The group chat had become Takumi's morning ritual. He liked watching the notifications scroll like a newspaper printed across universes—mundane, absurd, occasionally terrifying. Today's feed unfurled with particularly delicious chaos.
Takumi: Have you heard of orbital railguns?
Bronya: !!!! What the—? That's sci-fi!
Takumi: Exactly~! Himeko's data included orbital railgun designs and spacecraft schematics.
Himeko: It's just stuff I've collected. Useful? Good. Don't go rogue.
Bronya: This is absurd. You're getting stronger by the hour. Envy levels ↑.
Takumi: I want magic next. Science is fine, but magic expands the ontology of reality. @Akeno @Zhongli can you collect alchemy/magic? I'll trade points/knowledge.
Zhongli: Already in progress. I've contacted several elders; I will send archives. If Teyvat ever fails, I hope your world shelters Liyue.
Takumi: Welcome any time. No conditions.
Zhongli's message blinked like a small treaty. Takumi read and felt the strange warmth of responsibility tighten around his ribs—an offer of refuge carried by a god. He typed a modest reply and then looked away, thinking about logistics rather than sentiment: housing, biospheres, cultural integration, language bridges.
Before he could plan the welcome committee, another pair of notifications popped up.
System: [Simma Heavy Industries has joined the Multiverse Chat Group.]
System: [Not an Assassin has joined the Multiverse Chat Group.]
Takumi blinked. Simma — industrial conglomerate name ringing a bell from those corner-of-the-net animations; Not an Assassin — an alias that smelled of either misdirection or a very bored killer with a sense of humor. The chat exploded.
Fujiwara Chika: Welcome!! Welcome!! Stickers for everyone!!
Sagiri: Hello, new people! (＊>﹏<)
Akeno: Ara~ new friends.
Zhongli: Welcome. Group red packet to confirm legitimacy.
Takumi: Hi. Curious to see your listings.
Zhongli posted a small red packet as a ceremonial validation. Simma responded with a formal message and a pinned product list; Not an Assassin left only a cryptic emoji and a private DM to Takumi: "I prefer to see things firsthand. If you ever need a cleaner job…"
Takumi closed the private DM with a slow exhale. He didn't need hired blades; he had orbital barrels. Still — the universe had a way of adding edges just when you thought things were soft.
He opened the system shop to look for new listings. The store header had been updated overnight; a small, official-sounding banner read: New Feature Unlocks — Community Shop Expansion. Pins glowed on the top row.
• Skill Enhancement — 1000 points (×10 for second use)
• Teleport Talisman — 1000 points
• Ultra Teleport Talisman — 100,000 points
• Injury Recovery — 1000 points
• Lottery Draw — 1000 points/attempt
Takumi's eyes lingered on the "Ultra Teleport Talisman." A single five-figure price tag for planetary-level travel that could bypass reality's normal constraints? The Herrscher of Reason hummed in the background like an eager librarian.
He felt the Cocoon's whisper again: Shortcuts accelerate civilization. Use the talisman and bring people faster. Recruit specialists. Grow faster.
Takumi pinched the bridge of his nose. He was becoming adept at noticing that voice. It never lied; it only wanted efficient ends. It never judged methods. He had to.
He pinged Bronya and Zhongli privately, then posted publicly to control rumor.
Takumi: Shop update. New items include teleport talismans (including an ultra-tier) and a Skill Enhancement. Thoughts? Propose policies before people buy.
The chat heated differently this time — some voices practical, others suspicious.
Bronya (DM): Ultra-teleports are extremely risky. They can leak cross-world resonance. I advise strict quarantine.
Zhongli (DM): Immutable audit, limited issuance, and consent forms. Also: distribute via academy missions only.
Akeno: Ooh, teleport talismans? Imagine the mischief. But yes, safety first~
Takumi set up a simple governance outline in the Academy's ledger: teleport talismans could be acquired only through the Academy after passing a "Transit Integrity" course and obtaining endorsement by at least two mentors. Ultra-tier items required a vote by the council and would be issued only for clear community benefit (evacuations, critical specialists, refugee relocation).
He scheduled the council vote for the next day and arranged an emergency lecture: Transit Ethics & Resonance Containment.
