie the knowledge into your cellphone, upgrading it into a data aggregation and visualization device, as we discussed before.”

  “ht! I’d fotten about that.” Jin Shu reached into his space earring and pulled out his cellphone. After a moment’s hesitation, he pricked his finger with a bde a a single drop of blood drip into the phone’s charging port. “Alright, do it.”

  “Initializing redesign. Please wait…”

  The phone’s s flickered to life, the dispy bursting with rapid fshes of light and images, far too fast for Jin Shu’s eyes to follow. The chaos of data soon resolved into clear, fluid 3D holograms. A small bird appeared first, fpping its wings in intricate detail, followed by a man walking, and finally, a highly detailed, rotating model of Jin Shu’s pistol.

  “It is plete,” Nano decred.

  Jin Shu’s eyes widened as the holographic pistol floated above the phone, glowing faintly. “This is… awesome! But, uh… what exactly does it do?”

  “The upgraded device projeplex, rotating 3D diagrams, such as bcksmithing teiques, on craftihods, or rune pts. The holograms provide precision instrus, down to the fi detail. You rotate and zoom in on the models, or even practice rurokes with your finger directly on the proje to mimic the correct teique.”

  Jin Shu’s excitement grew. “You loaded it with the pendium’s information tht?”

  “Yes. The pendium’s knowledge is now ied. You access it remotely through us or manually through the device.”

  “Alright,” Jin Shu said eagerly, “show me what it do!”

  The phone’s dispy flickered and a book, identical to the one ying oable, appeared floating above the s.

  “Try iing with the hologram,” Nano suggested.

  Jin Shu reached toward the floating holographiimig the motion of opening its cover. Though his ha nothing, the holographic book reacted, the cover flipping open to reveal the first page.

  The introdu read: ‘Long ago, the in of runes faded from the annals of time, fotten by both man and history. Yet, in the grand tapestry of existeheir in matters little. What truly endures is the art, the craft, and the wonder of ruhing itself. To those who dare tread this path, I leave you with but one mission: Dis the Runes, Fe the Rurahe Runes!’

  “What’s that supposed to mean…?” Jin Shu muttered, frowning at the cryptic message.

  As he turhe holographic pages, he saw ruhousands of them. They ranged from simple, almost elegant designs to impossibly plex patterns that defied uanding. The sheer volume of information overwhelmed him, making his head spin.

  Realizing he couldn’t process everything at once, he stopped flipping through the pages auro the first ten. These seemed manageable, and most importantly, decipherable.

  The first three runes were immediately reizable: Fme, Frost, and Wind. These were the foundational runes every ruh learned, and Jin Shu’s grandfather—the Jin family’s first ruh—had built his entire legacy upon them. Using these basics, his grandfather had created his own unique ruhe Explosion Rune.

  Jin Shu’s eyes sed ahead, spotting the Explosion Rune as the tery in the pendium. The other six betweehird ah were unfamiliar yet intriguing: Sharpness, Durability, Weight Increase, Weight Decrease, Qi Circution, and Silence.

  Most of these were self-expnatory, though Qi Circution was an exception. Its description hi a plex, multi-yered fun Jin Shu couldn’t immediately grasp.

  The pendium wasn’t generous with expnations. Each rury dispyed the pattern and a brief description, but the finer details—how to inscribe them, their exact effects, and any advanced applications—were left for him to uncover.

  “Guess that expins the intro,” Jin Shu muttered. “It wants me to figure things out myself. So when it says ‘transd,’ it probably means evolving the runes beyond their basis.”

  Nano chimed in. “If you’d prefer, we run simutions on the phohat way, you won’t waste Qi while experimenting.”

  Jin Shu’s eyes lit up. “Oh, that’s a great idea!” He breathed a mental sigh of relief, recalling his st rune-inscribing experiment. “You really are a lifesaver, Nano.”

  Jin Shu spent the few hours using the holograms on the phohat he'd he Nanophoo practice runescribing—the art of inscribing runes on paper, or in this case, on a holographic proje.

  He was in the middle of trag the final line of a Sharpness Rune when a crag noise followed by a sharp yelp of pain interrupted him. Turning around he saw Yin'er with her paws against her muzzle, as if she were in pain. Layio her was the rge fang from his space earring and a smaller bloody fang.

  “What happened?” Jin Shu asked as he stepped closer to Yin’er. His eyes narrowed as he noticed her pawing at her mouth, whimpering softly. It didn’t take long to spot the cause of her distress—she had broken a fang while gnawing orange fang she’d been obsessing over sihey found it in the space earring.

  “Show me your mouth,” Jin Shu said gently, croug to her level. “I o see how bad it is.”

  Yiilted her head, clearly uanding his words, and obediently opened her mouth. Inside, where her fang had been, was a small bleeding hole.

  But before Jin Shu could even reach for a remedy, something incredible happened. Right before his eyes, a new fang sprouted in the empty spot, pushing through as if nothing had happened.

  “What…” Jin Shu blinked in astonishment. “Nano, what just happened? How’d she grow a new fang so fast—or at all?”

  “The process resembles our nanobeive capabilities,” Nano replied, his toinged with curiosity. “It is possible that her birth, which utilized the energy of the other nanobots, has imbued her with a unique regeive ability.”

  Jin Shu’s surprise gave way to relief. “Are you okay now?”

  “Mew…” Yin’er whimpered softly, her golden eyes shimmering with lingering disfort. Yet, before Jin Shu could intervene further, she turned right back to the broken fang and began gnawing on it again.

  Jin Shu let out a helpless chuckle, torween amusement and exasperation. “You’re really something else, you know that?”

  His ughter faded as his thoughts shifted. If Yin’er had such a remarkable ability, what other surprises might she hold? But there was no time to dwell on it—he had his own challeo face.

  “I guess now’s as good a time as any to check out the cultivation teique,” Jin Shu muttered, his gaze turning serious. His mind drifted back to the moment his mother had left. If only he’d been stronger, he could have goh her.

  Though he was far more powerful than a normal human, pared to other cultivators, he was still woefully weak. But that was about to ge. The teique he’d found irange caver extraordinary—like it had been waiting for him. More importantly, it felt perfectly suited to his abilities.

  Pulling the scroll from his robes, Jin Shu unfurled it carefully. His eyes sed the instrus, his expression calm at first but growing increasingly teh every word.

  “I ’t believe I have to carve and burn runes into my flesh for the teique to work properly…” he muttered, setting the scroll down with a heavy sigh. “No wo came with a warning.”

  He flexed his hands, steeling himself. “Guess there’s no way to know if I ha until I try.”