The formation stones drift was the first mystery he had noticed. This was during his month in the outer sect when he was going through the first cessation tests baseline establishment phase. The formation stone arrangement in the corner had been set up for three weeks with eleven stones in the configuration that the AES had recommended for a five-path cultivation structures calibration work. Ten of the eleven stones were absorbing Qi in the normal way but the eleventh stone was absorbing at a slightly different frequency.
The difference was small so he had almost written it off as a mistake in measurement.. The difference was consistent across three separate readings during the baseline phase and mistakes in measurement are not consistent across three readings. He wrote it down in the compound notebook on the tests day and labeled it Mystery A. He described it as the stones absorption frequency being offset from the other ten stones and from his own synchronization frequency by a small but measurable and consistent amount. The offset seemed to be moving towards his frequency. He could not determine the rate of this movement from a measurement so he needed to compare it across multiple sessions.
He had been taking these comparison measurements for three years and six months.
— ◆ —
The compound notebooks Mystery A file had forty-seven entries when he read through it in full on the morning of the day before the Hollow. The early entries were records of his measurements with the drift rate calculated at post-session ambient check intervals the cumulative drift percentage from the original baseline and the projected completion window based on the current rate model. In the year the completion window had been expressed in years, which was not precise enough. In the year the accumulated measurement history had tightened it to a window of months. The cessation tests five-day uninterrupted deep read had produced a logarithmic model that changed the projection: not a linear drift completing in two years but a logarithmic drift that had been slowing for three years and was in its final phase. This meant the completion would be in eight to fourteen months from the tests completion date.
The current projection from that day was seven to thirteen months. The middle entries in the file were his notes on hypotheses. He had developed four working hypotheses across the two years of observation and had eliminated three. The surviving hypothesis was that the stone had been designed to calibrate to a type of cultivators synchronization frequency had been placed in the northeast corner in anticipation of that type of cultivators arrival and his arrival had triggered the calibration. His sustained cultivation work in the corner over the four and a half years was the input the calibration was responding to. This hypothesis explained everything the data showed. It did not explain who had designed the stone with this specification, who had placed it in the northeast corner when they had placed it or what the completed calibration was intended to produce.
— ◆ —
He went to the outer sect library on the morning of the fifteenth day before the Hollow to look into Mystery A. The Foundation file had no questions so the librarys time was available for something else. The library maintained a formation configuration history for the compounds cultivation spaces separate from the administrative records. He had accessed this documentation in his year and had noted that the northeast corners formation history predated the documentation periods start. He had flagged it as relevant to Mystery A. Had put off looking into it further.
He pulled the secondary hall northeast corner documentation and read through it systematically. The documentation had twelve entries spanning forty-three years. The earliest entry was a maintenance assessment noting that an eleven-stone formation configuration was present in the northeast corner of the secondary hall stable all stones absorbing at standard frequencies no anomalous readings. The configuration was described as predating the current documentation period and carrying no record of origin.
He read this entry three times because it was forty-three years old and the configuration was already described as predating the record. The eleven-stone arrangement had been in the corner for at least forty-three years and likely much longer. He read the eleven entries, each one confirming the same stable configuration none of them having documentation of who had placed it or why. The final entry was fourteen months before his enrollment. It confirmed the configuration was stable with all eleven stones absorbing at standard frequencies. No drift.
Three months into his enrollment the first cessation test had detected the drift beginning in the stone. The drift had begun specifically when he arrived.
— ◆ —
He spent the afternoon of the day reading two additional documents he had been planning to read together since the sixth cessation test produced the logarithmic drift model. The first was the formation maintenance roles training manual from forty years ago which he had discovered in his second year. The manuals formation stone behavior classification system was more detailed than the manuals especially in the classification of cultivator-selective formation stones. The manual classified formation stones as either cultivator-neutral or cultivator-calibrating but the old manual had a third category: a stone designed to remain inert until a cultivator of a specified type began sustained cultivation work in its ambient range.
At that point the stone would initiate calibration. For any other cultivator working in the stones ambient range the stone would remain inert. One sentence from the manuals description stood out: the specification of the cultivator type is encoded in the stones formation matrix at the time of creation. Cannot be altered without destroying the stones formation integrity. The eleventh stone was cultivator-selective designed to respond to a Five-Root cultivator. It had been inert in the corner for at least forty-three years absorbing at its baseline frequency not calibrating to any of the cultivators who had worked in the corner during those forty-three years.
When he arrived the Five-Root cultivator to work in the corner in the documented period the stone had initiated calibration. He wrote this in Mystery A as the classification confirmation. Then he read the document the outer sects cultivator type frequency distribution record, which showed Five-Root cultivation configurations appearing at a rate of approximately one per two hundred and fifty to three hundred enrollees. The Blackspire compound enrolled between twelve and twenty cultivators per year so the expected Five-Root results in forty-three years would be two to three. However the compound had had only one documented Five-Root result in five hundred years.
