Even Soville City, cradle of modern Infinite Power, couldn’t escape corruption during Arcane Week. The streets swelled like a tide of stalls, idealism crowding every alley.

The clean lines of yesterday were gone, swallowed by bunting and smoke like a lake taken by reeds.

“...Pretty lively,” Yin muttered, voice a pebble dropped in water.

“There’s a prophecy-and-divination booth over there. Wanna look?”

Yekase kept asking with her mouth, but her hand tugged Yin along like a kite string, toward a black tent like a crow’s wing.

“You actually believe in divination?”

“I don’t. That’s why it’s fun. Even if it says doom, I won’t flinch—so I’ll listen, like watching rain.”

Twisted logic. You’re paying just to tease a seer, right? Yet a seer’s a service trade too; guidance or fun, coin turns both into the same wine.

She didn’t say last summer’s shadow had risen in her mind like mist and drew her in.

They squeezed through the narrow flap. Inside fit only a table and two chairs, the white-cloaked seer seated deep like a moon over dark water.

“Welcome, seekers of fate,” came a voice warm and clear, a flute with a smoky curl that brushed the ear.

Yekase had imagined a voodoo crone, bark-dry and cackling. The voice instead felt like silk on the skin, with a hidden ember.

“What do you seek? Let this answer show a corner of the mystery,” the seer said, words like cards fanned under lamplight.

Classic half-sage routine. People ask love, work, or the self—three rivers. Add gender and age, and the net tightens like a weir.

But Yekase and Yin’s looks and inner ages clashed like winter and spring; this trick slid off them like rain off oiled paper.

“Runes and flowlines whispered to me—you’re here for love, aren’t you?”

“You’re right,” Yekase said, voice flat as slate.

Two girls who look like teens won’t ask about careers. This was shooting fish in a barrel, a drum before the strike.

“Black-haired child, you’re lost in fog over love. Silver-haired child, you quarreled with a sibling, didn’t you?”

Yin’s breath hitched like a plucked string. Yekase felt the hook set; too late to pretend calm.

“Seems I guessed right. Who goes first?”

“Me,” Yekase cut in, a blade before the drum.

A guessed thought tightens the chest; belief or doubt turns stiff, like snow underfoot. She stepped first, buying Yin a breath to gather.

She sat and met the seer’s gaze under the hood, shadow like a lake under ice.

“Such a lovely child. Let me see…”

She was inscribing Runic Words onto herself, frost writing on glass, little sigils like fireflies stitching a web.

Some rune of prophecy, perhaps. In modern Sorcery, prophecy is mostly play. It sees one thread among endless futures, and only tiny shards.

Often it works once per matter, then stays silent like a spent shell. But what of Runic Words and Ancient Alchemy, those old bones under the sea?

“You… you’re in a passage,” the seer said, voice like a path into pines. “You noticed your feelings shift. Habit turned to walls. You fear and reject the change…”

Yekase smiled, dismissive as a fox flicking snow. “Stagnant?” That word didn’t fit her at all, not even as ash.

“So much so… you denied it without thinking,” the seer continued, a soft hammer on the heart.

“What feeling?” Yekase asked, tongue dry as paper.

“You insist you’ll never love anyone. In truth, you haven’t noticed you already love someone. Not a recent arrival. An old presence.”

“You thought you’d stay friends forever,” she said, leaning in like a moth to a candle. “Let me look closer…”

Yekase’s smirk froze, a mask in frost, breath a thin reed in wind.

An old friend in a friend’s place. A changed tide in the heart. Cold climbed her spine like river water at night.

It felt like noticing a Reverse Meme snag your thoughts—except this snare was her own making, a net she wove while blind.

“Love isn’t one-sided giving,” the seer said, words like warm tea sliding through iron.

“I know…” Her voice came thin, a string near snapping.

“You keep one-sided giving in every bond. Because you’re so smooth, all love sent toward you stays at the eaves, rain barred from the room.”

No, no, no, no—the denial hammered, a drum under ribs. Why was this reading… accurate, like a blade that knows the seam?

Divination’s supposed to be smoke and mirrors, right? A stage trick, not a needle finding the vein.

Even if Yekase wouldn’t admit it, she felt the stance shift. She wasn’t the flawless captain now, nor the fountain that poured equal warmth on everyone.

Because the foggy night dispersed only recently. Because in that fog, someone returned to her side for one brief night.

Ivaris broke Yekase’s force balance like a moon tugging a tide, in a single breath.

What was duty—“rescue a comrade”—now tasted of private hunger, a salt on the tongue.

She wanted to see her. To talk. To hear that soft “darling” and the playful “plus one,” like bells under snow.

Yekase realized she could like someone, after all. That person simply didn’t exist in the real world for long stretches, a star behind clouds.

So the matching feeling blurred and sank, like a lantern under water, never quite out but never bright.

With Ling Yi and Jiang Bailu, she could half-yield to their asks—compensation for the one gift she wouldn’t give.

But she’d never say, “Is that person more important than me?” That’s asking them for sacrifice, a toll on the bridge.

