Bored out of her skull, Yekase watched the ground shrink to bean-sized patches through the window, her fingers worrying a little sphere made entirely of meshed gears.

The ball flattened and rounded under her palm like soft clay, yet sprang back to its perfect shape the moment she let go, quick as a rubber band snapping.

What was stranger, at least a few hundred tiny gears meshed in a way words couldn’t pin down, loose like reeds in wind yet locked like antlers, all slowly turning as if a stream ran through them.

It looked like a steampunk perpetual-motion toy, the kind you’d drop into a CoC campaign and watch it gnaw at sanity like frost on glass.

There was no Infinite Power inside.

That was what Yekase thought the first time she saw it, her doubt like a pebble stuck in her shoe.

She kept turning it over in her head, but the Emerald Pool campaign had her burning daylight, so curiosity stayed on the shelf like dust.

Now she finally understood—it wasn’t “no Infinite Power.” It was that she couldn’t see it, like wind pressed flat against water.

There was a transparent Infinite Power in there.

Spiral Force.

Someone had poured Spiral Force into it, tightening the gears inward like petals closing at dusk, lively yet steady as a heartbeat.

Back in the Emerald Pool undercity, on Gear Street, Yekase had brushed past MAYA for only minutes, crisis snapping at their heels like dogs, no time for small talk.

Now MAYA had stepped offstage, like mist lifting; even if she wanted to ask, the road was blank.

Fine. Even without a chat, she could copy Ling Yi’s trick—inject another flavor of Infinite Power, run a reverse staining, and make it show itself, like a fish surfacing.

Except tonight she wore silk gloves, and inside her body Flash Energy pooled like lightning trapped in amber, refusing to move even a spark.

The Spiral Force in the gear-ball wouldn’t fade anytime soon, so idle hands turned it into a worry stone, a little moon she rolled between her palms.

It made a decent stress toy, cool as river pebbles.

She palmed the ball and drifted toward sleep, dozing like a cat in sun; when she woke, the plane was kissing runway lights.

Cloudlong City.

A small town on the lip of the Gobi, half sand, half shadow.

It felt like the Sinister Organization had forgotten it, or had wrung it dry and tossed it aside like a husk. Nights here were deep and still, like old books pressed between cedar boards.

Outside town, the oil wells lay in ruins like black thorns, telling of years that burned hotter than the desert noon.

She’d skimmed these maps and photos before departure, like flipping postcards; the moment she stepped out, desert and Gobi and wells unseen, she felt a cold cleanness in the air, a martial hush like steel in water.

It was already evening. The town held only pinpricks of light, no mall-sized glare, like stars that refused to be drowned.

The soundscape was quieter than evening should be, like the city had gone to bed early and pulled the covers up.

Jiang Bailu and Ling Yi stood, unhooked their backpacks from the overhead, movements neat like folded paper.

None of the three liked fuss. No suitcases, no drama. One pack each, stepping into Cloudlong City like travelers on a lean road.

They met a rally crewman waiting outside the airport, boarded his car like fish slipping into a current, and headed for the hotel.

Yekase rode in the back and watched the town slide by the window, sure now of her read like ink set on the page.

This was a finished, strip-mined, tossed-away ex-industrial city, a carcass picked clean by time.

There were restaurants, signs blinking like tired eyelids.

There was entertainment, faded neon like fruit left out too long.

But there was no breath in it.

Passersby moved with stiff, blunt faces, like puppets with heavy strings; not a single young face flashed by like a spring swallow.

It felt like this city had misplaced its future, like a kite with the string cut.

Everywhere her eye fell, it spelled only one word: ruin.

“This place… the mood’s thin,” Yekase said, choosing soft cloth over blunt stone.

“Yeah. Feels like something’s missing. Vitality or whatever. Like there’s a filter over the whole scene,” Ling Yi murmured, her voice dusted with caution.

“Cloudlong City had an oilfield,” Jiang Bailu said, her prep-work crisp as folded maps. “Then it dried up.”

