The young man glanced at the crowd of people coming through the door before giving Angenia a nod. His gaze hovered for a bit on Cillin before stopping on Wheeze.
Wheeze was staring at the young man as well. It still remembered the day Moon described the characteristics of a true Xi clansman—and criticized Xi Kai for his lack thereof—quite well.
According to Moon, “true” Xi clansmen usually had a pair of eyes with a unique eye color, and the young man before them fit that description perfectly. At the time, Moon thought that he would never encounter another Xi clansman again in his life and was very sad about it, but it turned out that it was wrong after all.
Wheeze was so excited that it hit Cillin repeatedly with its fat paw while saying, “A Xi clansman? Cillin, look! It’s a Xi clansman! A true Xi clansman meow!”
Cillin pushed its paw away. “I know!”
The three bosses and the young man didn’t look nearly as excited by its discovery, however. Not only did the atmosphere immediately thicken with dread, even Hara stopped working his cake and lost his smile for the second time since he met Cillin. Hara never paused in the middle of his work if he could help it. It was that serious.
“You know of the Xi Family, Cillin?” Angenia asked seriously.
Cillin looked at her and Hara. He knew he would’ve been lethally silenced already if it wasn’t for his relationship with Genya.
“Yes. I’m acquainted with that family,” Cillin replied.
Angenia was confused. Not even Genya knew about the Xi Family, and the Xi Family had gone through some... unfortunate situations that made them virtually unknown these days. So how did Cillin come to know the family?
Meanwhile, back at Angenia’s residence, the Eleventh Squad was resting and enjoying the excellent mild tea that was being served by a beautiful maid. In fact, high quality mild tea seemed to be the defining feature of Golden Beginning for some reason.
When the maid was refilling everyone’s tea cups, she glanced at Czedow a few times more than the others. When Czedow shot her a smile, she turned as red as an apple.
Everyone present at the lounge wore a strange expression when they saw this. Xiao Shang even winked at Cary to transmit hs thoughts: You see that? We just got outdone by a robot!
Czedow paid no attention to their antics. Moon and Sigma were circling around the room and observing their surroundings when Czedow suddenly rose to his feet and said to them, “Cillin wants you two to join him. You too, Xi Kai.”
“What’s this about?” Xi Kai set down his cup and asked, but Czedow didn’t explain further. He simply said,
“You’ll know when you get there.”
A couple of guards stopped them right after they exited the room because the area they were in was supposed to be private, not to mention that the location they were heading to wasn’t far away from Angenia’s residence. However, after they received new directions from their communicator, they shot their guests an embarrassed smile before guiding them toward their destination.
Czedow, Sigma, Moon and Xi Kai arrived at the courtyard entrance, but the guards only allowed to Xi Kai to go in, at least for now. The clan head puzzled, but knowing that Cillin was inside he walked in without voicing his doubts.
He knew that the young man was a Xi clansman the moment he set his eyes on him.
Xi Kai had metallic gray pupils himself, but his was grayer and didn’t gleam like shining platinum when exposed to the sunlight.
Regardless, Xi kai was very happy to meet a Xi clansman from another galaxy.
“I am Xi Kai.”
Xi Mu.” The youngster licked the rest of the butter on his hands before saying to Angenia, “May I speak to him in private?”
“Of course.”
There was a house inside the courtyard, and every bodyguard standing guard inside the building evacuated immediately after Angenia gave her permission. Xi Mu then led Xi Kai inside.
“I didn’t know that you are acquainted to a Xi clansman.” Angenia shot Cillin a smile. “This is good news for you. Not anyone can win a Xi clansman’s trust.”
Hara understood her sentiment completely. He gave Cillin a pat of the shoulder before adding, “Seize this opportunity, but don’t leak their existence to anyone, understand? Trouble will come to you if you did.”
Seeing the puzzled expression on Cillin’s face, Angenia explained, “The Xi Family is a very special family. It’s as if they are born with an extra nerve compared to everyone else. Unfortunately, great genius also attracts much envy and ambition. To my knowledge, there are only fifteen Xi clansmen left in the entire GAL. Ten years ago the Xi Family came under attack by the GAL government, and while I was on friendly terms with them I decided that the risks of protecting them far outweighed the benefits. However, I agreed to hide and protect Xi Mu for ten years in exchange for five sets of special armor.