Sacrifice bonds. Sacrifice free time. All to sate her unsaid want: “Stay by me.” And yet she dared press Ivaris with that thorn?

“When someone used to self-reliance and giving starts seeking something in another,” the seer said, voice steady as a river, “that’s when weakness begins… and when a great turn arrives.”

The words hit her chest like a hammer, sparks flying unseen.

I got weaker—because of a woman? The thought scalded and chilled, a hot-cold coin flipping in air.

She’d meant to shield Yin, and took the cut herself. Dizzy, Yekase stumbled out for air, like a bird slipping its cage.

The other three had wandered who knows where, lost in the sea of faces. She wouldn’t fish for them now; the tide was too thick.

She drifted among nearby stalls, trying to unhook her mind, eyes grazing like swallows over water.

In xianxia and fantasy novels online, the protagonist strolls a market and stumbles upon century-old treasures sold like scrap.

Countless passersby miss them; the broke MC gets the windfall, luck dropping like fruit.

Now it was Yekase’s turn to stroll. She hoped luck would brush her sleeve once, a moth wing against silk.

She’d usually played seller, not buyer, a hawker under neon moons. But sorcery is half mystic, half math; who knows how dice land?

“Oh! Miss, as God’s beard is my witness, you’re the most radiant Eastern beauty I’ve ever seen!” a stall owner sang, voice oiling wood.

“Have clothes ever troubled you—storage, sorting, the closet’s storm?”

“Clothes…? No,” Yekase said, tone flat as steel. Her wardrobe was a dry stream; order didn’t matter with so few stones.

“Don’t say that! A noble, cool lady like you deserves a full wardrobe of dresses, a gallery of moods and lights,” he cooed, flattery patting like soft drums.

He stuck to her alone. That made her curious, a cat watching a paper fan swish.

She scanned the stall—no storage gear anywhere, just knickknacks like shells on sand. “What do you sell?”

“Behold! The latest magitech for everyday life—the ‘Morph Template’!” He held up a little keypad, plain as bread.

It looked like it fell off a laptop, zero magic glitter, just plastic under sun.

Yekase took it and, by habit, used Infinite Force Perception to glance inside, wind feeling a reed-bed.

She sensed a few runes linked into “storage + fixed-point teleport,” clean as lines on jade.

Fixed-point teleport—kin to the Dual Kings Arsenal’s flagship transport chest, the one they never mass-produced, a rumor under glass.

With sorcery, maybe the details differ, tiny cogs in mist.

“Oh! You probed the array with Sorcery perception. You know your craft,” the stall owner said, puffing his big beard like a thistle.

“I’ll go professional, then,” he added, shifting tone like gears.

“Go on,” Yekase said, eyes brightening, a spark under ash.

“Teleport arrays have spatial structure. During transit, you don’t handle relative positions. No risk of turning the target into chunks,” he said, hands drawing squares in air.

Mind Energy gates and Omega Ray teleporters don’t do that either… probably, Yekase thought, a cloud crossing sun.

“Our Baroque Workshop goes further! We bring in the latest Flash Energy tech. We monitor the transmission peak of molecular bonding in real time on the spectrum.”

“Stability hits the ceiling,” he said, palm chopping like a beam. “The result is this, the ‘Morph Template’! Only 500 euros. Take it home.”

“Sounds strong. What does it do?” Her tone turned curious, a bird tilting its head.

“It imports and exports saved outfit sets anytime, anywhere. Teleports them onto the user’s body. Eliminates clipping and wardrobe slips,” he beamed, teeth like small tiles.

“One-click outfit swap?” Yekase’s eyes lit, dawn over snow.

She’d once tinkered with that, a moonlit project. She only made a trinket to change the Polaris Staff’s form, then called it a night.

She hadn’t thought to exploit the array’s natural spatial frame like this, bones of space doing the lifting.

“This is… actually brilliant. I really did bump into luck in a market!” she said, laughter like bells.

“Integrate the array—I never thought of it! I’m taking this tech!” Her smile broke bright, sun through mist, and she offered her right hand like a promise.

Even a well-bred, well-read foreign lady is still a girl at heart; clothes-tech lights sparks like fireflies.

The stall owner seemed to misunderstand. He didn’t dare clasp her fine hand. He wiped his work sleeves and helped bag the Morph Template, hands steady as a craftsman’s.

The transfer ding chimed in his ear, silver like a bell under rain. He grinned and watched her leave, a sail catching a breeze.

He started tidying, pulling out another Morph Template to fill the gap, motions like rakes over gravel.

“Integrate the array?” “I’m taking this tech?” The phrases rose again, fish flashing in memory.

Both sides wore international-standard translators; there should be no semantic confusion, no fog between words.

So she meant— He spun around. Her silhouette was gone, a kite cut loose, thread snapped clean.

His phone screen glowed quietly, a pond under moon. A six-digit number showed, neat as carved seal.

A small paper slip sat under it, a white fish under glass, a message sleeping like snow.