“You really can’t dance?”

“Can’t.”

“Isn’t it just holding hands and kicking a leg, like two reeds in the wind?”

“You can?”

“I can’t either.”

Yekase and Sandryon traded a look, then flopped onto the sofa at the edge of the dance floor, like kites cut from their strings.

Whatever.

In this knockoff Vienna hall, a lavish dance floor gleamed like a lake of lacquer, showing how much the designer worshiped social ritual. Too bad Yekase had zero art in her bones; even music to her was just “sounds good” or “doesn’t,” like judging rain by its noise.

“Wait, Master, aren’t you a Renaissance fiend? Didn’t the Renaissance… touch music?”

“How would I know?”

“You don’t?”

“I was carving marble and laying frescoes back then. Once I stepped into Ancient Alchemy, there was no time for scales and scores.”

A waiter drifted past like a shadow. Sandryon poked his thigh—she could only reach that high—and snagged two glasses of dark-golden brew from his tray. She handed one to Yekase and took a sip, eyes half-lidded like a cat tasting cream.

“Craft. Chocolate craft.”

Yekase drank, smacked her lips, and shot back, “Tastes like… Drowsy Sea Otter, the 25-a-bottle wholesale stuff by Hongmiao.”

What’s with this Alchemy association.

It looks grand at a glance, like gilt on plaster, but the details scream penny-pinching—LEDs sneaking under trim, cheap beer sweating in buckets. Rent those lounges out as hotel rooms and you’d make bank; why fake the shine and pour foam?

Though Yekase did have a soft spot for cheap beer, like a streetlight you grew up under.

Which is why she caught it in one sip.

She watched the men and women in the dance pool, and drank a few more mouthfuls, the beer sliding down like amber rain.

They spun in pairs to a gentle background swell, a dance she didn’t know, circling like swans on a lake.

It looked European, elegant, upper-class, like frost on silver.

Yekase couldn’t help thinking: Can ordinary people in Europe afford to learn Alchemy?

The answer was probably no, a locked garden behind iron vines.

They could only use modern magic—good enough, but still tools gifted by others, black boxes that hummed like bees. Even if you mastered the tool till it roared, you’d never glimpse the engine inside. No stair, no first step.

Sandryon raised her glass and stared at the distorted silhouettes swaying in the liquor, like figures rippling under moonlight. Then she asked:

“Yekase—what do you want Alchemy for? What’s a Flash Energy engineer trying to do that only Alchemy can finish?”

Yekase swirled the stem glass. Her presentation swagger was gone like steam in winter. Loneliness thinned her face, a quiet lake after wind.

“Once, a bunch of idealists bled for a beautiful future none of them could even picture. Then they split, got eaten, got corrupted. In the end that future burst like a bubble. Everything failed.”

Those two didn’t come. Yekase spotted them over by the dance floor and the bar, like ghosts anchored to stools.

“Does that story tie to your answer?”

“No. The knowledge is there, so I learn it. That’s it.”

The symposium wrapped like a curtain falling clean.

They took the carriage back to Twin Towers City. At Yekase’s door, Sandryon dropped her off, then lifted into the night like a heron.

Liu RuoYuan heard the noise, opened the door with a dish rag in her hand, the cotton wet like a gray cloud.

She watched the carriage glide away and clicked her tongue.

“Whoa… found yourself a sugar mama?”

Yekase couldn’t even refute that; she sidestepped like a crab. “Rich or not, no idea. She’s an academic warlord.”

Tonight was full of academic warlords, she added in her head, banners rustling like paper.

“Which flavor of Endless Power this time?”

“Infinite Power domain, Sorcery gate, Alchemy order, Ancient Alchemy branch… Also, how many times do I have to say, it’s Infinite Power.”

Liu RuoYuan ignored the correction, nodded like a calm pond. “Ah, no wonder it looks so fantastical. Forget mechanical armor. Gorgeous magic suits a cute girl like you.”

“Give me a break.”

Yekase rolled her eyes, slipped past her, and went inside, like a fish sliding into shade.

“By the way, a friend showed up—”

On the sofa sat Shen Shanshan, bright as a stray spark.

“Where the hell did you come from?”

Shen Shanshan held half a cup of jelly—that jelly was the very dessert Yekase meant to eat tonight, like a pear saved for the quiet hour.

“Boss told me to pass you a message,” she mumbled around the spoon.

“Flunky!”

Yekase stared at the jelly bowl like a kitten locked out of the kitchen, mouth stuck open.

Since Yekase introduced her to Unrecognized Consortium X, Shen Shanshan had stopped scrambling for work. Milla seemed to value her, made her second-in-command of the combat unit, and lately she’d even saved up a bit, coins clinking like rain in a tin.

“Intel says Emerald Pool will move assets inland tonight by a private railway through the north suburbs,” Shen Shanshan said, chewing jelly like snow.

“How about we hit it?”

“I’m tired. Pass.”

“What were you doing just now?”

“Attending a big-deal conference, presenting a major discovery, discussing prospects and forecasts—”

“Speak human.”