Xi Mu wasn’t even five years old at the time, but his mind was already at the level of mature adult. He understood everything that was going on around him. Not long after the Xi clansmen who left Sector S were captured, a space lab used to hold a number of them exploded and killed everyone. When Xi Mu heard this, his hair turned white in a single night. Can you imagine this happening to a child who isn’t even five years old at the time?”
Angenia was shocked at least. It wasn’t like the phenomenon was especially uncommon, but for it to happen to a boy who was even younger than her grandson was definitely something she never thought possible until that day. Overnight, Xi Mu lost his innocent smile forever, and his personality split into two different extremes. One half of it was shining platinum, and the other was cold, detached gray. The first time Hara met Xi Mu, he had baked a cake for him called “Daybreak”. He told him that the night was nearing its end, and that the daybreak was nigh.
Hara treated Xi Mu well because the Xi Family had lent him a helping hand in the past. Although they didn’t give him anything before they were captured by GAL, that didn’t stop him from visiting Xi Mu every time he visited Gensheng. Xi Mu loved sweets, so Hara always brought sweets when he came to Golden Beginning.
Both Angenia and Hara were well aware that the Xi Family was a family of geniuses. For example, a five years old Xi Mu was able to create all kinds of machines without having received any regular education or guidance from his family (because they were already dead at the time). He had figured it all by himself. Puzzlingly, Xi Mu had built a massage chair for Angenia and a food maker for Hara, but never a weapon or a combat vehicle. Neither Angenia nor Hara believed for a second that the young man wasn’t skilled enough to make them.
“The ten-year agreement is nearing its end, and GAL has fallen to chaos. Many forces are fighting to contest for the remaining Xi clansmen scattered across GAL and seize greater power. There aren’t many of them left in this world, Cillin, which is why I want you to convince Xi Mu to join you. I don’t wish for him to become a highly dangerous weapon in another force’s hands,” Angenia said.
While they were talking about Xi Mu, the young man had led Xi Kai into his house before producing a palm-sized device. When he turned it on, a cubic-meter wide, square-shaped hologram with a cosmos-like backdrop and a couple of dots that looked like stars appeared in front of him.
“Gypsophila?” Xi Kai recognized it. He had played it when he was a child, and in a sense it was the primer game for the young within the Xi Family. But why was Xi Mu showing this to him now?
Instead of replying, Xi Mu shot the older man a glance before touching a spot on the hologram, causing a starry white dot to appear. He then looked at Xi Kai again.
Fine, I’ll play. After staring at the distribution of dots on the hologram for a bit, he touched a spot and turned it into a “star”.
The game continued for a short while. More and more stars appeared on the hologram as they played.
Xi Kai didn’t know this, but “Gypsophila” was the primer game of the Xi Family. Every dot represented an element, and the goal of the game is to link the elements together to form a cohesive structure not unlike how a machine was built. It was hard to maintain the structure’s functionality and even harder to improve on its overall stability.
Xi Kai thought himself to be a pretty good player, and this Xi Mu looked like no slouch himself. They almost never paused when they made their steps.
When Xi Kai finished his side of the game, he thought to himself: finally, we can get to the point. He was wrong though. Before he could say anything, the completed Gypsophila image suddenly shrank in size, and the number of empty spaces on the hologram multiplied drastically.
“Huh…” Xi Kai didn’t expect the game to have a continuation.
Noticing his reaction, Xi Mu shot the older man a strange look. “What were you expecting to happen after finishing level 1 of the game? You weren’t stuck on level 1 all this time, were you?”
“...” Very well, his ancestors had bamboozled him again.
The game board of Level 2 was several times larger than that of level 1. To complete level 2, the players must expand toward the empty spaces surrounding the original structure.
The new difficulty forced Xi Kai to treat the game seriously. It was because every step he made must consider the structure he created during level 1. As a result, he wasn’t able to play as quickly as he did at the beginning. Xi Mu experienced no such problems, however. He made his moves practically the second after Xi Kai made his.
