Ethan tossed a pouch of portable storage devices on the desk. They contained all the insect crystals they had gathered since leaving the Rift.
There were even more stored back at the Rift, but this stuff wasn’t that useful back there. He had heard that certain models of warships could utilize them as an alternative energy source.
However, that didn’t seem to be a mainstream research avenue yet, and the factions outside didn’t appear to have many insect crystals in their possession either.
After pulling up a chair and sitting down, Ethan propped his feet up to the side. “Alright, Ambrose, spill it. Tell me what exactly you and that guy were talking about earlier.”
Ambrose burst into laughter. A glass of strong liquor sat right by his hand.
It was a good while before his amusement subsided. “We were discussing the matter of Xavier going home.”
He glanced down at the pouch of spatial buttons. “Is this all?”
“These happen to be the highest-capacity portable space devices available, thank you, but yes, these are indeed all the crystals we have on hand right now. I’ve already instructed Elias to notify our people at other battlefields to send over their crystal reserves. They’re currently enroute.”
“Do me a favor and bring everything from the Rift as well. Consider it a farewell gift for Xavier.”
Ethan scoffed at the request, but he headed to the door anyway.
“Focus, Ethan. This is the toll that little guy must pay to escape the fate of us Grantz.”
Ethan stopped dead in his tracks. He whipped around, his mind rapidly running through the exchange between Norton and Ambrose again. The hypothesis he had previously dismissed was unearthed once more.
All the key pieces came together to reveal the inconceivable truth. Ethan finally figured everything out.
He stared at Ambrose. “You promise?”
“I promise.”
Ethan sensed it before, all the Grantz could. Ye Muo’s presence calmed them to a degree. Even Ambrose, who was nearing his end, was given some reprieve.
However, Ethan could also sense that the process was still underway after a certain threshold was passed. Their psychic power was still becoming stronger and harder to control, though at a much reduced speed.
This was not hard to accept. They could already face their own fate calmly. Even Rika and Casper, who were still young, were prepared. Their only hope was to live until the Rift was completely buried, and to see the banner of hope flying in foreign lands.
Yet since they were like this, it was hard not to think about whether Xavier would be the same.
They had discussed whether the child could be an exception in secret many times.
No one could be certain. The symptoms weren’t noticeable at his age anyway. Thus, they were able to hope that Xavier wouldn’t be like them, thought the worry remained in their hearts.
Now, that worry finally vanished without a trace.
Ethan felt like a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He hopped onto the windowsill. “I’ll bring everything back at once!”
His voice was still echoing in the room, but he was already far gone.
Ye Muo had already climbed to the top of the crystal mountain. Although he did say he wanted to see how high it was, he didn’t try to touch the chandelier.
Instead, he sat down straight and slid down with glittering eyes.
Then, he climbed back up to do it again.
Theodore looked up at him. “Isn’t it fun, Xavier? It’s just that the crystals are a bit too big. In the future, we can collect spent crystal fragments. They don’t have any sharp edges when broken.”
Ye Muo eagerly turned during his climb. “Sounds good! Then we can pile them up like this again. However, it’s probably going to take a long time to collect enough.”
He felt a strange sensation underfoot as soon as the words came out. He was already sliding down by the time he looked. All of the crystals had crumbled. In the span of a few seconds, starting from the ones closest to him, the crystal mountain turned into a shorter mountain of sand.
Norton rose from the sofa. Ano also nervously approached. “Are you alright, Xavier?”
Although his rate of consumption had been fast before, such a large appetite was unprecedented even for Xavier.
Ye Muo raised his hands out of the sand. “I’m fine.”
He slid the rest of the way down and sat at the foot of the sand mountain so Norton and Ano could check him over. He paused before telling them, “I don’t feel like I need this much.”
It was just his psychic power being greedy, storing the energy away to slowly digest later.
Norton released his psychic power but quickly withdrew it. Ye Muo’s psychic power shrunk back obediently into his psychic domain like nothing happened, but he could sense a change. It was like a stomach that had been flat became rotund. No matter how nonchalantly they acted, the difference was obvious.
He ruffled Ye Muo’s hair. “It is a good thing that you can bear it. It seems they’ve learned to store energy.”
After confirming Ye Muo was fine, Theodore turned back to the mountain on glittering sand. It was much shorter than before, but bringing it back to its former height seemed like it wouldn’t take too long.
Ano dumped out another mountain of crystals from one of the storage devices as he thought about getting back to work.
Ye Muo was trying hard to empty his mind, as if a stray thought would let his psychic power sneak out again. “Do they need to be released right now? I feel like they don’t need–”
“If you climb up this one, you can touch the ceiling for sure.”
Ano reminded Ye Muo as he watched him start climbing again, “Be careful, don’t bump your head.”
At dinner, Ye Muo stared at all the crystals that had appeared in the dining room. He looked at Ano suspiciously.
Ano raised his voice a bit, “I didn’t do it this time.”
However, he had to admit it was a very reassuring sight.
So Ye Muo’s gaze shifted over to Ethan.
