They only learned Labyrinth City hadn’t shown because the Church suddenly went mad, by the time the survey team rolled into Tunguska like beetles across frost, and the four drifted back to the command post to breathe.

Aside from the soft-footed Xiaoyuan, Aurora, Yekase, and Sandryon—fresh from bringing the crystal staff back and manifesting the Goddess Aruru—etched a giant T into the ground around the post, a Nazca Line under steel sky.

Aurora set out snacks and drinks for the trio and then seized a table, eating like a housecat that had claimed a sunlit step.

Rice Rice hopped from Yekase’s shoulder to the tabletop, light as a seed blown from a paddy.

“This staff of mine was designed by the greatest inventor, blueprinted by the greatest painter, sourced with millennial ironwood by the greatest surveyor, and forged by the greatest artisan…”

To salvage the face she’d just lost, Sandryon clung to Yekase and bragged about her long staff, voice glittering like gilt.

Yekase was refilling Dawn of Eden, and she flicked a glance at that low-key, opulent staff. “So basically, you tinkered it up by yourself?”

“Heh. As expected of my one and only disciple—your eye is extraordinary.”

Because you literally sounded like you were praising yourself…

Yekase poured Flash Energy into the empty shells spent by that earlier Heavenly Divide, sealed the caps, and clicked them back into the cylinder. She set the Gunblade carelessly by the table leg, lining it up with the iron staff like twin shadows.

Dawn of Eden’s cylinder holds six chambers. One each for Flash Energy, Omega Ray, Mind Energy, Soul Power, Sorcery, and Spiral Force.

The six Infinite Powers, revised, gathered into a single Gunblade, sharing one circuit yet never cross-talking—no exaggeration—to stand near the peak of modern Infinite Power machinery.

Credit the extreme compatibility of Flash Energy alloy—the nature of “Evolution” shown to the hilt, like a vine taking any trellis.

Sandryon tore open a bag of strange-flavor beans and said, “Let’s talk about your new staff.”

“I don’t really get it. If every modern mage can cast bare-handed, then a staff only needs to boost Sorcery throughput, right?” Yekase raised a hand, student-straight.

“It’s not that simple!”

Sandryon glanced at Xiaoyuan, fishing for help. The woman was still grinding her handheld, thumbs pattering like rain on a tin roof.

“Look at her. Classic inert waste—hasn’t even hit a hundred, already creaking like an old gate.”

“A certain young lady about to turn five-seventy walked into the Cosmic Bubble without her own staff. Then again, it’s just a spring jaunt, right? Who brings a staff on a picnic?”

“You—!”

Yekase tore into a bag of shrimp chips with a crisp crunch-crunch, like breaking thin ice.

Their banter sounded surreal, a kite tugging at the horizon. Yet Yekase knew one day she’d be one of them, tossing off decades and centuries like pebbles. The common person’s surreal would be her daily weather.

It left a strange, delicate aftertaste.

“Ahem. You know Ancient Alchemy builds magic arrays with runes and link-keys,” Sandryon said, steering the boat back to the channel.

“Alone, a link-key means nothing. Runes do. Before Ancient Alchemy, people already drew runes and tapped their concepts, like pulling fire from flint.”

“Today, rune power can’t fight anymore—the mystery thinned like fog at noon—but they’re still essential for crafting staffs and robes. That heritage is what we call modern Alchemy.”

“How do you actually use it?” Yekase chimed in on cue.

Sandryon stretched a small hand and traced the simplest Star rune in the air, a spark sketched on glass.

“Carve this rune on a staff, and on the occult layer it gains a slice of ‘star’ as concept. Cast meteor-summoning or sky-reading with it, and you get a little extra push, like a tailwind.”

Yekase nodded. So the Polaris Staff, being mechanical, has no concept bonus… Wait.

“Satellites are stars too. So my staff contains the star concept! No wonder meteor magic is so smooth.”

“Uh… possibly.”

Sandryon wanted to scold her for treating runes like grade-school picture prompts, but “a satellite is a star too” landed like a pebble in her shoe. She couldn’t shake it off, and the lecture died in her throat.

“And the name—”

“It has nothing to do with naming!”

She cut off Yekase’s drift and pulled a branch from her alchemical pack.

It was about five feet long, oil-smooth brown from tip to butt.

At a glance it was just a stick you might kick aside. Look closer and—

It was a very special branch.

Five feet of length with no warp and no offshoots, a staff the forest had grown by itself. Anyone passing it on a path would feel their fingers itch to pick it up and give it a twirl. That was its bewitching pull.

Yekase wrapped her fingers around it without meaning to.

The balance sang—weight like water in a perfect ladle.

