Quantum Cultivation by Jace Kang (simple e reader TXT) 📕

The voice continued: “A murder took place late last night around 23:00 at Higashi-Honganji Temple near Kyoto Central. The victim was Takashi Smith, a monk who lived there.”

Kentaro sucked in a sharp breath and exchanged glances with Aya.

She nodded at his message: with surveillance cameras and identity chips, there hadn’t been a murder in Kyoto since…well, ever?  Even the word murder was as archaic as convenience store.

“As of now,” the voice said, “we have no leads. Cameras in the temple malfunctioned. If you have any information, please contact Kyoto Peacekeeping.”

Siena, now fully dressed, walked over to the image. She pointed at the red splotch on the sheet. “Isn’t that were Ryusuke said the Sea of Life is?”

Kentaro came up beside her and leaned in to look closer at the body. He looked to the Elestrae and nodded. “It’s hard to tell with the way it’s draped, but I think you’re right.”

The image disappeared, replaced by a rotating hologram of Ryusuke.  Gasping, Kentaro jumped back.

The master was depicted as wearing the latest fashion, a purple and silver jumper.

Aya shook her head. “He wasn’t wearing that.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Siena said.

The voice continued: “In other news, Peacekeepers are searching for Ryusuke Ishihara, a twenty-seven-year-old Purebred. His wife reported him missing, and there were reports of him near Kyoto Central last night at 19:00 hours. No evidence links these two cases. If you see him, contact Peacekeepers. Do not attempt to approach him, because as a Purebred, he may be mentally unstable.”

Mentally unstable. Aya looked to Kentaro. All their lives, XHumans had been told the Purebreds suffered from all sorts of congenital issues, including many mental-emotional diseases that had otherwise been eradicated in the last several centuries.

Aya had never questioned it, even though as someone who’d uncovered many secrets, she knew the government couldn’t be trusted to always tell the truth. Here was more evidence of that right here, with an image of Ryu in clothes he’d never worn, along with the story of a non-existent wife reporting him missing.  How had she never considered they might be lying about the Purebreds?

More curious was the murder: what were the odds that all the cameras around the temple would be shorted just before it happened? It wouldn’t require that high a level of a hack, and indeed, the perpetrator could’ve just bribed a Peacekeeper to erase the footage.

It was time to find out.

“Watch over me.” She coughed up some phlegm and went to sit in a corner, her back to the door. Using her mobile EtherCloud bridge, she jacked into the EtherCloud.

Peacekeeping Headquarters usually appeared as a sixteenth-century Japanese castle town patrolled by Level Three Sentinels, who looked like samurai in court robes.

Now, though, the castle town was surrounded by a moat, and new walls were patrolled by heavily armored samurai—Level Five Sentinels. A Dragon and a Phoenix, Level Eight and Nine Sentinels, circled above it.  Maintaining that much complex code must’ve taken enormous amounts of power.  These defenses only let in Avatars with appropriate credentials.

With her various Shells maxing out at Level Six, these guardians would be able to see through her disguises, so she avoided Peacekeeper Headquarters altogether.

A million strands of white light emanated from the castle, each representing encrypted transmissions. As she searched for the beam to a specific data node, one with a barely perceptible blue tint caught her light. She held up a prism—her SI’s interpretation of a bandwidth identifier—and noticed the blue thread. It represented an alien bandwidth, specifically Tivari, piggybacking a Peacekeeper signal. Which meant a traitorous Peacekeeper was spying for a hostile alien race.

The signal disappeared into the relay system, making it impossible to trace, but Aya set up an app to monitor for an identical transmission along that bandwidth. Then, she followed the correct thread to the Central North data node. Unbeknownst to most, copies of localized information were stored deep in the system here as backup for twelve hours.  Raw footage of the Higashi Honganji Temple last night might still be there.

Usually appearing as an ancient wooden library with Level One Sentinel footmen lounging around it, the elevated security now made it look like a small fortress with several heavily-armored footmen—Level Three Sentinels—patrolling it. They were easy enough to evade with her Shell, and she passed through its doors.  Unlike Peacekeeper Headquarters’’ sprawling EtherSpace, the node looked like an old Japanese town, with gridded streets.

Data packets were carried by varying couriers, from Level Three mule carts carrying large loads at slow speeds to Level Seven peregrine falcons on priority delivery. Virtual fingers dancing, Aya quickly programed a Level Five horse Shell and headed to the town library.  The Level One Sentinel allowed her through.

Data in the form of scrolls were stacked and organized by time and location. She found the surveillance data for Higashi Honganji Temple around 23:00. Copying the files, she stuffed them into her saddlebags.

Leaving the node was even easier than entering it, and she slipped through the firewall to her private EtherSpace.  Now protected, she brought up all video files, organized all angles by timestamp, and merged the audio.

“Ai, compile a 3D simulation.”

The nine-tailed fox appeared and bowed.

Around her, the space transformed into the grounds of Higashi Honganji Temple. Rain pattered on the wooden eaves of the large central building.  At another building across the way, the door opened, and the victim, Takashi Smith, stepped out.

“Ai, timestamp?”

“22:59.”

These religious types reportedly held rigid schedules. Perhaps Smith had some duty at 23:00.  He wore a white robe with brown skirts, the traditional garb of monks of his sect, which swished as he walked through the courtyard. His feet crunched on the grey gravel. Their order must’ve eschewed water dispersing technology, because raindrops gathered on his shaved pate.

As he reached the middle, the air close to the