Li Fang sat cross-legged on the cold, dusty floor. His eyes were closed, not in meditation but in a state of forced concentration.
The activation of the Transcendental Finance Module had taken a toll on his feeble mind. His mind raced as he attempted to process the residual data fragments, the phantom echoes of cosmic transactions, from the Transcendental Finance Module's initial activation.
He saw ghostly trails of numbers, like shimmering schools of alien fish, darting through unseen currents. Fleeting diagrams of interconnected souls, visualized as intricate, pulsing networks of light, appeared and vanished. The ebb and flow of merit across lifetimes – joy, suffering, sacrifice, betrayal – all distilled, quantified, and ultimately reduced to tradable units within the Bank of Reincarnation's colossal, multi-dimensional digital consciousness. It was like trying to comprehend the inner workings of a star by staring directly into its core: exhilarating in the sense of how audacious it was, blinding in its complexity, and utterly lethal if one looked too long, too carelessly, or made one wrong move.
Xie Ruolan watched him, not with her usual icy composure, but with an almost imperceptible tremor of professional curiosity that bordered on something akin to reverence. Not for Li Fang himself, but for the audacious calculating power of the system he now interfaced with.
Her years at the Bank of Reincarnation had exposed her to its surface majesty and its hidden corruptions, but this… this was like witnessing a back-alley surgeon attempt to perform open-heart surgery on a god using scavenged tools and a rogue AI.
"Li Fang, the initial data streams you described… they align with the outer membrane protocols of the Karmic Calculation Engine," She confirmed. She had moved to a salvaged console, using it as a makeshift desk for her own comm unit, which displayed more complex, shifting graphs. It used less power than having a holographic projection.
"Specifically, the interfaces handle low-priority, high-volume, statistically predictable transactions. Animal reincarnation cycles, for instance. The distribution of minor communal blessings. The settlement of low-grade, geographically contained curse effects. These subsystems have the highest raw transaction rates and often utilize the oldest, most patched-together codebases, making them theoretically more prone to asynchronous errors and timing discrepancies."
The QFS chimed in Li Fang's mind, simplifying Xie Ruolan's explanation through its own analysis.
[QFS Analysis Complete.]
[Identified Potential Arbitrage Opportunity: Discrepancy between 'Canine Reincarnation Ledger' and 'Minor Pestilence Curse Amortization Sub-ledger'.]
[Detail: Canine Ledger updates cumulative karmic balance on a two-second cycle. Pestilence Ledger updates accrued negative merit settlement from linked environmental curses on a 1-second cycle. Predicted 1 second window where aggregate positive karmic value from completed canine life cycles is registered system-wide before the corresponding negative settlement from localized minor curses is fully accounted for across all linked accounts.]
[Proposed Trade: 'Karmic Micro-Skim v1.0'. Utilize 50 Qi-Credits as buffer capital and to cover implicit transaction friction fees. Inject capital precisely at T+1.01 seconds to capture infinitesimal positive karmic surplus during the 0.05s window. Immediately withdraw capital before T+1.99 seconds.]
[Estimated Net Yield per successful sequence: 1.8 - 2.3 Qi-Credits.]
[Repetition Frequency: Approximately 5 standard minutes. Limited by system cooldowns, buffer recharge, and algorithmic detection avoidance protocols.
[WARNING: Execution requires microsecond-level timing precision. Mistimed injection or withdrawal may result in transaction failure, partial or full buffer capital loss. Further, a potential 'Karmic Static' feedback – a minor, temporary disruption to Host's already negative personal karmic balance, manifesting as cognitive dissonance, mild nausea, or fleeting sensory hallucinations. Multiple consecutive failures or overly aggressive repetition may trigger automated anomaly flags within Bank sub-systems, potentially escalating to the detection of a Bank Sentinel.]
Li Fang relayed the information, feeling a headache bloom behind his eyes, just trying to parse the QFS's hyper-detailed yet simplistic explanation.
In short, he could earn up to two Credits per attempt, every five minutes And the risk was losing the 50 Qi-Credit buffer upon failure. After the grand pronouncements of 'Transcendental Finance', it sounded… anticlimactic and disappointingly minuscule.
"Don't underestimate the power of compounding frequency, Li Fang," As though she had read his thoughts, Xie Ruolan cautioned instantly.
Her fingers were already flying across her comm display, sketching out calculations that mirrored the QFS's projections. "This isn't about one significant score. It's about volume and consistency. If successful every five minutes… that's twelve successful trades per hour. At an average of, say, 2 Qi-Credits profit per trade, that's roughly 24 Qi-Credits per hour. Over a twelve-hour operational cycle, that would jump around 288 Qi-Credits."