“Went and acted like an academic hooligan.”

“Ah, that’s more like it.” Shen Shanshan pointed at Yekase, finger bobbing like a reed. “The phrase ‘academic hooligan’ was tailor-made for you.”

“A beast in fine clothes, huh?”

“A suit-clad thug!”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Yekase didn’t bother sparring. She had few friends good at trading barbs, and this one had done plenty for her. So she softened.

“Alchemy. I want to learn as many power systems as I can while I still have time and breath. Might save a life later, who knows.”

“Ah, I get it. Firepower insufficiency anxiety.”

Shen Shanshan stretched on the sofa like a cat in a sunbeam, spun a lazy circle and a half. She saw Liu RuoYuan head back to her room, and instantly snapped straight like a schoolkid on a first visit, her arms tucked in like wings.

Liu RuoYuan could tell they were old acquaintances from that other side. Who had more blood on their hands was hard to say. She said nothing, walked into one of the apartment’s two enclosed spaces—the kitchen—and shut the door like a lid.

Shen Shanshan and Liu RuoYuan’s eyes met for a heartbeat, then followed her to the kitchen door. Shen spoke, a little cowed, like a sparrow under eaves. “Didn’t you say she’s your real sister? Why does she feel like your mom?”

Yekase briefly recalled her mother, a mountain with a ladle.

“…Yeah. She’s basically my mom.”

“You’ve had it rough…”

“Honestly, it’s fine…”

Awkward air pooled like stale water. Yekase hurriedly turned on the TV, a switch like a flicked firefly.

The drama’s voices rolled out like drums.

Big bro! The era of card bricking… is over! Modern decks… everyone’s a gyroscope!

Even so, our beat deck will hold its road! So what if the opponent births ten thousand with one card?! A man’s blood can’t bow to trifles!

I-it’s warlord chaos! Big bro!!

Ergou!!

Yekase picked up the remote and changed the channel, the screen blinking like a fish’s eye. She frowned and warned Shen Shanshan:

“How many orgs, how many fighters do you think will squat by the tracks tonight, playing guerrilla? Just us two—are you snatching, or getting snatched?”

Shen Shanshan didn’t care, like rain ignoring roofs. “Hey, looting together is fate. We each take a step back, and the rivers and lakes smile later.”

“If you really want in, go the other way. Smash Emerald Pool HQ head-on. Either way, I’m out.”

Yekase opened the fridge and grabbed a beer. The pull tab hissed, a little snake. She took a sip.

Having just tasted not-so-cheap beer, returning to the cheapest made the gap pop like cold air. She’d long been used to poverty, though. She only frowned, a crease like a leaf vein.

“Fine… I’ll go scout HQ in a bit.” Shen Shanshan curled her lip. “Oh, two days from now, full assault. Boss says I’m under your command.”

“She’s wading into the mud too?”

“She says we’re hitting Night Sparrow Diner, just us two.”

“Useless…”

For the actual assets and strength Unrecognized Consortium X had, being a dinky outfit after all these years was absurd. Milla might not bear a hundred percent of the blame, but ninety-nine clung like burrs.

“Another thing.”

“Mm?”

“Picked you a trinket from the black market. You haven’t stopped by lately. Busy chasing that Alchemy, yeah?”

“Uh, yeah… honestly just dabbling.”

Yekase laughed it off. Shen Shanshan reached into her portal case and produced a bronze-colored sphere, like a walnut from a clockmaker’s tree.

A ball made of gears.

Yekase took it lazily and set it on her palm, the weight like a warm stone.

Its diameter was about four centimeters. The whole surface was countless tiny gears meshing, always in motion even while it rested like a breathing hedgehog. How many spun clockwise at once, and how many reversed, she couldn’t tell.

“What is this…”

She tried to poke it. With the slightest pressure, a few gears at the contact point sank inward, like the sphere was hollow. Release, and the surrounding gears swallowed the dent, closing like petals.

“A No. 9979 gave it to me. Said it’s a trial piece. I fiddled for ages, couldn’t find any use, but it’s damn cool. What do you call this? Steampunk?”

She couldn’t see a thing.

Through Infinite Power sight… she couldn’t see a thing.

“What’s… going on…”

Was this gear ball a purely mechanical device?

She tried to pry it open and spread it flat. The gears flipped and reversed, closing from the outside inexorably, like a tide erasing footprints.

As if mocking her physics, it kept rotating and meshing, calm as a mill.

“Perpetual motion?”

“No way, not with this toy.”

Shen Shanshan shrugged into her jacket and stood, casual as smoke. “Probably some Infinite Power trick. Pure gear mechanics got scrapped ages ago, let alone perpetual motion.”

“But I can’t see any trace of Infinite Power…”

“Maybe it’s too faint? Okay, I’m off to scout. If I catch the terrain, I’ll sketch you a map.”

“Oh… thanks.”

“We’re us.”

Shen Shanshan patted Yekase’s shoulder like tapping a drum, slid past her, said hi to Liu RuoYuan, and headed out into the night like a quick blade.