While designing the training module, Takumi felt the pull to do a small experiment — a demonstration at a safe scale, to learn rather than to wield. He wanted to test a teleport talisman on a non-sentient payload: a sealed crate containing an inert farm-node drone. He called the SEEDs and set up the protocol in the Void sandbox. He would use Restraint Authority to constrain the effect and the Reason Authority to monitor causal drift.
The test was textbook at first. Takumi put the talisman against the crate and invoked its activation sequence. Reality wobbled like heat above asphalt, a visible ripple from the plaza to the yard, and then the crate vanished in a polite pop.
Telemetry reported arrival at the target coordinates—two kilometers north, in the training field. The crate reappeared intact. All variables nominal.
Then something odd happened.
A faint echo flickered through the feed: not a system error, but a memory bleed. For an instant, Takumi's mental model of the crate contained two states simultaneously — the crate at origin and the crate at destination, overlapping like transparency. It was subtle, and the SEEDs flagged micro-desynchronization on temporal readouts. The Cocoon purred not as a contented cat but as a predator that had caught scent.
Takumi tightened the Restraint buffer and replayed the telemetry. There was no lasting damage. The crate had not duplicated. But the overlap suggested the talisman's transit algorithm briefly entangled causal threads — not enough to cause disaster, but enough to cause worry.
He posted the results with an honest note.
Takumi: Teleport talisman test complete. Non-sentient payload transported. Observed micro-causal overlap for ~0.2 seconds. No duplication. Recommend containment protocol and strict training before human usage.
The group reacted with a mix of alarm and excitement.
Bronya: I told you. Teleports are elegant, dangerous.
Zhongli: We will add a temporal dampener requirement to the Transit Integrity course.
Akeno: Ara~ I wanted to test it on Chika but safety first!!
Fujiwara Chika: Chika is not a test subject!! (pouts)
Meanwhile, Simma Heavy Industries posted a curated offering: modular factory blueprints, mass-farm replicators, and an industrial logistics AI. Their message was professional, signed by a corporate rep avatar. It smelled like opportunity. If Takumi accepted some listings into the shop, it could speed manufacturing for the city. He forwarded Simma's catalog to Bronya and Zhongli.
Takumi (DM to Bronya & Zhongli): Simma looks legit. Could accelerate production. Thoughts on vetting?
Bronya: Vet by code audits and by public provenance. I'll deploy a test instance in the quarantined lab.
Zhongli: I will examine their trade history. Also require civic-ethics clause.
The chat's tone was now governance-meets-commerce — a room full of people choosing laws. Takumi felt simultaneously relieved and exhilarated. This was the civilizing work he'd wanted: rules, not decrees.
Even so, he could sense a personal psychological edge sharpening. Each new tech, each new item unlocked, tugged the Cocoon's appetite. He realized this was less about greed and more about an addictive competence: the joy of solving puzzles at planetary scale. It was intoxicating.
To balance it, Takumi set a personal contract: for every new major acquisition, he would spend a day teaching at the Academy. No exceptions. He wrote the rule into the Academy ledger and signed it with his avatar seal. Then he posted to the group.
Takumi: Council vote tomorrow on teleport policy. Simma vetting scheduled. New members, welcome—please follow the Academy orientation. Also—who wants to teach tomorrow? I'll be giving a lecture on Engineering Ethics & Desire Management at 10:00.
Sagiri: I'll bring snacks and mascot prints!!
Chika: I'll bring festival snacks—don't make me teach quantum mechanics though.
Bronya: I'll audit Simma's code. And I shall attend your lecture. It might be amusing.
Zhongli: I will present a legal brief.
As the group disbanded for the day, Takumi sat on the Library-Tree balcony and watched the stars. The orbital ring he'd built glinted faintly in the distance; the shop's new items hummed in his head. He felt the Cocoon's whisper like a second pulse in his blood.
But now he had rules, checks, and colleagues. He had become a conduit rather than a tyrant.
The temptation remained—soft, insistent—but he had learned to channel it: build the school first, teach the travelers, keep the ledger open. Tomorrow's vote would be about more than teleport talismans. It would be a test of whether this multiversal city would choose speed or restraint.
He sipped his soda, tasted the fizz, and smiled at the tiny human pleasure. The world could wait for the right answers.