“No wonder.”

The moment they reached the hotel frontage, Yekase asked to walk the streets, her tone light as wind.

Jiang Bailu had expected it; with Yekase’s romantic streak written in her bones like wood grain, a strange city meant tasting its air and dirt first thing.

She didn’t fight it. She just warned, dry as a signpost: “New place, don’t get lost.”

“Won’t,” Yekase said, flicking a hand like brushing gnats, then angled toward the darkest stretch under the lamps like a moth choosing shadow.

Of course.

Jiang Bailu’s smile bent wry, like a paper crane tilted at the wing.

“I’m not fully at ease with the Doctor,” Ling Yi said, and dashed after her like water chasing water.

“Wait, I’ll—”

Yekase ran on speed, all small body, long stride, quick as a hare; within seconds she’d looped ten-plus meters. Jiang Bailu reached out, but Ling Yi had already gone, feet like drumbeats.

“…Am I getting old?” Jiang Bailu touched her cheek, embarrassed, like trying a mirror in bad light.

At twenty-two, watching one seven-year-old and one seventeen-year-old backs vanish like swallows—

“Hold up. That’s twenty-seven.”

Old fox playing young cub.

She should’ve shaken some gear and gadgets out of her, like apples from a branch.

Work had been sour for Jiang Bailu lately. Mira spent weekends losing at cards like leaves falling, then at night in the yellow-lit quarter “taking care” of big-sister types who couldn’t afford clothes, bleeding the Organization’s coffers like a slit wineskin.

Naturally, the budget she’d carved out was a dried riverbed.

Meanwhile, the Yekase getting silently roasted in her mind had already slipped onto a dusty little street, Ling Yi pacing at her side like a shadow.

Yekase carried the Polaris Staff at a diagonal in her arms, the weight like a sleeping dog.

“Doctor, why bring that for a walk?”

“Getting used to the weight,” she said, voice even as a metronome.

Brand-new, yet same-old weight, like a familiar stone in a new pocket.

Yekase liked change and didn’t flinch from it, like a swimmer stepping into cold water. Even if this change had sand in it, she slid into try-and-adapt mode fast as turning a key.

Same as those first two months after becoming a girl, her breath finding a new rhythm like reeds in wind.

A small girl, black dress fluttering like crow feathers, holding a strange iron staff.

Beside her, a young woman with the big-sister look, watchful as a lantern.

On a plain street in Cloudlong City, two outsiders appeared like vivid ink on a pale scroll.

They drew eyes like rain draws scent from dust.

Yekase ignored the gazes from shop windows, used to bigger spotlights, bright as stage suns; Ling Yi wasn’t so lucky, her nerves like strings tuned tight.

“…Doctor, someone’s watching us,” Ling Yi whispered, unease like cold water down the spine.

“In a small county-level town like this, two strangers are always lanterns in fog,” Yekase said, words calm as gravel.

“Then why would a small county have its own airport?” Ling Yi asked, brows knit like stitching.

“Because… it used to be flush,” Yekase said, waving off the deep dive like a hand shooing midges.

They kept on, feet soft on a dust-filmed sidewalk, each step a small puff.

The four-lane road moved only now and then, a single car drifting by like a lone fish. It was too quiet for evening, more like the hush before dawn.

“…, ……”

Yekase’s small nose twitched, and she hummed a line like rain tapping shutters.

“Forty-four years, rain beat and wind blew away…”

“…rain beat and wind blew away,” Ling Yi repeated, unfamiliar, voice thin as thread.

There was no rain, only wind dry as knives.

“Ah!”

Yekase yelped, delight popping like a seed.

“What?” Ling Yi flinched, scanning for foes, eyes combing shadows like nets.

“There’s a stall selling brown rice. I’m grabbing a bag to snack on.”

She sprinted off, staff-tail ringing against the ground ding-ding-dang, like bell metal under a stick.