He thought about this number wondering if the Blackspire compound had an underrepresentation of Five-Root configurations or if the single Five-Root result in five hundred years was not an anomaly in the enrollment statistics but an anomaly in the documentation. The five-hundred-year enrollment records removed history might contain entries from the period that overlapped with an earlier Five-Root enrollment. He added this calculation to Mystery C and cross-referenced it to Mystery A. The implication was clear. Its full resolution was not accessible from the outer sect librarys holdings. He would need to look into the sect archive for more information.
— ◆ —
Wei Shan was in the secondary hall when he returned from the library reading a dark-covered text with deep attention. Ren sat in the corner and ran the post-library maintenance session, standard depth, two hours with eleven stones absorbing in their positions. The eleventh stone was at ninety-one percent of its calibration distance. Wei Shan did not look up from the text during the session. At the sessions end when Ren was writing his post-session notes in the compound notebook Wei Shan set the dark-covered text down and looked at the northeast corner specifically at the eleventh stone.
The look had the quality of someone confirming something they already knew than observing something new. He held the look for ten seconds then returned to the text. Ren wrote in Mystery D: Wei Shan is aware of the stones drift and its significance. The look that day was confirmatory he observed the stones state and confirmed it against his existing knowledge of the stones expected state. Mystery A and Mystery D are connected the eleventh stone is not a mystery it is known by at least one person currently in the compound who has not been asked about it.
He looked at the stone himself thinking about the forty-three years minimum a Five-Root cultivator in five hundred years the stone placed and waiting. Wei Shan had been in the compound for nine years present, in the corner every session, of the stone and the calibrations meaning. Multiple things were visibly related. He updated both mystery files put the notebook in the kit bag and completed the formation maintenance role
He had opened the file in his month when he found something weird in the librarys records. The library had records of people who enrolled in the program for the five hundred years.. There was a three-year gap in the records. It was not like the pages were missing. The pages were there.. Someone had taken out the information for those three years and replaced it with a note. The note said that the records were moved to an area because of an administrative order. There was no date on the order. No name of the person who signed it.
He tried to find out more about the order. He could not access it. He tried to find out who signed it. That information was also restricted. He tried to find out when the order was made. The only thing he could find was that it happened on the same day the records were moved. The handwriting on the note was different from the rest of the records.
He had been investigating this mystery for a time and had found eleven different ways to look at it.. Every way he looked at it he hit a wall. He could not find any information without getting access to the restricted area.
The mystery was connected to another mystery he was investigating. The three-year gap in the records happened at the time as a previous event in the compound. The event was probably a Five-Root enrollment result. The compound had only had one Five-Root result in five hundred years. That was his own. The gap in the records was suspicious. It looked like someone had deliberately removed the information.
— ◆ —
He visited the library for the time before the Hollow to look at the mystery again.
He did not find anything. He had already looked at all the information. He was just double-checking to make sure he had not missed anything. He checked all the ways he had been investigating the mystery. He looked at the enrollment records the administrative action log, the formation maintenance documentation and the cultivation research acquisition records. He also looked at some sources like the Dawnfeld information channel.. He did not find anything new.
He updated his notes on the mystery. He said that he had exhausted all the information and that he needed to get access to the restricted area to find out more. He made a note to investigate the mystery further after the Foundation. He would have to wait until then to get access to the area.
He sat in the reading room for a long time thinking about the mystery. He had been working in the corner of the secondary hall and he had found out that the configuration there had been waiting for a Five-Root cultivator for at least forty-three years. The configuration had started to calibrate to his frequency soon as he arrived. This meant that the configuration was designed for a Five-Root cultivator. He was the Five-Root cultivator to work in that corner since the configuration was placed.
He updated his notes on the mystery with the information. He added some questions that he still needed to answer. He wanted to know who had placed the configuration and when. He wanted to know what the formation masters relationship was to the Five-Root result in the compound. He wanted to know what the completed calibration would produce when the stone reached his synchronization frequency.
He added the mystery to his list of things to investigate after the Foundation. He would have to get access to the sect archive to find out more. He left the reading room and walked back to the secondary hall. He knew that he would find the answers to his questions eventually.
He thought about the library as he walked back. He had been using the library for four and a half years. He had spent a lot of time there studying and working. The library would be replaced by the sect library after the Foundation. The inner sect library would have resources and unrestricted access.. It would not have the same history, as the outer sect library. The history was his not the librarys. He had accumulated the character of the work he did. The library had accumulated the character of the work done in it.. The history of the work was his to carry, not the librarys.
He made a note of this in his observations that evening. He said that the work sites of the sect period were complete. The next work sites would be elsewhere.