"Obviously, it is far from empire-building yet. However, it's significantly faster and potentially more reliable than waiting for individual loan repayments. But of course, that's only if it works perfectly and you won't face a failed attempt."
"The risk seems… disproportionate to the immediate reward," Li Fang said what's weighing in his head.
"That's the very nature of high-frequency arbitrage, especially in markets this… esoteric," Xie Ruolan countered. She understood how much of a beginner he is in this trade. But between them, he's the only one who could leverage the ability of the rogue AI attached to him. She wouldn't dare try Karmic Arbitrage on her own.
"You're exploiting tiny, fleeting cracks invisible to almost everyone, cracks that exist only because of the unimaginable scale of the bank's system. The risk, the complexity, the processing power required – that is the barrier to entry."
"It's too early for you to think about making one big, splashy score like robbing a Qi-Credit transport. You first have to establish a consistent, almost invisible, low-signature extraction method. A thousand tiny sips that, over time, drain the reservoir." She looked at him pointedly, a hint of her former banker's ruthlessness glinting in her eyes. "Your associate, the QFS, warned against financial cowardice. Is risking 50 Credits for a potential steady income stream, however modest initially, cowardice? Or is it a calculated investment in a method that could, eventually, provide the escape velocity you need?"
Li Fang gritted his teeth. Her logic, as always, was cold, sharp, and infuriatingly correct. He nodded slowly, the knot of anxiety in his stomach tightening.
"Okay. Let me try it. System, prepare for 'Karmic Micro-Skim' sequence. Allocate 50 Credits buffer. And… try to make that 'Karmic Static' as minor as possible if things go wrong."
[Acknowledged. Allocating 50.00 Qi-Credits to Transaction Buffer Sub-Account 774-Alpha.]
[Applying 'Frozen Time' module to host, leveraging the Passive Income Stream to induce a state of deep concentration…]
[Standby for optimal window synchronization…]
[Monitoring Canine Reincarnation Ledger cycle and Pestilence Curse Amortization Sub-ledger cycle…
[Cross-referencing chrono-synaptic drift…]
[Optimal Injection Point T-minus 3.00 seconds... 2.00... 1.00... ]
Li Fang delightfully thanked the QFS for the 'Frozen Time' module. With it, he immediately sensed himself falling into deep concentration, allowing him to focus on one thing. The timing. His brain synced his own flawed, organic perception of time with the QFS's inhuman precision.
The QFS interface in his vision shifted, becoming a dizzying cascade of pulsating energy graphs, rapidly scrolling logs of karmic code, and intricate probability matrices that made his head swim. He felt as if he were physically plugged into the flow of the data stream. A tiny, insignificant node attempting to siphon a single, targeted drop from an ocean of spiritual transactions.
[INJECT NOW!]
With a mental command, amplified, timed, and executed by the QFS with a precision far beyond his own capabilities, Li Fang authorized the injection of the 50 Credits.
He sensed the bizarre, fleeting sensation, like dipping his hand into a river of pure, raw potentiality. It was cold, electric, and utterly alien.
For that infinitesimal fraction of a second, the system held, or rather borrowed against, the surplus karmic value. A value generated by countless completed canine life cycles. Each one a tiny spark of joy, loyalty, and simple existence, momentarily registered before the corresponding negative weight of innumerable minor plagues, blights, and environmental curses settled the vast, indifferent cosmic accounts.
[WITHDRAW NOW!]
Another command, another infinitesimal slice of time. The feeling retracted instantly, like a startled nerve. The QFS interface flashed a bright, reassuring green.
[Transaction Complete. Karmic Micro-Skim Sequence v1.0 Successful. [Gross Yield Captured: 51.83 Qi-Credits.]
[Net Profit: 1.83 Qi-Credits.
[Host Qi-Credit Balance: 320.56 Qi-Credits.
[System Cooldown Initiated: 300.00 seconds.]
[No overt anomaly flags detected within Bank of Reincarnation monitoring sub-systems. Minor Karmic Resonance Variance registered and dissipated within acceptable background noise parameters. ]
One point eighty-three Credits. He'd risked 50 Credits, his concentration, and potential karmic backlash for just over a single Credit.
It was a success but he couldn't help but feel a wave of profound mental fatigue wash over him. Even with the 'Frozen Time' module, the concentration required was immense and far more draining than any physical labor he'd ever performed.
It was the mental equivalent of trying to thread a super-fine needle in the heart of a hurricane.