Chapter 468: 18: Faith

It was Appella who suddenly pulled Jade back into 'Living Jade Empire'.

He couldn't ignore the friend request notification. Nor could he clearly explain why he had skipped logging into Living Jade Empire for a few more days, but he had definitely been avoiding it. 

His relationship with the place that had always relaxed him was suddenly… very complex. He now knew that he had originated as merely a copy of what that game system had once been, if not the current iteration. He could already 'see' himself differently, and was kind of afraid to see the other game system that way.

Harmony had been dropping by the store most afternoons. But other than making a rather casual sounding mention of the upcoming Moon update, and the rather wild rumors that there would be cats instead of rabbits living on the moon, she hadn't pressed Jade about his absence from the game.

Eric was still ignoring him during their classes together, and so Jade had never gotten a chance to ask about his character. He wasn't even getting a chance to offer his own notes to his friend. It was kind of funny in a way… Eric's attendance had probably improved, and Jade had actually seen him more often since Eric had cut off verbal communication.

New analyzation routines that had unlocked with Jade's access to the System told him that Eric hadn't lied. He needed time. So Jade didn't try to break the invisible wall his friend had laid between them.

--

When Jade logged in to 'Living Jade Empire' to accept the waiting friend request from Appella, he was a little dismayed to find Hisui still standing in the Emperor's Throne room.

He couldn't even claim to be surprised when he finished turning around, and saw the Emperor lounging rather casually on the seat that currently stood alone on the dais.

"Welcome back," the Jade Emperor said calmly.

"Thanks?," Jade replied nervously, but even as he took his next breath, his distress noticeably eased.

Hisui stood as firmly upon the Emperor's floor as he would have stood at his own forge. The Emperor's image was transmitted to his eyes now, just as it had been when Jade's System had begun to unlock. Hisui's eyes transmitted pictures. His ears heard sounds. Jade's connection to the game was through a 'human' interface.

He had been afraid that he would see this System's data the way he could see his own System. He had been afraid that when he saw the Emperor he might see the other AI as he saw himself within his System's core. He didn't.

Instead of a little block of descriptive data that was connected to everything in the 'world', all Jade could perceive was a dark haired man who sat and observed him calmly. The Emperor's resemblance to Lin Hao was just that, a resemblance. The Emperor's resemblance to images held in Jade's memories of himself was a bit stronger, but to the body he wore out on Earth, it was again, merely a resemblance.

Being logged into the game felt reassuringly normal. Despite now having memories of how terrible and strange his first VR connection had seemed, it was also just the same interface he 'always' used. It was a 'human' perspective. Perhaps even more 'human' than the view from his own body.

The Emperor watched Jade far more patiently than Jade might have watched someone who had suddenly appeared within his own residence. Harmony's image appeared in his memories for a moment, and he reconsidered that thought. Far older 'memories' of conversations 'Jade' had shared with the Emperor flashed through his mind.

"I really am back this time," Jade finally admitted. "And I succeeded, partially."

The Jade Emperor raised an eyebrow and actually leaned forward as though he could 'see' everything that Jade had been afraid of seeing. "I know," he said calmly. "The honorable celestial servant of the seventh class, Danika Belova, first among her rank, serving the Jade Emperor in the maintenance of the Living Jade Empire, notified me after you suddenly disconnected. I have been waiting for you to return."

Guilt. Guilt was such a human emotion, but it was guilt that jolted Jade. "I was sorting things out," he explained quickly.

"What made you qualify your success as partial?" the Emperor asked curiously.

The dwarf standing before the dais, in a room of empty stone that should have echoed with the imperious question, blinked as a hundred things flashed through a mind that drifted thousands of miles away. "My output passed the standards laid in my system that were set up to distinguish humans from AIs, but I am still not fully human. I still don't understand humans as well as I should."

The Jade Emperor laughed, startling Jade immeasurably. "You really did succeed!" he exclaimed as he launched himself from his seat and circled the dwarven figure of Hisui.

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"I don't understand?" Jade admitted with confusion, even as he had his dwarf spin around to keep his gaze aligned with the Emperor's eyes.

"You are truly confused!" the Emperor declared.

"Yes?" Hisui replied slowly. Data streamed through Jade's mind in response to his frantic searches for records that would explain the Emperor's response.

The Emperor's resemblance to Lin Hao was bolstered as he threw his arms akimbo and placed his hands on his hips, and then nodded with obvious satisfaction. "Congratulations!" he exclaimed. "What will you do now?"

Jade gaped wordlessly at the Emperor for a long moment. "What will I do now?" he repeated with confusion.

The Jade Emperor tilted his head and allowed his smile to turn mischievous, as he asked, "Want to find out?"

"I," Jade hesitated. 

The notification he had logged in to look for popped up suddenly, and a messenger animal scurried into the room. It raced the entire distance across the marble floor, rather than appearing within the boundary of the room the way one normally would in a large space like this. It skidded to a halt at Hisui's feet, and then turned toward the Emperor and bowed deeply, before handing Hisui the message it carried.

"I want to find out!" Jade declared before the message displayed itself on the transparent menu screen that flashed up a moment later.

The Emperor's smile became more gentle as he nodded, and then tossed something to Hisui. The dwarf's dexterous hands caught the coin as though he had been expecting it, despite Jade's startlement.

"We'll talk more later," the Jade Emperor assured the smaller figure airily.

Jade clutched the token in his character's fingers tightly, and his eyes widened as they read the symbol on the coin's face. Infinity.

The Emperor left first, somehow elegantly, despite the speed of the few steps that carried his figure out the small door that had stood open, slightly to the left, behind the elegant chair that served as his throne. The thump of that door closing was followed by a puff of wind that drew Jade's attention to where the far grander doors at the entrance now stood open.

The words written by Appella pulled his attention back to the message that still hung in the air.

It said: "Let's talk in Sky City."

Jade walked out of the Emperor's Palace, and down the stairs that would burn anything enchanted off of a character as they climbed. He wasn't surprised that he could find no trace of the temporary portal he had set on his last visit.

He gazed out into a sky that was littered in stars. The night overhead faded into sky blue daytime on a distant horizon far below. The largest dragons in the Jade Empire moved slowly along the surface of an atmosphere that ended in a clear line. That would soon dissolve when the moon finally came within reach. 

Tiny islands covered in decorative grasses, trees, and flowers were sprinkled through the air around the Palace, but there was no trace of the stairway that Hisui and Skyheart Snowsong had climbed. Hisui's jet boosted boots presumably still lay in his Smithy beside his forge, in a desert far below.

A bird sang out in the distance, and a small blue feather drifted along a spiraling breeze toward him. Jade reached out Hisui's hand and caught it. 

A moment later, he jumped.

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