It was it! Si knew it!

  “So, that was how you figured out how to store yourself in Crystals’ devices back then. Were there more of you in this form? And your Crystal, what is it?” Si asked, very excited.

  Lukai observed attentively.

  “Song—Commander, I will use his title for better clarity. Commander worked with his brother, Anders I mean, on a separate project. Lan, Elder Lan, our inventor, was involved as well. The three of them did some tests and created a prototype of a natural Crystal. It was meant to be used for—”

  “Navigations,” Lukai interrupted in a gloomy voice.

  Si wondered if it was possible for them not to interrupt Taj.

  He smirked. It didn’t bother anyone.

  “Correct, thank you, Lukai,” Taj said. “You know about it. Good. First, they did it to have something like natural energy power banks, like Crystals, artificial ones, from the City. Later, Commander wanted to start developing navigations for logistics and, of course, weapons. Lan had an idea. The Elders’ exam inspired her: what if we tried to use one of the bits of consciousness we use in this exam and try to insert it into the Crystal? And then attempt to use it in our Gate to navigate the traffic there as the first test? We were also working then on the Gates idea. You are aware of it, no?”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  All nodded.

  “Good. Lan, who was, as she said, dying anyway, was the first. That’s a long story as well. She decided to split herself and try. But it didn’t work. After a few attempts, they put it aside. Until I was unlucky. I got into a situation, no matter the details, but I was caught and used in an experiment. My energies collided in a fatal way. I was dying, and Commander asked me to insert my bit, my consciousness, into one of Crystals’ devices. He also used one Crystal for himself. Soon after, we both died.” Taj stopped here.

  “The problem was that I was the only one to awaken,” he added.

  Luna sighed.

  “It was only me. I had to learn how to navigate the situation. It wasn’t instant for us to begin asking questions and discovering what happened. Lan couldn’t reproduce it; it was not described anywhere, in any papers, because, as she always claimed, if she couldn’t reproduce it, then it was not science,” Taj said with a slight smile.

  “Anders, he had a colleague from the City, who was asking about these navigations’ concepts, and they started to cooperate. Anders wanted to try, so he went to the City. It was after Lan was dead; she wouldn’t agree if she was alive… Anders took all the Crystals we created.”

  Taj stopped and looked at them all.

  “I have almost finished. To clarify, we created ten Crystals. One is mine. One was Commander’s; his Crystal was empty and dissolved after some time. It was completely gone. The other eight had Lan’s consciousness inside. No one else participated in this project. These eight Anders took with him to the City, to work on spaceship navigations with a scientist called Riggs.”