She said she’d find Luzhixing, yet Yekase had no idea where to start. Her thoughts drifted like fog without a compass.

Luzhixing wasn’t like Xiaoyuan with a fixed base. She roamed the country like a lone swallow, and her mercurial temper was a shadow you couldn’t grasp. Hunting a swordsman of the rivers and lakes took more than luck. If Yekase flew high and swept the sky like a net, maybe. But right now, she didn’t dare flare like a beacon.

She steadied herself, the mind clicking like gears. As a genius inventor seasoned by fieldwork, she had her way—start with Swordforging Manor, and ask what would bring them to this city. Toss that thought in the fire and watch the iron glow.

Anything tied to forging weapons? Only the steelworks, its chimneys breathing smoke like old volcanoes.

But that steelworks was an asset of Eternal Green Pages. The name fell like a cold coin into her palm.

So—maybe Luzhixing came to Cloudlong City on her own, not for Swordforging Manor?

Why would she come? The thought fluttered like a moth at a lamp.

Compete? Steal a contender’s weapon? Ideas spun, then clattered to the floor.

“Let’s go check the steelworks,” Yekase muttered, breath fogging like pale silk. She was getting used to the morning bite; her cheeks were still flushed, but the chill was lifting like mist.

On the small-town street, three or five people trudged by, silhouettes like reeds in a slow wind.

Only then did she spot young faces—yet they didn’t look like they were headed to work. Their pace felt like idle fish near the pier.

They saw Yekase. They converged like sparrows toward a crumb.

A chubby, buzz-cut youth stepped up and blocked her path, like a barrel rolled to a gate. “Early morning, little sis—what are you doing out here alone?”

Such a delicate pickup line. It slid in like a paper kite.

Yekase gave an awkward smile, a thin crescent. Front and sides were blocked; the alley narrowed like a stream choked by stones.

“Carrying an iron pipe alone—got lost shopping?” said the tall, thin one on the left, his voice like a bamboo rod tapping water.

“How about we walk you home? Where do you live?” said the tall, thin one on the right, a mirror echo.

Eh… eh? Her heart loosened, a knot easing. They felt… decent.

Maybe she’d shrunk; everyone looked tall like pines. The two “lieutenants” flanking the chubby one had matching builds, a neat symmetry like twin pillars at a gate.

“Dad told me to deliver this iron pipe to the steelworks!” Yekase forced a breezy tone, like sunlight through thin clouds, and squeezed out a very odd smile.

Her own acting felt wooden, like a puppet’s stiff grin. At this distance, one versus three… and the teleport box wasn’t here. Her gut tightened like braided wire.

“Headed to the plant? Turn left at that junction, then straight. End of the road,” the chubby one said, pointing at a chimney exhaling black like ink smoke.

They believed it. The relief came like warm tea.

So simple. The town’s honesty felt disarming, like clear water from a mountain spring.

“Want us to walk you?” the left lieutenant asked, tilting like a reed.

“N-no need! Thank you!” Yekase ducked past them and jogged toward the steelworks, feet pattering like rain.

They stared after her, faces blank as smooth stones, unsure what had spooked the girl.

The chubby one watched her recede, then lowered his voice. “Potato, what d’you think?” The name dropped like a pebble.

“That skirt screams big city, pricey as lacquer. She’s probably a contestant’s family,” said the right lieutenant, nodding like a bobbing buoy.

The left echoed, eager as a parrot. “Yeah, yeah. So what do we do—kidnap her and threaten a withdrawal?”

“Blockhead! Do you even know who’s competing this time?” The chubby one’s tone cracked like a snapped twig. “Kidnap their family and don’t say you know me!”

“I don’t, honestly. Who’s in?”

He raised five fingers, folding each with a name. “Liaoning’s ‘Dong Baihua’ second young master. Jiangxi’s ‘Ghostfire’ boss brothers. Qinghai’s…” He rattled off four names, a drumroll of trouble.

The two lieutenants blinked, half-understanding, half-mist. The weight didn’t land.

He left the pinky up, gave it a little showy wag. “And the daughter of the Huaxia Branch minister of Shadow Curtain International.”

“Shadow Curtain International!” the left shouted, as if a thunderclap cracked.

“Huaxia Branch!” the right shouted, jumping back like a startled carp.

“Whoa—serious?!” They spoke together, voices like clashing cymbals.

“Cut it out. Business,” the chubby one snapped, annoyance flicking like a whip. “We track contestant movements, nothing more. Touch other stuff and you’ll eat mud. Hand in intel, get paid. Clear?”

“Clear!”

“Got it, Brother Dong!”

Brother Dong nodded, satisfied, and led them on, strolling like cats down the lane.

Yekase walked until she reached the steelworks wall, concrete gray like an old cliff.

It felt like she’d done this recently, the memory a ghost on her shoulder. Shen Shanshan wasn’t here. She had to slip in alone, heart tight as a knotted string.

“I feel you by my side.”

She wrapped herself in her Magical Girl form, a Reverse Meme aura whispering like mist, blurring trouble. Be careful, and the path would open like a gate.