Ethan had been sitting by the dining table, casually tossing a crystal up and down. He straightened under Ye Muo’s scrutiny and quickly pointed at Ambrose. “What? Ambrose told me to get more.”
Ambrose nodded good-naturedly. “I thought they would make a nice decoration.”
Ye Muo turned back to the crystals. Although they were just piled up there, they were still shiny and quite pretty, he concluded a beat later.
Ambrose raised his glass again. “Today was a good day. We should drink freely. Is fruit juice alright? Xavier, is there anything you want to eat?”
Ye Muo stopped looking at the crystals and sat down too. “I want orange juice, and the beef from lunch as well.”
It was very delicious.
Ethan stopped tossing the crystal up and down.
The Grantz all turned to look in one direction. Ye Muo did so as well a beat later, just in time to see the crystal mountain shrink and the final bit of crystals crumble.
Ethan looked at his own hand. When he opened it, a handful of sand scattered to the floor. He maintained his composure. “I told you putting them here would come in handy.”
Ye Muo stood up in shock. He meant the beef, not the crystals!
Ethan quickly tossed another device over. Another mountain soon appeared next to its predecessor. Even he couldn’t help but be relieved by the insects’ reproduction speed. “You’ve been here long enough, Xavier. Why didn’t you say anything about needing these?”
He asked, tossing another pouch of devices across the dining table to Ano.
Norton placed a hand on Ye Muo’s shoulder while his psychic power swept over simultaneously. He pulled the still somewhat uneasy Ye Muo closer and cupped his cheek. “It’s fine, Xavier. When your psychic power is under control, there’s no need to intentionally suppress them. Let them follow their nature, and they will respond in a way favourable to you.”
So Ye Muo relaxed again, but not completely. Before, he was like a kitten firmly pinning down its own tail. Now, he was holding down half of it and hesitating whether to let go entirely.
He cautiously asked, “I’m not controlling them right now, but is this really okay?”
Anyone could sense that Ye Muo’s psychic power was parading around the dining room even more boldly than before. They didn’t yield to anyone along the way, squeezing through and scanning everything without exception.
Ye Muo had been scanned like this when he first appeared in the Rift, but that was an exception. Even at the Rift, the Grantz avoided doing something so rude unless it was truly necessary.
Ambrose even felt a few strands burrowing into his own psychic domain before they zipped out as if caught by their owner. This was far more impolite than just scanning someone out of the blue using psychic power.
He poured himself another glass of wine, like a good-tempered lion who let a cub use the tuft of his tail as a chew toy. “I don’t mind, personally.”
Ethan had fished another crystal out at some point and started playing with it again. “This brat’s has always been like this, so I’m used to it.”
Ano refused to be outdone. “Well, I’m even more used to it. Xavier used to be restless in his sleep as well. His psychic power even broke into my psychic domain, several times at that.”
Ye Muo whipped his head around to stare at Ano, his eyes wide in anxiety and shock. He forgot all about trying to hold back his psychic power.
Ethan immediately made the connection. “Dream resonance? How long ago must that have been? Little kids all do that to some extent. It’s as common as bedwetting.”
Even little Grantz would occasionally do that during childhood. Whenever it happened, they would be made fun of the next day. As a result, almost all little Grantz learned to firmly hold down their psychic power while sleeping exceptionally fast.
Ano snorted, “What do you mean how long ago? The last time Xavier did this was less than half a year ago.”
Ye Muo whipped his head back, his cheeks already beginning to burn. He pressed himself into Norton’s embrace and tried to burrow even deeper, as if he could shrink enough to fit into Norton’s pocket.
Ethan’s eyes widened. He stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Does he still do it now? What did he do? How about sharing it with me?”
The two of them actually struck up a conversation. Ano pondered as well, “He probably still does. I occasionally feel him being restless at night. Let me show you what happened last time–”
Meanwhile, Theodore patted Ye Muo’s head as he tried to become an ostrich. He comforted him solemnly, “You’re not that old yet, Xavier. It wouldn’t be normal even if you actually wet the bed, so there’s no need to feel embarrassed about leaking psychic power.”
Both as an AI and by the average interstellar lifespan, Theodore genuinely felt that Xavier was not that old yet.
This was even more true by the Alliance’s standards. Their average lifespan was 30-60% longer than here, and that information was even somewhat out of date.
But Ye Muo didn’t seem comforted by that fact. He even squirmed a bit more, until Norton patted him on the back to comfort him.
Ambrose’s smile was faint but warm as he changed the subject, “Alright, alright. Settle down. The beef from lunch has arrived, Xavier.”
Ano shot him a look. Who did Ambrose think he was fooling when his psychic power had already snuck over and joined the channel he and Ethan had just made? Who was the one reviewing all the photos and videos he shared of a cocooning Ye Muo with such gusto then?
Author’s Corner
Xavier: trying to find a crack in the floorboards to crawl through
–
I lit a fire in the Grantz palace gardens and cooked a massive batch of digital tangyuan. Then, I laid out a few logs on the lawn to serve as rustic benches and invited everyone over to enjoy the sweet soup. Huddled around the warm fire, I shared the apples I secretly swiped from Pangzhua.
