The next day, Yekase sat in Sandryon’s self-driving arcane air-carriage, a crescent boat of glass and brass drifting through cloudlight, and rode with her toward Shangyin City.

“Huaxia’s Alchemy grew slow, like moss in shade,” Sandryon said from the sofa, her voice floating like tea steam. “The few alchemists are mostly self-taught, wild vines climbing on their own. They care more for works than people, yet their pride stands straight as pine.”

Why slow? The question pricked like a thorn.

Simple. Mind Energy is too useful, slick as oil on gears.

When Yekase first studied Flash Energy, papers were mirages in a desert. The line she heard most was, “Why not study Mind Energy instead?” It burned into her like a brand.

“Got it,” she said, calm like a stone skipped across a lake.

“I sorted the guest dossiers,” Sandryon added, the words smooth as silk. “They’re in the drawer at your right. Something to pass the road-time. You can’t settle your heart without a page in your hand, can you?”

“...Thanks.” Gratitude rose first, warm as lamplight, then she moved. Yekase’s impression of Sandryon was “unreliable,” a paper tiger in her head. But when she looked close, there wasn’t a single slip. On the contrary, gentle, wise, steady, beautiful—jade bright under moon.

Pity. Greed carves a crack down jade.

Yekase slid open the drawer and pulled out a fat stack of A4 printouts, the edges sharp as cards in a gambler’s hand.

Huh... She’d expected secret vellum covered in sigils, a relic smelling of dust and ink. This was straight printer ink on office paper, banal as rain on concrete. She flipped through anyway, lazy as a cat.

“The Crystal Witch, Sandryon di Serpi—”

“Isn’t that you!” she blurted, the line snapping like a twig. “And with your full name! Who puts herself in the dossier? Is this your résumé?”

“Skip me,” Sandryon said, her tone cool as glazed porcelain. “There’s a fussy alchemist who’s very invested in others’ eyes. Don’t try roasting her that hard.”

Fussy. She said it out loud, a blade flashed and slid back into the sheath.

Next page. “Ironfire Swordmaster, Luzhixing.”

“...” Yekase blinked, then slid her gaze away like a fish.

So you’re an alchemist? The swordsmith act, the Mind Energy specialization, were those just stage lights? A crafted persona, all smoke and mirrors?

In that instant, she glimpsed the dark underbelly of fighting circuits, like a streetlit alley hiding knives.

...Anyway, next page.

Thankfully, the rest looked normal, like stones laid in a path.

“Crescent Puppeteer, Alicia Alicia,” from Britain. Master of puppetcraft, from domestic maid dolls to war golems, a web spun across every field.

“Sky-Blooded Gun-Princess, Aurora,” a Slav. Her signature is to become an ice dragon. In the photo, the dragon looks oddly like the black wyrm Mila, two shadows cast by one moon—who copied whom?

“Machina of the Evening Star, Chubu Risa,” Japanese by the name alone. The first modern engineer to fuse Omega Ray and Alchemy, lightning stitching metal to myth. She’s the only one whose title says “god,” peak adolescent grandiosity wrapped in steel.

“Kingmaker of Gentle Light, Natasha von Wagner,” German. A mag-cannon wielder, dawn condensed into a barrel.

...It felt like reading bios for the Four Heavenly Kings, banners snapping in a storm. Given the source, it probably wasn’t posturing but truth—yet remembering Sandryon sat among them, the thunder in her chest turned to drizzle.

What, we’re going to brawl with this lot in the hall? They’re not even all with the Sinister Organization.

“Huaxia’s the host. Why are these all foreigners?” Yekase asked, words tossed like pebbles.

“Guests,” Sandryon said, eyes on the horizon, lids like shutters. “If we don’t show, three quarters of attendees will turn around and leave, moths leaving a cold lamp.”

“Yes, yes. Your renown’s a mountain,” Yekase said, half bow, half sigh, a leaf blown along.

Light from the window grew bright and many-colored, like koi weaving through water. They finally crossed the suburbs and slid over Shangyin City.

As the largest international port on the southeast coast, Shangyin City outspread itself one full ring beyond Twin Towers City, a steel lotus blooming toward the future Yekase imagined. Countless flyers threaded the glass high-rises like swallows. Between towers, giant platforms built sky-terraces, stepping-stones in the air.

Sandryon watched the view, a low murmur spilling like wine. “In this godforsaken place, the organization security tax starts at two hundred yuan a month. Two hundred! I’ll never do business here in this life. What’s good security worth, when the air smells like coin? Glitter on paper, rot in the core.”

Says the one with gold dust in her eyes.

Yekase kept the jab in her heart, a fishhook tucked in her cheek. She didn’t live here; the cyberpunk sheen was just a neon aquarium to gawk at.

Still, a city with good security... You don’t hear many heroes from Shangyin...

Oh. MAYA counts.

The carriage sank onto a huge platform overlooking the city, a hawk folding its wings.

Yekase peeked out the window and caught the main door of a building. The whole place sat on the platform, a palace of gold leaf and bright lacquer, like a foreign kingdom dropped among modern cliffs.

It looked like Vienna’s Golden Hall, a music box cracked open. Between buildings ran rivers of colored light. Given the owner, they should be rare magical light sources, stars caged in glass.

But with Sorcery’s damned quirks, magic lights don’t last long, especially this big. That unheard-of Huaxia Alchemy Association, what are they really...

“Why’d they install LED strips?” Sandryon sniffed. “Flashy for no reason.”

...So mundane?!

She stared. It was LED, cold and even as supermarket light.