When the second level was completed, and the third level appeared, Xi Kai had a feeling that he was going to have a headache.
During the fourth level, Xi Kai made a mistake that caused the entire game board to fracture like glass, signalling his defeat. At this scale, one mistake was all it took to cause the entire system to collapse. To put it in mechanical terms, one misplaced part had caused the entire machine to fail.
“So, you’re only level 4.” Xi Mu looked very disappointed, though it was nothing compared to Xi Kai’s. Not only had he lost to a child, he was nowhere close to pushing Xi Mu to his limits. How embarrassing was that?
“It’s fine. This is the first time you play the full Link of Gypsophila, right? You’ll get better once you get used to it.” Xi Mu checked Xi Kai’s board again before asking, “The one you played only has one level?”
“Yeah. I had no idea that Gypsophila is a multilayered game until now,” Xi Kai replied in an exasperated tone. First, Moon hated my guts because of the experiments they conducted. Then, they hid the fact that Gypsophila is a multilayered game from us. Just how many more secrets are there that I’m unaware of?
“What is your family branch?” Xi Mu asked.
Xi Kai had no idea what he was talking about. The Xi Family has branches? Since when?
At this point, Xi Mu couldn’t help but shoot Xi Kai a disdainful look. “If I didn’t know better, I would think that you’re a sham. The Xi Family split into three branches since a millennium ago, also known as the Tricolor Branch. They are Red, White, and Blue. White remained at their place of origin while Blue cooperated GAL’s forces. I heard that Red left, but I don’t know where they went to.”
His explanation made things a bit clearer for Xi Kai. He asked, “Why the three colors? What’s the meaning behind blue, white and red?”
“The naming is based on the phenomenon where the frequency of reflected light changes with its speed. For example, some reflection nebulae look red because they are moving away from our position, hence why we call the clansmen who chose to leave ‘Red’. As for ‘Blue’, I don’t need to explain that, do I?”
Xi Kai nodded. “Yes, I know which branch I belong to now. I’m Red.”
Xi Mu’s eyebrows shot up in astonishment. “When I was younger, a clansman told me that Red disappeared for almost a millennium. There were rumors saying that they left GAL and traveled to a different a galaxy. Is it true?”
Xi Kai hesitated. He was wondering if he should reveal the existence of the Mist Bodhisattva Empire when Xi Mu said again, “I see. So it is.”
Xi Mu was White, and as far as he knew he was the only White left in the entire universe. Xi Kai thought that his branch’s fate was quite tragic already, but it was nothing compared to the Whites. He and his people were at least protected in the Mist Bodhisattva Empire, but White practically didn’t even exist anymore.
Their conversation continued. A short while later, someone called out to the three robots waiting at the courtyard entrance and told them to head in.
Today was no different from any other day to Czedow, but the same couldn’t be said for Moon and Sigma. They had been struck a weird sense of deja vu they couldn’t explain ever since they came to the courtyard,. That was when they entered the house and saw the Gypsophila hologram.
“It’s the Link of Gypsophila! It’s been so long since I saw one!”
Moon and Sigma went round and round the hologram until finally, they noticed Xi Mu and screeched to a sudden halt.
Xi Mu observed the two robots as they observed him. He quickly came to the conclusion that they were incredible creations, and whoever built them was at least a level 7 Link of Gypsophila player. So why have the Reds declined this much? Why have we been reduced to the state we’re in? And how is it that the least talented of all of us, Blue still doing well to this day?
“Ahem. Have you two played Gypsophila before?” Xi Kai broke the silence with a question.
“But of course!” Sigma could barely control his excitement when he said this. “We used to play this all the time!”
“Which version did you play, the single-level or multilevel one?”
“What do you mean, which version? Gypsophila is an endless web of interlinking stars, or it wouldn’t be called Gypsophila in the first place!” Sigma said in confusion.
Xi Kai coughed again. “I see. Well.” He looked at the two Origin robots again and asked, “Which level are you at right now? Both of you?”
