The morning sun rose over the eastern ridges of Aethelgard, casting long golden beams across the seventh peak.
On the cedar porch of Solitude Spire, the air was crisp, scented with pine needles and dried orange peel.
Under the front left leg of the cedar table, the Sovereign Heart Seal held the timber rock-steady against the floorboards.
Beside the wooden leg rested the Indestructible Void Hamper, silently humming its antimicrobial vacuum field.
Up on the roof beam, Patriarch Ao Cang was resting his black chin on the copper downspout, basking in the warm seventy-degree radiant aura leaking from Felix Vance’s midsection.
Beside the dragon, Barnaby the Clockwork Owl rotated his head ninety degrees.
Tick... tock... click.
The brass escapement purred in microsecond synchrony with the white dwarf core spinning inside Felix's dantian.
Felix Vance was sitting in his wicker chair with his bare feet propped on an overturned melon crate.
In his left hand, he held a warm porcelain mug of roasted barley tea.
In his right hand, he held the glowing slate of the AetherDeck.
His thumb was hovering over the [Claim Daily Login Reward] button on the touchscreen.
He tapped it.
Nothing happened.
Instead of the customary cheerful harp chime and shower of gold coins, a small, spinning red circular icon appeared in the center of the display.
A blinking yellow warning banner popped up in the top right corner of the glass screen:
*Connecting to Server... [Ping: 342 ms]*
Felix stared at the spinning wheel with narrowing eyes.
He tapped the button again.
The wheel spun.
*Connecting to Server... [Ping: 388 ms]*
Felix let out a long, irritated groan that startled a mountain finch off the porch railing.
"Three hundred and eighty-eight milliseconds?" Felix muttered, shaking the AetherDeck by its edges. "Are you kidding me? What is this, dial-up internet in 1998?"
He tapped the screen three more times in rapid succession.
The spinning wheel froze for two seconds, stuttered, and then threw up an error prompt.
Felix rubbed his temples with his thumb and forefinger.
"I can tolerate buggy hitboxes," Felix complained aloud to the empty porch. "I can tolerate weird NPC roleplay lines. But I draw the line at three-hundred-ping network lag. If I try to claim my daily gacha roll with this much packet loss, the server is going to eat my tickets and give me duplicate grey-tier crafting junk."
He hovered his finger over the diagnostic advice.
An Inspector HUD tooltip flickered into view over the yellow signal bars.
【Target: AetherDeck Internal Wireless Receiver】 【Signal Band: Ultra-High Frequency Astral Telepathy】 【Obstruction: 12 Leagues of Moist Tropospheric Cloud Layers】 【Inspector Note: A high-tier spatial receiver designed to sync with universal server nodes. Currently blocked by ordinary morning mountain fog and thick pine canopy. Can be easily resolved by rigging a simple directional antenna onto a high bamboo pole.】
Felix’s eyes lit up with practical problem-solving determination.
"A directional antenna, huh?" Felix said, nodding slowly. "I used to do this back in college when the dorm Wi-Fi wouldn't reach the corner of my room. All you need is some copper wire, a long stick, and a little bit of elevation."
He set his tea mug down on the cedar table.
Felix stood up, stretching his back until his spine gave three satisfying pops.
He walked over to the tool lean-to behind the water cistern.
Rummaging through the clutter of old garden spades and rusted iron nails, he found a spool of thick copper wire left behind by the Western Sky dreadnought engineers two weeks ago.
Next to the woodpile, he selected a sturdy, twelve-foot pole of green mountain bamboo.
Felix carried the spool and the bamboo pole back onto the porch.
Sitting cross-legged on the floorboards, he began wrapping the copper wire tightly around the bamboo stalk in concentric, spiral coils.
He stripped the plastic insulation from the bottom end using his pocket knife, leaving a clean, bare copper lead.
Then he reached down into his robe pocket and plugged the bare wire lead directly into the accessory port on the bottom edge of the AetherDeck.
Down on the stone pathway below the terrace, Grand Inquisitor Morvath and his twelve honorary sweepers paused their bamboo brooms.
Morvath lowered his dustpan, his scarred face freezing in absolute, breathless veneration.
"Look at the Master’s hands..." Morvath whispered in a trembling voice to his fellow elders. "Look at the sacred spiral he weaves!"
The elders crowded together behind a laurel bush, watching with wide, unblinking eyes.
To Felix, he was simply winding twelve feet of cheap copper wire into a makeshift directional radio coil.
To the high cultivators of the Radiant Dawn Academy, however, what they were witnessing was the birth of an ultimate divine artifact.
The pure copper wire, having bathed in the concentrated solar aura of Felix's dantian, was undergoing instant spiritual transmutation.
As Felix wound each loop, the metal gleamed with blinding golden luminescence.