A small figure rose, clearing the high-voltage fence like a sparrow hopping wire, and landed lightly inside the yard.

She didn’t linger in the abandoned outer zone, its rust like dried blood. She headed straight for the main shop, where machines growled like distant thunder. She peered in, breath held.

Inside, four lines ferried “people,” bodies gliding like coffins on a river.

“…?!” She leaned in. Their shapes were identical, uncanny as mirror dolls. Her Infinite Power vision washed over them; Omega Ray saturated every limb like red rain. Only the chest—an emptiness, a vacuum, a silent well.

No—the Omega Ray around that hollow drifted, ever so slightly. It felt tugged, like dust to a whirl.

It tried to pour in, then recoiled, cleansed by Omega Ray’s self-purifying nature. A tendency, subtle as a compass twitch.

Spiral Force. Each robot held a knot of Spiral Force in the chest, a coiled spring like a hidden star.

Maybe that was the power source. This said Eternal Green Pages studied Infinite Power beyond Alchemy, and deeper than anyone guessed. The thought flashed like a blade.

“Huh? What’s that…” A voice bloomed behind her, soft as a door hinge.

She’d thought too hard. She hadn’t heard the footsteps, a cat on velvet. Her heart thumped; her body froze like ice.

The man looked her over, then fished a monocle from his lab coat, a glint like a coin. He fitted it and muttered at the data in the lens:

“A Flash Energy doll… Whose new project is that? Why leave it outside the clockwork soldier line?”

Flash Energy. He knew Flash Energy. The word rang like a bell.

Shock rose higher, a tide climbing stone. Not the fear of a niche exposed—the tone was too calm. Had Eternal Green Pages studied Flash Energy so long that a “Flash Energy doll” by the line was just someone’s new toy?

What was this organization? The question hovered like a hawk.

Sandryon and Xiaoyuan hadn’t touched the true core. Or they had, but nondisclosure stitched their lips. Either way, her view of Eternal Green Pages flipped like a coin in sunlight.

“What did your Alchemy make?”

“It made results.”

The old exchange with Sandryon surfaced, a bubble rising in deep water.

Circles and runes were only tools—ways to tilt the world. Alchemy was curiosity, experiment, production. A patchwork craft that swallowed fields and spilled into forests.

The man stepped close and scooped Yekase up from behind, arms firm as iron bands.

“Huh. It even simulates skin warmth and texture…” His words were a finger testing silk.

She’d posed as a robot when she’d returned to base. So she played the part now, slackening like a doll in a glass case.

He carried her across the plant, through air smelling of oil and steel, then swiped into a cleaner building. Lab light gleamed like cold water.

He entered a ground-floor lab, opened a steel cabinet against the wall, and set Yekase inside like storing a tool.

The door clanged shut. The lock clicked. His steps receded, soft rain down a corridor.

“…Phew.” It felt like a stealth game, checkpoints like lanterns. This should be the next save point.

She exhaled, easing stiff limbs that had held still like carved wood.

She’d peeked while coming in—no other researchers moving. The room was quiet, a pond at dusk. So, how to get out of this locked cabinet?

That was a silly question, a riddle with its answer on the tongue.

She opened the feminine sling bag Jiang Bailu had matched to her dress, the strap smooth as river silk. She took out the Phase Shifter. Her thumb tapped once. She blinked—and appeared outside the cabinet like a ghost stepping through paper.

It was a spacious composite lab. Through Infinite Power vision, colors bloomed—Omega Ray like scarlet glass, Soul Power like blue fire, Flash Energy like quicksilver. Given those clockwork lines, Spiral Force should hum here too, a hidden coil.

Yekase moved straight toward a red metallic gleam that pulsed like a heartbeat.

Let’s see if your research runs true or crooked, she thought, a blade inside cloth.

A particle collider sat there, compact as a black pearl.

It wasn’t a market model. Smaller than the one at Unrecognized Consortium X, yet packed similar punch, a storm in a box.

She stared, almost drooling, hunger like a wolf. She checked the room—empty as a winter field. Then dove onto the control panel like a tiger through brush.

Compared to her usual rig, the photogate sensitivity was a thousandfold, sharp as a needle. It smart-filtered data, showed volumetric images like floating lanterns, and auto-plugged most common formulas, the math humming like bees.

If she could carry this baby home… The fantasy rose like smoke.

The cross-observer interference paradox. And further—stacking probabilities while observing the observing, in higher dimensions. It glittered like frost.

With this, she might even try “that thing.” The phrase sat like a sealed box.

If it took a trillion years of trials to simulate the promised future, this rig could build a higher-dimensional model. She could drag the time axis to one trillion like sliding a bead. Results would blink into view like stars.

Then, they’d have a chance—hope flickered like a candle.

“—Who’s there?!” The shout cracked the air like lightning.

Yekase lifted her head and drew a slow breath, lake-smooth.

Her hands left the panel, hovering like birds.

She raised them, steady as moonlight.

“If I say I’m here for academic exchange, would you buy it?”