Yekase’s run stopped at floor forty-two, like a climber meeting a wall of glassy ice.

The forty-third wasn’t a cipher at all. It was a single-choice trap: Which mysterious woman did Schrodinger meet at the ski resort? She thought, I’m not Schrodinger; how the hell would I know, and slammed the surrender button like dropping a stone into a dark well.

When the water dispenser’s tap began to pour out the prize, the thought hit her late, like thunder after lightning: that anecdote was the most famous of Schrodinger’s legends, a riddle physics never solved. Any answer would be a coin tossed into mist—so the trick wasn’t normal logic at all.

And before the options folded back into the dispenser, she finally caught the name sitting at C.

C. Sandryon de Finchy.

You? Master, is that you?!

The chance to answer had already slipped away like a fish through fingers.

Ling Yi consoled her—forty-two was still fierce enough—and pulled the generated liquid. She told the boss to take the dispenser back. Yekase slid her doll shell on again, melted into the corner like a shadow on stone, and only when the room fell quiet did she become herself.

They split the drink into two equal cups, like dividing a moon’s reflection across twin bowls.

The legend promised “tasty and healthy,” but the look could scare off saints. The whole thing was a mottled storm of colors, a rainbow oil-slick shimmering like a gutter after rain. It swirled on its own, merging and parting, then blending again; in the cracks of those tides, strings of bubbles snapped like minnows, sparks flickered like fireflies, and a pale blue halo hovered just above the surface, like moonlight trapped under water.

Cherenkov glow?! Is this a reactor?!

“Can we… actually drink this?” Ling Yi hesitated, her voice a feather dragging across glass.

“I’ll ask Sandryon…” Yekase hesitated too, a swallow caught in her throat.

Two people carrying Infinite Power stared at their cups like they were holding live grenades. No one dared the first sip.

Yekase broke the stalemate. She shut her eyes, hardened her heart like steel in a forge, and tilted the cup.

…?

First touch was cola—fizzy, brown, a carnival on the tongue—then gone. Kiwi rolled in like green hills in rain. It shifted to peach, sweeter and sun-warm, then stopped on watermelon, the sweetest, for barely a breath. The fruit vanished like summer ending; a savory tide rose—fish soup—pepper dusted like windborne sand; and finally it settled into the deep umami and gentle echo of Buddha Jumps Over the Wall.

“How… how is it?”

“Like a stitched chimera. But it’s not bad,” Yekase said, smacking her lips like testing a new instrument.

Ling Yi relaxed at that, though she kept her eyes shut like refusing a painting, and took a sip.

“Oh—this is my recent favorite, double-berry fruit tea.”

Two cups from one source, yet different worlds? Yekase, true to the spirit of inquiry, took Ling Yi’s cup and tested it.

Cola first—

“The flavor adapts to the user?!”

Not a chimera. A shapeshifter.

Marvelous. Secretive. Unbelievable. That was the taste of magic for Yekase, back before she touched it.

Old master, maybe shift to pharmaceuticals. With this invention, every kid would love taking medicine.

Having finally found a bright edge in Sandryon, Yekase felt oddly moved and finished her portion.

For challenging the De Finchy Cipher and posting a floor forty-two no one had ever reached, Ling Yi’s name got pinned to the electronic ranking in the Lion King’s Pride. At her insistent request, they switched it to Anonymous.

As “Anonymous” is the strongest, most mysterious, most prolific pen-name online, “******” in the net-age means a master with no face.

But whatever the boss typed, Yekase’s translator showed “Kunjin Kao Kunjin Kao”… fine. That’s anonymity too, like fog swallowing a trail.

They wandered Mysidia’s streets until night fell like ink, then returned to Ivalice.

Ling Yi watched Yekase peel off the doll shell, eyes trying to catch a single frame of joy like netting a firefly—and got nothing. Was she just too good at acting? Or were those sparks that teased Ling Yi’s nerves truly unintentional, a craftsman practicing how to pass for a maid? Yet she hadn’t refused Ling Yi’s brief, blushing ask in that private booth.

It felt like she would accept anything from Ling Yi, except the one thing—she wouldn’t let Ling Yi into her heart. And that refusal was the reason the rest was allowed.

Was it the same with Jiang Bailu?

And… with Ivaris?

No idea. Not a clue. Ling Yi felt like something between them had to be broken. Was it her, who sensed a thing beyond friendship? Or the Doctor, who never changed and never would?

“You go ahead. I’m buying a tool set,” Yekase said. She waved, climbed onto a different hover platform, and let the city’s wind carry her like a lone kite.

Ling Yi, face close to tears like rain about to fall, slipped out of sight. Yekase didn’t add a word. Not a single expression.

Only when she was sure Ling Yi wouldn’t stage some sudden chase scene, she exhaled long, slid down the rail like a wilted banner, and sat.

