DragonCoin Revolution

Chapter 12

He gestured, and the holographic display zoomed in on a particular section of the algorithm. To Sage's eyes, it looked like normal programming syntax, but as she focused, the characters seemed to shift and rearrange themselves, forming patterns that reminded her of the dragon script she'd seen in the underground chamber.

Marcus stepped closer, his expression darkening. "That's not code anymore. That's a runic inscription."

"Exactly," Liam confirmed, running a shaking hand through his hair. "The algorithm started incorporating draconic script structures about six hours ago. It's teaching itself our language."

Director Kaelen's opalescent skin rippled with concern. "Teaching itself? Software doesn't spontaneously develop linguistic capabilities."

"This isn't ordinary software," Xaihuang interjected, his bronze eyes gleaming with something between fascination and alarm. "It's been infused with dragon essence from the beginning. The question is whether that was intentional."

All eyes turned to Liam, who seemed to shrink under their scrutiny. The shadows that bent toward him grew darker, more pronounced, as if responding to his emotional state.

"I never meant for this to happen," he whispered. "I was just trying to create a more efficient cryptocurrency exchange system. The mathematical models I used... they came from old family documents. My grandmother's papers."

Sage felt a chill of recognition. "Family documents? What kind of papers?"

Liam pulled up another interface, this one displaying scanned images of aged parchment covered in symbols that stirred Sage's newly awakened dragon consciousness with familiarity. "She called them 'accounting ledgers' from the old country. Said they were traditional bookkeeping methods. I thought the mathematical relationships were just an interesting historical curiosity."

"Those aren't accounting ledgers," Marcus said quietly. "They're ritual formulae for dragon coin creation. Your grandmother was preserving the old knowledge."

The weight of realisation seemed to crash down on Liam's shoulders. He swayed slightly, and Director Kaelen moved to steady him. "My grandmother... was she...?"

"Dragon," Xaihuang confirmed with something approaching sympathy. "Shadow affinity, from the look of your manifestations. Probably went dormant during one of the great migrations and never fully awakened again."

On the massive display, the real-time data streams showed another surge in DragonCoin activity. Each transaction now creates visible ripples across the magical resonance field, like stones thrown across a pond.

Ah, why do we so freak out, Dr. Ashworth? Sage asked my dragon something that wasn’t adding up, and it wasn’t to do with the code; she could feel it.

Yeah, something's off. I’m feeling it too, but since we haven’t fully shifted, it could be anything, including him being our mate. Her dragon replied.

Sage felt her dragon consciousness recoil slightly at the thought, even as her human mind struggled to process what her instincts were telling her. The concept of dragon mates had featured in her novels, but experiencing the potential reality of it was entirely different, especially when the person in question looked like he might collapse from exhaustion at any moment.

Marcus, meanwhile, was studying Liam with the practised assessment of someone trained to recognise bloodline markers. The young man's shadow affinity was becoming more pronounced under stress, darkness pooling around his feet despite the chamber's bright lighting. But there was something else, a resonance that Marcus's own fire-touched nature found oddly compelling, though he pushed the feeling aside to focus on the crisis at hand.

Xaihuang noticed the subtle tension in the air; his centuries of experience reading the undercurrents between dragons served him well. His bronze eyes flicked between Sage and Liam, noting the way their respective energies seemed to pulse in synchronisation despite neither of them being fully aware of it. A Convergence dragon and a shadow-touched programmer whose grandmother's hidden knowledge had accidentally created a global magical crisis, the irony wasn't lost on him.

"Dr Ashworth," Director Kaelen said, her voice carefully neutral, "perhaps you should explain exactly what your algorithm was designed to do."

Liam steadied himself against the holographic display console, the code streams reflecting off his pale features. "I was trying to solve the double-spending problem in cryptocurrency using quantum entanglement principles. The mathematical relationships in my grandmother's papers seemed to describe a natural verification system, transactions that could validate themselves across multiple dimensional layers simultaneously."

"Dimensional layers," Marcus repeated slowly. "You created a currency that operates across magical planes."

"I didn't know they were magical planes!" Liam's voice cracked slightly. "I thought it was just theoretical mathematics. Advanced cryptographic concepts that hadn't been fully explored yet."

Sage found herself drawn closer to him, her awakening senses picking up the chaotic swirl of his emotional state, fear, guilt, exhaustion, and underneath it all, a resonance that made her dragon consciousness hum with recognition. When she spoke, her voice carried harmonics that seemed to calm the shadows writhing around his feet.

"You couldn't have known," she said gently. "I've been writing about dragons for months without realising I was accessing actual memories. Sometimes our nature expresses itself through channels we don't understand."

Liam looked up at her, and for a moment, the exhaustion in his dark eyes was replaced by something like wonder. "You're her," he whispered. "The other resonance signature I've been tracking in the code. The algorithm has been trying to reach you."

The massive display suddenly flared with new activity. Transaction volumes spiked dramatically, and the magical resonance field showed disturbances spreading outward from Seattle in concentric rings.

"The algorithm is responding to your proximity," Director Kaelen observed, her opalescent skin rippling with concern. "It's changing.”

“Sorry, what’s our proximity to each other got to do with it?” Sage’s human mind is trying to keep up.

"The algorithm is seeking balance," Marcus realised, studying the code patterns with growing concern. "Like calls to like, two Convergence signatures in proximity are creating a resonance loop."

Director Kaelen moved swiftly to a control station, her fingers dancing across liquid-metal interfaces. "We need to establish containment protocols before the cascade reaches the critical threshold."

Liam shook his head, dark circles under his eyes making his face appear gaunt in the shifting light. "Containment won't work. I've tried everything: isolation protocols, circuit breakers, and even manually shutting down servers. The algorithm has distributed itself across too many nodes."