The afternoon was spent skybound, sweeping the land like a brush over parchment, the ridges and ravines rising like inked bones beneath her.

Yekase’s aerial maneuvers were the sharpest of the four, a hawk tracing the spine of a rugged gorge to sketch the ground’s contours.

She finished and drifted back to command, breath cool as dusk, took an energy drink from logistics, and after two sips, Sandryon slipped through the dimensional veil like a silk curtain parting.

She stepped up and handed her a new staff, a branch of night polished to a luminous grain.

Compared to before, the crown had gained a delicate copper ornament, its lines gathered at the top like petals closing at twilight.

“Try feeding it Infinite Power,” Sandryon said, voice steady as still water.

Yekase took the wooden staff, feeling the thinness in her chest like frost under skin before the motion ever formed.

She poured in a little Flash Energy, a thread of lightning over calm sea; she’d felt near overdraw for days, yet the edge never snapped, like a taut bow that refused to sing.

A wisp of Flash Energy slid from her palm into the staff, a clay ox sinking into the sea, vanishing without a ripple.

The wooden shaft drank in silence; even the faint feedback went dark, like a lamp with a paper shade.

She kept feeding it, patient as rain on stone, breath steady and eyes bright.

Finally, with a soft rasp like tinder catching, rings of light blossomed around the head—an array of Mid-style glyphs fixed in place like constellations nailed to the night.

The copper ornament split into three petals and floated, quiet as autumn leaves, forming an abstract cross above the crown.

Flash Energy, poured in instead of Sorcery, stained the array a wicked red, turning the once-holy cross into an omen like a blood moon.

“…Kinda badass,” she murmured, a crooked grin like moonlight on a blade.

Then she startled—this staff was feeding Flash Energy back into her, a river reversing its flow.

Fresh energy pooled inside, bright as spring water; her outline shifted before Sandryon’s eyes, ten years of growth compressed into half a minute, unfolding like a flower back to her seventeen-year mode.

“This makes the Polaris Staff look awkward,” she said, half-teasing, like a breeze stirring a banner.

“Not necessarily,” Sandryon answered, calm as old cedar. “Great mages keep two or three unique staffs. They’re emblems, and each serves a different field—group battles, solo work… even well-being.”

“Fair,” Yekase said, the word drifting like ash.

With a teleport case, she could quick-swap, like changing masks in a lantern play; carrying a hundred was no trouble at all.

So-called Unlimited Staff Works, a sky full of handles like stars in a net.

Luzhixing has a hundred swords, Lu Yao has a hundred guns; Yekase with a hundred staffs feels as natural as rain.

“Got a name yet? Don’t dawdle like your title—half a year and no decision is a fog you never leave.”

“I’m fast with weapons,” she said, smiling like a fox. “Titles… titles are different. I’ve got many, and none sit.”

She stroked the wood, palm slow as a tide rolling sand. “Let’s call it Southern Sky Cross.”

…

…

That night, the Sidonia Cosmic Bubble Development Company gathered—humans and dragons like bronze and jade—ring after ring around a vast bonfire.

Aurora raised temporary ice walls, pale ramparts against unknown creatures in the Cosmic Bubble; Xiaoyuan heaved in whole logs like fallen spears; Sandryon breathed fire across kindling, and the bonfire bloomed like a chrysanthemum of flame.

Would the ice walls melt? The fire had no heat, a phantom lantern, a warm image with winter’s breath.

The three special guests sat by Aurora, closest to the flame, a crescent of faces bright as paper fans.

A surveyor jogged up, wind to his voice: “Team C dragged back a big one. Carapace’s too thick, we can’t process it!”

Xiaoyuan rose with a soft grunt, like a bear waking.

“Trouble you,” Aurora nodded, calm as snow on stone.

Curious about the Cosmic Bubble’s “big ones,” Yekase followed, lantern eyes catching shadows.

Outside the ice wall lay a giant crab, trussed in “ready-to-boil” posture by magic ropes, ten meters wide, a moon-sized shield of shell.

Big… yes—truly big, like a hill squatting in surf.

Yekase stared up at full tilt, like a night crane craning; Xiaoyuan was already rolling his wrists and stepping in, the ground steady under him.

His right foot traced a half circle back, knees bent into a rooted horse stance, like a pine gripping the cliff.

Five fingers curled in sequence and drew in behind him, a tide collecting before the break.

—Then the fist shot out, a simple straight like a thrown spear, with a half-turn at the touch, a comet drilling into shell.

Crack, crack…

No suspense—the carapace bloomed spiderweb fractures, then crumbled into a field of chitin powder, a dry snow under lantern light.

Xiaoyuan walked back like nothing happened, dust drifting off his sleeve, giving Yekase a nod to finish the scene.

“What was that?” Yekase asked, eyes sharp as flint.

“Straight punch,” he said, a stone across still water.

“…Basic swing?” she ventured, a smile like smoke.

“Mind Energy’s like that. No frills,” he shrugged. “Magic’s more fun—more fireworks.”

No, Mira and Luzhixing play Mind Energy too, Yekase thought, a quiet ember; they’ve got a bag of tricks—at least some sword aura to paint the air.

“By the way, you’re double or triple, right? Mind Energy, Flash Energy, Alchemy?” Xiaoyuan asked, hands behind his head like a lazy crescent.

“Ah, no Mind Energy,” she said, honesty clear as glass. “Barely a double. Dabbled in Omega Ray and Spiral Force.”

“Generalist, huh. No wonder the Crystal favored you,” he said, grin bent like a reed. “I crammed common runes for half a year and still failed.”

“…Then how’d you get into the Eternal Green Pages?” she asked, a tilt of head like a bird.