“Where did you find—”

“I was piloting the Goddess Aruru, pushing the frontier outward. I found a garden thick with human traces—I filed the report. At its center stood a topology tree, grown into geometric forms. This branch is the apical prong I broke off.”

…!

By the “occult layer” she’d mentioned, this strangeness had to carry real bite—

“From your face, you’ve caught it. The tree’s topological shape gives it the concept of ‘pathway.’ As staff-wood, it also holds ‘creation’ and ‘extension.’ Add that we’re inside the Cosmic Bubble, where everything is stained with ‘pre-existent things.’”

“Pathway.” “Creation.” “Extension.” “Pre-existent things.”

What do these four braid into? Yekase’s mind went blank, like a compass spinning. She’d realized—realized what?

“06, 09, ‘Let what has perished return to me.’ You’re even pulling out that fossilized set?” Xiaoyuan said, never looking up from her handheld, fingers steady as a metronome.

“For my disciple’s staff? Child’s play. And the timing’s a blessing—her luck’s good.”

Sandryon took the branch back, tapped its middle and base with her own long staff, then closed her eyes and began to draw runes in the air, strokes like fireflies stitching night.

A flood of Sorcery rose—so heavy you felt it even without Infinite Force Perception—curling around her small frame in an invisible whirlpool.

Tables, chairs, and windows shivered like leaves in a sudden gust. From one step away, Yekase felt the pressure rush her face like surf; she glanced at Xiaoyuan and found her mountain-still.

This was her Sorcery under the Cosmic Bubble’s suppression—and she was coasting, blade-smooth.

She held it for a long breath. Then Sandryon opened her eyes and let the tide go flat.

“…Haa.” Yekase was the one who exhaled.

“Catch.”

She’d treated the branch like porcelain an instant ago, and now she tossed it over. Yekase cradled it and saw the differences at once.

“Lines… an array?”

Dark-gold tracery now lay faint in the bark. As a naturally grown branch—if “topology” can be called natural—its shape had been smooth and regular already. Bathed in Sorcery, it shed every burr and knot, becoming a staff in truth.

A low-key, exquisite, traditional staff.

Just holding it, Yekase saw the glory of medieval mages, saw gently curled parchment and a swaying alchemical lantern. The wood-scent rose like a postcard mailed from a forgotten grand library—distant yet clear.

She’d never imagined she’d receive a gift like this.

“It now bears the concepts of ‘creation’ and ‘return.’ With time, an independent Sorcery stream will arise and cycle around it, a system unto itself—it’ll become your personal magic base. For you, those ‘open ports’ matter more than anything, right?”

…!

A magic base all her own.

To code in her own language—like that man, the one whose name makes Sandryon grind her teeth—the progenitor of modern magic, Isaac Newton?

“I’m short on materials right now. We won’t leave the area these two days. Tonight back at Dragon Keep, I’ll handle the follow-up work.”

“There’s still follow-up?”

“A staff needs a head. Once the system’s complete, you can try seeding it with Flash Energy. It should be able to produce more for you, continuously.”

“What—?!”

Yekase lost her volume for a beat, grabbed Sandryon by the shoulders, face almost pressed to face.

“Endlessly… produce Flash Energy?!”

Sandryon dodged her forehead and still found time to smirk. “At this level, it’s nothing to me. Now do you see how strong your master is?”

“Rune studies were taught to you by Alice,” Xiaoyuan said.

…

Sandryon flushed scarlet, veins like ink strokes rising on her brow.

“Alice? The Crescent Moon Dollmaker?” Yekase asked Xiaoyuan, fishing on.

“She specializes in rune studies. By herself she grew that ancient branch into modern Alchemy. The runes ‘Arcane Automaton,’ ‘Deterministic Cosmos,’ and ‘Crescent Moon’ are her discoveries.”

Xiaoyuan paused, then added—as if badmouthing a master in front of the disciple needed softening, a cloth over a blade:

“Your master outdid her. Eleven discoveries.”

“Eleven! You’re amazing, Master!”

Yekase leaned on those last two words, and Sandryon’s awkward look cleared like rain. She nodded, pleased.

Aurora happened to step back into the command post and caught the tail of the exchange. She said to Yekase, “Don’t sell Santi short. She’s the type who learns everything fast, a true generalist. Her résumé looks quiet, but she’s a bona fide Renaissance monster.”

“Santi?”

Sandryon, Santi… oh, a nickname.

Sounds like it walked out of a grade-school English textbook.

Sandryon roared, “Aurora! I told you two hundred years ago to stop using that nickname!”

“I think you did. Eh, getting old—memory’s going.”