Thankfully, Eva appeared to be busy this evening.
Katarina had her notes spread across the entire bench. Three formation diagrams, a stack of preservation arrays at various scales, a small jade plate she was using as a test surface, and a cup of water.
The qi conduits on the academy bench were on a different tier than the Artigiana's. Stable flow, no fluctuations, real-time readouts on a small jade panel built into the bench itself. In other words, she could watch her formation breathe in real time, and that alone was enough to identify the problem more clearly than the Artigiana had ever let her.
The qi was bleeding.
Not at the corners anymore. The circular loop had fixed that part. It was bleeding through the array itself, leaking out the bottom into the air, the way water leaks out of a clay pot that hasn't been properly fired.
