What counts as “universal”?

In Yekase’s design creed, “universal” means keep the core stats, then add flavor, like steel bones wrapped in silk. Gale runs fast, yet it doesn’t strip armor like a moth chasing speed. Dew excels at disruption, yet it still carries shoulder cannons, a thundercloud with a hidden bolt.

For years she kept defense, speed, and firepower at passable levels, like a gamer spreading points across a leaky bucket. A single-soldier frame has a hard cap; no matter how you poke the bars, the cage stays.

Mind Energy, which can bolster the pilot if your will is fierce enough, is the last puzzle piece the Flashblade System lacks, the missing tooth in a clockwork dragon.

Picture the full form: Mind Energy for the pilot, Flash Energy for the armor—inside and out in harmony, like yin and yang braided—double the stat points, towering past market mechs like a mountain breaking the horizon.

Professor F doubts Mind Energy, yet his core claim—“Mind Energy mutates the body”—lacks proof. Truth or conspiracy, the coin is still spinning.

So when she heard “Universal Tech” had turned into a hands-on Mind Energy class, Yekase felt a spark, a moth drawn to a lantern. She cooled a breath later—how deep can high-school go—but let the wind push her feet to the field anyway.

They queued in the crowd. A Mediterranean-bald old man took the platform like a drum on a stand. “First Universal Tech class of the term, begin! I’m your instructor, Zhang! Hello, students!”

“Hello, teacher!” “Instructor!” “Coach!”

The voices rose like scattered sparrows.

“Not loud enough!”

Instructor Zhang clasped his hands behind his back, eyes round as bronze gongs, voice ringing like a temple bell. No loudspeaker; yet the whole field felt the shockwave.

“To harness Mind Energy, you need momentum! You wrestle the unruly will! Make it kneel! Then trust it—hand your body to it!”

“Mmm—!”

Ling Yi, practiced already, took one breath and flexed. Cobalt-blue fire climbed her arms like twin dragons.

Yekase watched the blaze lace her forearms, yet in the fire she saw another face, a ghost on glass. Not just a kink he left behind, huh… I underestimated him.

If everyone’s memories are surfacing, a few days more and we can arrange Ling Nuo Si to meet his family. Tonight, let Ling Ya have a preview.

“How is it? Doc, your turn.”

“I’ll pass.”

She knows the tangles inside her better than anyone. Even Ling Nuo Si said her aura was pitch-black, a moonless well.

Born from that soil, even a “normal” Mind Energy isn’t one she can trust. She won’t bow to it, won’t let it pilot her bones.

“Oh! Looks like someone’s gifted—already mastered externalization!”

Instructor Zhang spotted them and praised from the lectern, voice tossing petals into the crowd.

Eyes swung their way like sunflowers turning. Caught in the gaze, Ling Yi flinched; her azure flame hiccupped, guttering like a candle in wind.

Yekase took her hand, a stone in a river.

“Doc—”

“Decades ago, heroes stood in spotlights. If a few eyes spook you, you can’t be a hero.”

“I’m the type who fights alone where no one looks.”

She quibbled, but her fire steadied, a hearth flame settling.

A classmate eyed their clasped hands. Maybe it’s just visual effects? He leaned in and got kissed by heat, yelping like a cat at boiling water.

Afraid the curious would swarm, Yekase said, “Good enough. Put it away.”

Ling Yi nodded. One thought, and the azure vanished like dew at sunrise.

“Class! Externalization proves your Mind Energy is full and fierce! Then! Draw the flame back into you. Endure the burning of the heart-fire, and you’ll rise a step! As beginners, aim for externalization!”

At his shout, the boys bellowed and started charging, breath like oxen.

But without battle-hardened rhythm or load, you can’t flip a switch and bloom. Even third-years couldn’t crack it. Their momentum was loud; their hands held nothing.

Watching Ling Yi reach inward again, Yekase felt a tide pull. Half a month ago she was an ordinary student, a leaf in the stream. Now she’s left the common road—and the hand that turned the path was mine.

If I hadn’t gone out for booze that night, Ling Yi would be fumbling like the others. I’d be sprawled in my rental, idling like a lizard in sun.

By today’s standards, we strayed off the proper road. With Ling Yi’s talent for Mind Energy, the “right” path is into the Sinister Organization trade; a future cadre-level fighter, a blade with a salary.

“Ling Yi.”

“What’s up?”

“I’ll protect you. No matter what.”

She tilted her head, puzzled as a bird at a mirror. “I know, don’t I?”

Yekase smiled and let silence hold the promise, a knot in red string.

After a while, some students managed to sense a ripple. Most cupped empty water.