“…This got a little complicated,” she murmured, the words heavy as stones in a pocket.

She’d thought that after revealing who she was, keeping things cold would be enough. Ling Yi would see the gulf in their mental ages, turn back to that classmate Pulu who once pursued her. As for Jiang Bailu—her sadism masked her heart too well. By the time Yekase realized that Bailu meant it, they were already tangled this far.

And herself? Yekase, the genius girl inventor, didn’t even know what liking someone felt like. It was a shape without a blueprint.

How do you fix that?

Find time, speak plainly, let them give up… She sighed deep, reset her mood like recalibrating a gyroscope, and braced for a different fight.

Buying equipment in the City of Ivalice.

This place skins customers harder than the Twin Spires black market. Without a local sponsor, her heart pinched like frost.

After buying the sky island, Yekase hadn’t pushed for big contracts again. Then came the chaos that started with the Lantern Festival hijacking. As of today, she was nearly broke, coins thin as dried leaves. And Bangli University wouldn’t reimburse private expenses like this.

Fortunately, as an old mechanic, she had sharp tastes. High-end tools always felt wrong in her hands—too slick, too hollow. She preferred models a bit out of fashion, three to four years old, and she’d pick the toughest, most reliable few, then mix and match. In short, poverty had taught her muscle memory.

If she had time, she’d fetch her own kit from the Ambition Divine Ship. Today, she’d buy the mechanic’s essential trio and get moving: a scribing pen, a frequency harmonizer, and an energy rail. One etched the circuit into metal. One blended different Infinite Power. One poured the mixed Infinite Power into the track like water into furrows.

So, second-hand shop it was.

She keyed the panel. The platform veered toward a quiet corner near the city’s underside, where a scrubbed-clean sign read Face & Honor, polished like a mirror.

Classic layout. If a second-hand shop sits in a crowded center, she wouldn’t touch it. Those are tourist traps, not mines where you pan for gold.

Though “Face & Honor” did sound like plastic surgery. What did that have to do with mechanics?

“The scribing pen I bought last week is faulty!”

She hadn’t even stepped in when a loud male voice crashed out like a thrown tool.

Yekase leaned in from the door. A man in a beret and deep-blue denim braced both palms on the counter, a hawk’s posture picking a fight with the shopkeeper.

The old man, unmoved, squinted behind reading glasses and flicked him a glance like flicking ash.

“I test every piece myself. No problem.”

“But it is a problem!”

“No problem.”

“It is!”

You two could argue forever like two goats on a bridge, huh?

Yekase chose to ignore the grade-school squabble and aimed for the shelves stacked like city blocks. But a step closer, she caught the core of their quarrel—the scribing pen lying in the glass case.

Domestic. Panda Works. Made nine years ago.

Classic colors. Stout-and-Keen 21.

She stopped, a needle arresting the record.

Not because it was some cheesy fate-of-finding her lost tool. Nine years back, this was hot, the wave of the age. By her three-year scavenger rule, she’d have used the Stout-and-Keen 18 then.

Stout-and-Keen was Panda Works’ flagship, known for heavy weight, full grip, and steady cuts. But not long after the 21 launched, the company’s money chain snapped. Brand and factory were sold to their bitter rival, then shelved and gone quiet.

The 22 would never come. A song cut mid-note.

“Let me see that pen.”

Yekase stepped beside the man and, without asking, picked it up. Her fingers, a pianist’s, weighed it.

“Hey, who are you—”

Clean lines, sharpness on point, ring intact. Weight… twice what she used, but within reach.

She tested the high-frequency trenching mode. Smooth. No hiccups.

She extended her hand and set the tip under the man’s nose. He flinched like a rabbit. “Where’s the flaw?”

“It has no flaw,” the old man still held his line, firm as an old tree.

The man waved her off. “This isn’t for little girls. Go spend your youth at a milk-tea shop.”

“Milk tea’s a must. A machine shop’s a must. That’s balance,” she said, voice light as a blade.

“Buying your boyfriend a starter trio? Beginning with second-hand is miserly. Tools need a personal pick. Tell your broke boyfriend with no face to come—”

He stopped, a gear catching. At home, he’d scribed two shoulder plates and his wrist had started to ache. But—

But this slight girl held the iron pen easy, arm straight as a steel beam, and not a tremor yet. If that gleaming tip weren’t under his nose, he might even have praised her.

“Let me guess. You used the American grip and your circuit came out crooked, so it didn’t work.”

“American… how do you know?”

“Because American pens are plastic. This shaft is solid iron. You use the same grip—what else can go crooked but your lines?”

“Then how do you—?”

Yekase smiled, a fox’s curl, and set the iron dancing across her fingers. From index to ring, rolled across the back of her hand, twice, then caught and tapped to the table. Cloud to water.

“What’d you pay last week? Knock a zero off and sell it to me. Call it getting your blood back.”