The smell of crushed granite hung thick in the air.
In the underground testing range beneath Sub-Vault Four, Meng Shan stood planted like an iron obelisk, his black shield braced against a wooden target dummy that had been snapped in half like a dried twig.
Lin Ke sat twelve paces away on a low chest of iron mining tools, nursing a cup of lukewarm well water.
The problem wasn’t speed. The problem was arbitration.
In his earlier sandbox runs, whenever an incoming threat appeared, both the physical vessel (Node 0) and the astral mind (Node 1) tried to issue motor commands at the same time. Node 0 tried to sidestep left. Node 1 tried to anchor and block right.
The result was an instant body lockup. The knees froze, the spine locked into tetany. The fighter took a steel blade straight through the throat.
A distributed system with two leaders is just an expensive suicide machine, Lin Ke reasoned.
He closed his eyes, setting the tin cup down on the stone.