Instructor Zhang checked the time, then cut the air with his hand. “Alright! If you still can’t feel Mind Energy, one step forward!”

A few drifted out like leaves.

“That few? I’m not scolding you! If you don’t feel it, be honest and step out!”

Another trickle, then a stream—ten, then dozens. Though it was a joint class for second and third years, each grade had only two or three classes. Now more than a third stood apart, a small island on the field.

Yekase nodded to Ling Yi and stepped forward, a shade among shades.

Instructor Zhang nodded back. “Not feeling Mind Energy is normal. All roads lead to Rome; don’t droop your heads. But some of you might ask, ‘My affinity is trash, I feel nothing, yet I can’t sleep unless I use Mind Energy. What do I do?’”

A few snickers rang like pebbles, but most faces sharpened. Yekase listened too, curiosity pricking; she’s one of the “feel nothing” cases, through and through.

His words sounded like a manual that starts with “You need spiritual roots,” then page two says, “No roots? No problem.” A contradiction penned in ink.

No salt, just facts. If I could control Mind Energy, I’d understand hybrid energy more deeply. Purely academic. No selfishness here at all.

“Your faith is firm, but talent hasn’t blessed you—you, you, and you! I prepared this for you!”

Four PE-committee types carried a big crate from the equipment room, thumped it by the stage.

“Evolution Gauntlets, discarded by D-grade organizations! They resonate with the root of Mind Energy, digging up your deepest faith and will! Even the meek can awaken their own Mind Energy! One per person—take one!”

…Evolution Gauntlet?

That exists? How did Yekase not know?

A D-grade organization covers a city. Twin Towers City has only one if you don’t count super-cities. She’s not close to them, past or present, but basic intel is easy. If they dumped this much old gear, there’d be a surge of purchase orders for new. She’s heard nothing.

And why would gear from a Sinister Organization end up in a high school, like wolves feeding cubs?

Her gaze on the crate sharpened, a knife held low.

The other students didn’t think twice. Two lines formed, hands took Gauntlets, and they went back to coax their fire.

Only four stayed put.

Yekase. Pu Lu. Todo Moka. And Ling Ya.

…All familiar faces.

Pu Lu’s a normal. Ling Ya’s squad works with Soul Power, not Mind Energy—makes sense. As for Todo, Mira’s Mind Energy is too fierce; using it would blow her cover.

“You four—what are you afraid of?!”

Yekase glanced aside. “Miss Pu, won’t you grab one? Your Yiyi plays Mind Energy like a pro.”

Pu Lu snorted. “Quit luring me to test poison. Why don’t you get one?”

“I’m a gentle, bookish clerk. Knowledge is my blade. I don’t need it.”

“Oh, so gentle.”

She didn’t believe a syllable. Yekase hasn’t fought in front of her; must be the scent of gunpowder in her shadow.

Todo hovered, chewing on excuses. Ling Ya drifted close, looked at Pu Lu, words gathering and falling like rain that won’t drop.

Yekase sighed, then walked up and took a Gauntlet.

Just put it on… right?

It was watch-like: a palm-sized metal unit and an elastic band. Yekase stretched the band and cinched it to her left wrist.

“And then? Do I tap it and shout a slogan?”

Then I’ll remodel myself with Mind Energy into the logged alien inside… as if.

She lifted her head to copy the others. Change struck first.

Heat surged from the device into her arm, a furnace-door swinging open. Not the soft warmth of Flash Energy, but a restless, violent heat. It speared the back of her forearm to the marrow. In a blink, her whole body flushed like iron in a forge.

Flash Energy was resonating—the Flash Energy fused with her body ringing like tuning forks.

Two currents of Infinite Power began probing and assimilating each other inside her, snakes twining in a hollow log.

She hadn’t expected this. This exothermic dance shouldn’t happen in human flesh. It wrapped her mind in flame, set her on a spit over coals unseen.

So that’s the trick. Resonance with the root of Mind Energy drags up your deepest faith and will. That’s the birth-ember of Mind Energy. Even with awful affinity, you can brute-force a miracle.

Only by guiding Mind Energy outward can she stop the inner burn now.

My earliest, deepest belief is—

Protect Ling Yi?

That sprouted only recently, a new leaf.

My own little workshop?

That’s compromise with weather and rent.

Before Yekase became Yekase,

before graduation,

even before the One-Year War,

when a boy still held hope like a lantern—

Amid unreal flames, she saw her former self, a silhouette behind paper.

Right. I remember.

“Power enough to smash the rotten ceiling to dust. Then, to build a new world—”

Hollow now, laughable now, yet it still rang like a bell in fog.

“—a god of steel.”

…

Fire bloomed.