“Because they wanted to study me,” he said, dry as winter bark.

Yekase found Xiaoyuan far from dour—a live wire spun by missions, matches, and fans; talkative as a market alley, jokes cold and clean, a stream that still sparkles.

Her usual slacker veneer is just that—slack, like a cat in sun.

When interest outpaces the urge to flop, the talk comes, the drawl an unhurried bell, a color all his own.

Back by the bonfire, logistics slid two-meat-one-veg box meals into their hands, lids clacking like shells, plus dessert: a pineapple beef burger, shiny as lacquer.

Greasy-looking, sure, but Yekase had no clue about calories; therefore it was zero, healthy as mountain air.

Aurora was gone; Sandryon said she’d gone to patrol the ice walls for leaks, a lantern walking along frost.

Yekase glanced at the resting crowd, saw them ringed tight around a center, a sunflower of bodies, doing who knows what.

She edged closer eating, chopsticks tapping like rain, but the view was blocked, a wall of backs like a palisade.

She rose on tiptoe, peeking through shoulder gaps like windows, only to have heads of different heights shut out the stars.

Huh? Bullying?

Just because she was 162?

For a girl, 162 was plenty—a willow that doesn’t need to be an oak.

She scowled and asked the surveyor beside her, “Brother, what’s going on inside?” Her voice was a pebble skipping.

The man with a cheek scar glanced back. “Arm-wrestling. Five defenses and you can pick a bottle from the boss’s outer wine cellar. Even outer layer… it’s the boss’s cellar.”

His face lit like lantern oil catching.

“Oh…” Yekase’s tone drifted like mist.

She’d long coveted Aurora’s cellars, but the urge felt distant now, a boat in fog.

It might take a month to walk out of Professor F’s sacrifice, she thought, a leaf turning in wind, and smiled wryly.

That said—

Back on Nameless Island, learning the Flame Burst Spell, Professor F drank with bright joy, a festival lantern in winter.

She must’ve loved wine; as a simulacrum forged by the Three Pillar Machine Gods, drunken haze was probably a new moon to her.

A fifty-year Siberian permafrost cellar vintage—would that suit her taste, sweet as snowmelt?

In the center, a burly surveyor leaned at a wooden table, slapping it with high spirits, drumbeats calling fish from deep.

“Anyone else challenge?! Who can beat me—no one here?!”

A black-robed girl in a pointed witch hat vaulted over heads, landing light as a sparrow across the table.

“I’ll give it a shot,” she said, voice a lamp in fog.

The crowd saw a mage, slender as bamboo, and roared, whistles like starlings; yet the nearest strongman felt something wrong—he couldn’t see her face.

A brim can hide half a face, but you should still see mouth and jaw; there was only a dim knot of light, a soft darkness masking all.

Dancing Light… a low-tier cantrip meant for lamps—who knew it could blur a face like morning haze?

“The ring doesn’t refuse any challenger, right?” she asked, words smooth as silk.

The black-robed girl was Yekase, her calm a pond under moon.

She hadn’t worked with the survey teams, but some busybodies already recognized the mystery girl who’d eaten with Aurora; the whistles were theirs, teasing like sparrows.

“Of… of course not,” the strongman stammered, the table grain under his fingers like a riverbed. “But no magic. That’s banned.”

“I know. No magic,” she said, placing her right elbow on the table, her posture rooted like bamboo.

“Come on.”

She looked up and smiled, and her face appeared to him, the occlusion a trick of angles like a crescent shifting clouds.

“Ah… okay! Then I’ll…” He hesitated, heart a drum, eyes a little rain.

Should he go easy? he wondered, a leaf flickering.

Everyone could guess the outcome; getting shown up in front of a crowd is a stone in the shoe.

And making a flower-like girl grip a rough palm felt unfair, like putting frost on lacquer.

Forget it—just a bottle; there’ll be other chances; his resolve settled like sand.

He set his hand to hers, but his fingers trembled, five reeds shivering; first time holding a girl’s hand—he hadn’t expected…

He hadn’t expected it to be this hard, iron under silk.

…Hard?

In the next heartbeat, the world spun—sky and ground traded places like cards.

His right hand felt dragged into a mixer, a tide he couldn’t resist, a force twisting him outward, explosive as summer thunder.

His feet left the earth, his whole body rose with the torque, a leaf caught in whirlpool.

Huh? This is—

The scene flipped upside down; only his right hand remained constant, pressed into the table, a stake hammered into wood.

It lasted an instant; then his body kept rotating, following the arc like the moon’s pull.

His head rushed toward dirt; he shut his eyes, a reflex like folding a fan.

“Levitation Spell,” Yekase said, a gentle lift like wind under a kite.

The fall stopped; gravity and inertia slipped off him like rain off oil paper.

She pulled his hand from the table, then let Levitation go, a string cut from a kite.

Thud.

Flat on his back in the dust, the ex-champion blinked at stars like scattered rice, still lost on the river.

The crowd erupted, a tide of applause and cheers, waves slamming the shore.

“Oh oh oh oh—!”

“Told you a pretty girl beats a muscle guy!”

“You watch too much anime!”

“Not on Earth, sure—but this is a Cosmic Bubble!”

“All hail the new queen!”

“What kind of evil sorcery is this?!”

No more need to defend—besides, the table had cracked, a raft split by a rock.

Carried by a dozen hands, Yekase rose above their heads like a palanquin, took two laps around the bonfire, and headed to Aurora for her prize.

The strongman’s friend came over and crouched beside him, a shadow sharing cool earth.

They lay back and looked up at the Cosmic Bubble’s starry dome, a river of lamps trailing to nowhere.

“The world’s really big,” the strongman said, voice a ember in night.