After that dossier full of tongue-biting entries, Yekase’s last sliver of expectation for the so-called Alchemy Association dissolved in the dreamy glow, sugar melting in tea.

While she was barely holding it together, Sandryon had already stepped down, walked to the right side, and gently opened the door, a butler in silk gloves.

Then she held out a hand to Yekase. “Let’s go.”

“...Where did you pick up the prince act?” Suspicion rose first, a cat’s fur lifting, and she held back her hand. Her danger sense rang like a bell. This wasn’t simple.

Sandryon had said, “Bring a companion or a disciple,” and during planning she’d maintained that master-disciple stance like a screen. But do masters invite a disciple to alight hand-in-hand? That feels like a play.

Fake etiquette? She’s the prim relic who blushes at a hand-kiss.

So there’s only one answer—

“This gala requires bringing a companion. You thought it’d hurt your face, so you upgraded it to ‘disciple,’ didn’t you?”

“...” Sandryon said nothing. Her hand hung in the air like a held breath.

“I’m happy to be your companion,” Yekase said, voice soft as rain. “But don’t put on airs in weird places...”

Sandryon’s hand started to tremble, a leaf on water.

Her wronged look bloomed, and Yekase felt a strange urge to shield her, like cupping a candle in wind... a granny in a child’s shell, dangerously disarming.

Yekase took her hand.

“Then let’s make our entrance, Master.”

“Mm.” A tiny sound, like a seed sprouting.

A little coaxing, and she brightened. At the word “Master,” the shadow left Sandryon’s face in an instant, a cloud blown off the moon. She fake-coughed twice, rebuilt her usual aura, and led Yekase through the front doors of the counterfeit Golden Hall.

Two attendants came up at once, steps smooth as a metronome.

“Ms. Fenxi, you’re here. The Chairman has been waiting. Please follow us to the reception room.” After that, they looked at Yekase. “And this is your companion?”

“Yes. My disciple,” Sandryon said, authority like a seal stamped in wax. “Take her to a lounge to change.”

“Understood. Miss, this way please.” The attendant on the right nodded and gestured, a swan’s wing inviting. Yekase had never seen pomp like this. She went meek as a sparrow and followed into another corridor.

If they’d been rude, she could’ve flipped a switch and gone to battle mode, a knife from a sleeve. But when people bowed and smiled, her hands had nowhere to go.

“I didn’t expect Ms. Fenxi to take a disciple,” the attendant said on the way, small talk offered like warm tea to cut the awkward chill. “Since my mother can remember, that lady has shown a face of only Alchemy in her heart, indifferent to everything else.”

But I met your ice-queen lady in a model-mecha fighting game. The protest rose hot, then she bit it back, a spark pressed under a heel.

“...Maybe she saw some kind of talent in me,” Yekase said, doubt first, then words, “like deconstructing Ancient Alchemy into a big messy tangle...”

“Deconstruct? Heh, that’s fine,” the attendant said with a light laugh, a bell over water. “Every field needs someone to break the old so the new can rise. A craft as ancient as Alchemy needs that even more.”

Yekase turned her words over like a coin, then put on her sales smile, bright as enamel. “I agree completely.”

The grin looked sweet and sincere, a blossom shown to sun. In her chest, doubt coiled like incense smoke.

What kind of association are you? Even a guide knows about breaking the old to found the new. And she sounds like there’s a whole library behind her eyes.

“Here we are. This is your lounge,” the attendant said, stopping before a door, palm open like a fan. “Go out the other door and straight to reach the public parlor. Ms. Fenxi will come for you in about an hour. If you need anything, use the phone by the bed to call me.”

“Okay...” Yekase pushed the door. Inside was a hotel-grade single room, tidy as a newly raked garden.

“Do you need help changing?”

“Uh, n-no, I’m fine!” She shook her head fast, slipped inside, and shut the door, a fish vanishing into reeds.

Then she took out the outfit from her teleportation case, the lid lifting like a portal.

The black gauze dress Sandryon had stitched by hand glittered with pinprick stars that only showed if you looked twice, a night sky caught in net. The lines were simple, modest, and reserved, yet its value sat heavy as gold. Yekase hardly dared wear it, as if one snag would become a debt mountain. But she’d come this far; the road behind had already burned.

Resolved like a soldier under a dawn drum, she undressed and dressed.

The bodice covered her tight—though her headlights weren’t the kind worth flashing. The collar mimicked a shirt’s folded line, pinned with a silver button, a moon on white. Sleeveless, shoulders bare, it gave a lively, youthful feel, a spring bud showing green.

Lower down, a deliberately mature corset belt pulled her shape into focus, a bowstring drawn. With the flat-cut skirt, it made the wearer look slim and long. Not gorgeous; a simple, workshop beauty that shines like polished wood.

...Even at 162 centimeters, “tall” was a trick of mirrors.

She swapped to round-toed leather shoes. She laced the corset’s crossed straps like shoelaces, pulled tight, and tied a neat knot, a ribbon on a gift.

Then there was nothing to do.

She very, very much wanted to dive into that cloud-soft bed, a swallow into eiderdown. But she feared snapping the laces. Wanting and not daring felt like the dress itself had bound her, silk as chains. Honestly, a little too lewd.

Even this feels lewd. The thought flushed first; then she scolded herself. Am I so starved I’m hallucinating?

One hour... Sandryon won’t come for a whole hour.

Yekase slumped into the sofa and stared at the ceiling, mind floating like a paper boat.

So why did I put the dress on now?

Huh?