Moon looked down on his feet and played with his fingers like an embarrassed child. He then answered, “I’m… just a level 6 player.”
Level 6? Just?!
Before Xi Kai could spit blood in dramatic fashion, Sigma exclaimed in admiration, “Ah?! You’re level 6 already? I’m still stuck on level 5 to this day! I knew I was the stupidest of you all.”
Xi Kai: “...” Maybe I should dig a hole and bury myself in it.
Xi Mu interrupted them and asked, “Are you guys in a hunter regiment right now?”
“Yeah! Do you want to join us? We can play Link of Gypsophila together everyday!” Both Moon and Sigma looked expectantly at Xi Mu after replying, but in the end Xi Mu didn’t give them a clear answer.
They all stepped out of the house, and that was when Xi Mu spotted Czedow. He lowered his voice and asked Xi Kai, “Who made that robot?”
Xi Kai was surprised. “You noticed that he’s a robot immediately?”
“It wasn’t easy. I had to look very closely. I dare say that the creator of this robot could play the Link of Gypsophila to level 7 at least.”
“Level 7?!” Xi Kai exclaimed, but came to terms with it surprisingly quick. “He does have the ability.”
Cillin was Guan Feng’s replacement after all.
“His creator is the commander of the hunter squadron I’m in, Cillin. You can trust him.”
That night, Xi Mu sat alone in his room and played Link of Gypsophila with himself. He had been doing this for the past ten years or so. When dawn broke, the game board was covered in an innumerable amount of stars that could make a person dizzy just by looking at it. The young man’s gaze didn’t waver, but it took him between one to two minutes of thinking before he made a move.
The base was the eighth level of the Link of Gypsophila, and Xi Mu was trying to make it to the ninth. It had been two years since he completed the eighth level, but he still wasn’t able to overcome the hurdle.
Two minutes of thinking later, Xi Mu touched a spot on the hologram and knew that he had failed yet again. As expected, fractures appeared from the spot he had touched and spread to the entire board like a spider web.
Xi Mu sighed and dispeled the board. Then, he began packing his stuff.
The next day morning, Cillin woke up to find Xi Mu standing at the entrance. He carried a backpack behind his back.
“I’d like to join you.” Xi Mu went straight to the point.
Cillin didn’t expect this of course. He thought that the possibility of recruiting Xi Mu was there, but he never expected the young man to request to join him of his own accord. In fact, Angenia and Hara were just telling him that he should take the initiative last night because Xi Mu wasn’t the type of person to speak out his thoughts.
“There will be a probation period, and you’ll need a majority vote from the crew,” Cillin said. He wasn’t being difficult; he was just stating the standard recruitment rules of all Vanguard B Squadrons.
“Angenia gave you her armor, didn’t she?” Xi Mu responded with a question. He sounded very certain, and Cillin saw no reason to lie about this.
“Yes, she gave me her own set.”
“Return it. That five armor we gave her are built to be usable by all but those who didn’t meet the physical requirements. It’s good for Angenia and her family because they don’t often go into combat, at least not personally, but not for specialized personnel who conducts highly risky missions on the norm like you. It will need to be stronger and integrate with your nerves faster. There’s no need to keep an armor that don’t fit you, is there?”
Cillin looked at Xi Mu for a moment before breaking into a smile. “Okay.”
The young man didn’t say it outright, but it was obvious what he was implying: I can make you and your crew a better armor.
“Welcome to Vanguard’s Eleventh B Squadron!”
Moon, Sigma and Xi Kai were very happy when they heard that Xi Mu had decided to join the hunter squadron. Officially, Xi Mu was Xi Kai’s younger cousin.
Xi Mu listed a number of materials he required to make the armor, and Angenia gifted most of them to Cillin without asking for any compensation at all. However, there were still some rare materials that even Golden Beginning didn’t have, or had too little to share.
Thankfully, Xi Mu roughly knew where to look for these materials. After staying in Golden Beginning’s headquarters for three days, the squad left to look for the materials Xi Mu spoke of. Angenia sent them an escort because any ship without a guide would be treated as an enemy vessel and dealt with accordingly in Sector S.