Ling Yi stood there ten minutes, watching the integrated row houses like stacked crates, balconies on level two and three hung with drying clothes like flags.

Half the windows glowed. Half stayed dark, like eyes shut.

Yekase returned shouldering a bulging plastic bag on the Polaris Staff, the staff a makeshift yoke.

“Got lucky. Fresh-roasted brown rice. Want some?”

Ling Yi cupped her hands, and Yekase poured a warm handful of pale-gold kernels, steam breathing upward like tea.

“…Smells so good.”

“Right?”

Yekase took a fistful herself, crunching. The taste was nutty, like autumn.

She looked once more down the street, to the far steelworks with its three chimneys, black smoke breathing out like old dragons, then thinning into an ochre dusk.

“Let’s go back.”

“Mm.”

They walked the way they came, slow as drifting leaves.

At the hotel door, Yekase offered an excuse like a feint, sent Ling Yi upstairs, then slid back into the little alley, steps quiet as cats.

“Just me now. You can come out,” she said, voice level as a plumb line.

Tap.

A figure dropped lightly from the roof, landing behind Yekase like a feather.

She wore a loose green tracksuit, “Huaxia” printed bold across her chest, a beat-up travel bag bulging on her back like a tortoise shell.

Neat bangs framed a pretty face gone blank, expression flat as lake ice.

It wasn’t Lu Yao’s cool maiden vibe, the kind that screamed tragic past and begged for a hero to pull blooms from frost.

It was pride forged inside-out, the quiet, clean edge of power, like a blade kept oiled.

Just by standing there, Yekase knew a hard truth in her bones—her peak self wouldn’t beat this woman, not even in bright noon.

She couldn’t even summon the urge to compare, her fighting spirit folding like paper.

Maybe Mira could trade blows with her, back and forth like tide; who’d win was beyond Yekase’s pay grade.

Good thing she wasn’t an enemy, that word falling like rain on a parched field.

Yekase smiled. “Miss Luzhixing. Didn’t expect to see you here. What a coincidence.”

“Not much of one,” Luzhixing said, voice cool as shade.

“That staff. Was it made by Swordforging Manor?”

Yekase remembered the rumors—how Luzhixing hunted weapons before a tournament, sharp as a hawk—and tucked the Polaris Staff behind her like hiding a candle flame.

“…You trying to snatch it?”

“You’re not suited for a long weapon,” Luzhixing said, her tone clinical as a surgeon’s note. “Thin muscle, loose footwork. Most of all… the iron staff is too heavy for you.”

I know that, thank you, Yekase thought, exasperation tapping like rain.

And who analyzes whether a seven-year-old is fit for combat? Honestly, seven-year-olds shouldn’t be fighting, period, she sighed, mind skewing sideways like a cart on ruts.

But she had called Luzhixing out herself; walking away felt rude, like leaving tea untouched.

“From your muscle profile, your strengths are explosive power and coordination,” Luzhixing continued, words clipped like clean cuts. “So, dagger suits you best.”

Not wrong, Yekase admitted, the thought like a nod.

There was also the tiny matter that her old dagger had snapped, a fact like a broken tooth she tongue-checked.

“Uh… so you tailed me this long to say that? Why me?”

“You’re carrying a Swordforging Manor product,” Luzhixing said, pride straight as a spine. “I have a responsibility to guide your choice of weapon.”

After-sales service? Yekase blinked, surprise like a sparrow hopping.

Didn’t expect that kind of duty in green cloth.

“It’s a suggestion. The path is yours,” Luzhixing added, a rare softness like mist. “Staff work runs deep as wells. Even I haven’t plumbed it. If that’s your aim, I won’t stop you.”

She kicked off, vanished onto the eaves like a shadow folding into shadow.

Yekase stood there, alone, stupefied, a leaf left in still air.

“…But Sister Lu, Lady Lu,” she muttered to the alley, humor dry as autumn straw, “my Polaris Staff isn’t a cudgel. It’s a magic staff…”