The twelve-foot bamboo stalk, infused with the gentle radiant heat from his palms, turned from ordinary fibrous wood into translucent Emerald Divine Iron.
"The Nine-Turn Spiral of the High Heavens..." an elder choked out, clutching his chest in religious ecstasy. "The Senior Brother is forging a Heavenly Dao Resonance Rod! He is binding the golden laws of lightning and thunder into a sacred staff to commune directly with the Upper Realm!"
"Hush, Elder Wu!" Morvath hissed fiercely. "Do not distract the Master’s divine alignment! Watch how he calibrates the terminal node!"
Up on the porch, Felix finished twisting the final loop of wire around the tip of the bamboo pole.
He pulled the wire taut and inspected his handiwork.
"Not bad," Felix muttered, testing the rigidity of the pole with a gentle shake. "Nice tight coils. That should act as a decent quarter-wave ground plane antenna."
He looked up at the cedar roof.
The peak of the roof had a sturdy copper lightning rod bracket bolted to the main timber ridge.
Felix walked down the porch steps, set a wooden stepladder against the eaves, and climbed up onto the cedar shingles.
The morning breeze ruffled his violet void-silk robe as he balanced carefully along the ridge beam.
He slid the base of the bamboo pole into the brass lightning rod sleeve, tightening the wingnut with his fingers until the antenna stood tall and straight, pointing directly toward the upper zenith of the sky.
A tiny, sparkling blue electric arc danced from the tip of the copper wire into the morning clouds.
Down in the Astral Observatory, Chancellor Valen had his crystal telescope trained on the seventh peak.
The moment that blue electric spark flashed, the observatory’s brass astrolabes began spinning at dizzying speeds.
"Chancellor!" Vice-Chancellor Morgana gasped, her parchment maps rustling in the sudden ionic breeze. "A supreme harmonic beacon has ignited upon Solitude Spire! The Senior Brother has erected an Emerald-Gold Pillar that penetrates the ninth layer of the atmospheric shroud!"
Valen gripped the railing, his knuckles turning white.
"He is preparing an astral transmission..." Valen murmured, his voice hushed with religious awe. "He seeks the council of the Ancient Void Gods beyond the stars!"
Back on the porch, Felix climbed down the ladder, dusted his hands against his thighs, and picked up the AetherDeck from the table.
He looked at the signal indicator in the top right corner.
*Connecting to Server... [Ping: 184 ms]*
The red warning icon changed to an amber yellow.
Felix frowned, his lips turning down in mild disappointment.
"A hundred and eighty-four milliseconds?" Felix grumbled, shaking his head. "Better than three-eighty, sure. But a hundred and eighty is still garbage. You can't play an action RPG with a hundred and eighty ping. The inputs feel like wading through cold oatmeal."
He tapped the screen to open the network monitor again.
The diagnostic screen flashed with updated data:
*Atmospheric Attenuation: 65% Remaining.*
*Signal Obstruction: High-Altitude Ionospheric Inversion Layer.*
*Recommended Solution: Increase Antenna Altitude by 10,000 Paces to Clear the Troposphere.*
Felix stared at the recommendation.
"Increase antenna altitude by ten thousand paces?" Felix repeated slowly.
He looked up at the sky.
Ten thousand paces was roughly five miles straight up into the air—way beyond the mountain peaks, right into the silent, freezing border of the upper stratosphere.
A normal mortal would have considered that an insurmountable impossibility.
Felix, however, merely looked at his comfortable zero-gravity wicker recliner resting on the cedar porch.
He walked over to the kitchen cupboard and pulled out two warm roasted sweet potatoes wrapped in brown greaseproof paper.
He slipped them into the inner pocket of his robe, alongside a small bamboo flask of warm barley tea.
"If I'm going up there for a few hours, I need snacks," Felix reasoned casually. "Never go on a signal hunt on an empty stomach."
He walked back out onto the porch, looking at Lyra Ashford, who was standing beside the tea stove with her hands neatly clasped over her apron.
"Lyra," Felix said, pointing a finger toward the rooftop antenna. "I'm going up into the upper clouds for a bit to get a cleaner signal. Keep an eye on the porch while I'm gone. And don't let the yard chickens peck at the copper ground wire. If they break the circuit, the ping will spike again."
Lyra’s hands trembled so violently she nearly dropped her brass water ladle.
She looked at her Senior Brother with eyes full of holy dread.
The Master was preparing to ascend beyond the mortal firmament.
Not to conquer kingdoms.
Not to battle celestial emperors.
But simply to find a better seat where his slate would stop buffering.
"This disciple shall guard the sacred grounding cable with her life, Senior Brother!" Lyra declared, bowing with absolute devotion. "May your ascension to the throne of heaven be crowned with glory!"
Felix chuckled lazily, climbing into his wicker recliner.
"It's just a signal hunt, Lyra," Felix said with a sigh. "I'll be back in time for dinner."