After they polished off the yak meat, the four rolled on for a while; dusk pooled like ink on the tundra, so they chose a spot to camp.

Sidonia Dragon Fortress had kitted them out well: a family tent, a tarp, and waterproof cloth, plus soft pads and ultra-thick sleeping bags; pull them from the space button and they’re ready.

The tent covered more than ten square meters, a gray cube with a camo skin; on tundra or snow it was a rock among stones. Inside, heavy canvas split it into two rooms and a hall.

Dorothy still fretted about the night, a pebble of worry in the heart; though she doubted Harrison dared trouble Yekase and Lu Yao, two mountains at her back.

Harrison felt sure about tents. He puffed up like a rooster at dawn and volunteered to set it alone, but Yekase raised a hand and cut him short.

“Hold it. The ground’s too soft here. A big wind could flip the tent. We dig half a meter down and leave the top above ground. Safer, right?”

“...Half a meter down?”

Harrison’s face knotted like a stuck cork. It read, “Does she have any common sense?” He held back and went polite. “You pampered city girl… do you know how long a 3-by-4-by-0.5 pit takes by hand?”

“Hm?”

Yekase caught the word and smiled like a cat at cream.

“Pampered city girl, huh…”

She flicked her small hand, voice ringing like a bell. “A-Ping, show him the might of Peace Walker!”

“Who proposes, digs,” Lu Yao said, dry as winter wind.

“...”

They stared at each other, air a touch awkward, like frost on glass.

“I’ll dig. I’ll dig.”

Yekase drew Dawn of Eden, thumbed the trigger, and poured Flash Energy in; the blade bloomed like a silver flower, then punched down into the sod.

She gripped the hilt jutting from the earth and scored a neat rectangle, slicing the turf like warm butter under a summer sun.

That still didn’t move the dirt. Dorothy and Harrison traded a look, puzzled, like birds hearing thunder. Yekase breathed a line of Celestial Speech.

“Oz Floating Disc.”

Sorcery condensed like mist obeys coordinates like a compass star. Concrete might defy it, but frost-bitten topsoil yielded like wet clay. Beneath the cut, an unseen disc pressed a flat pocket into the earth and met the Gunblade’s vertical slots.

A solid block, 3 by 4 by 0.5, sheared free from the land by Infinite Power like an iceberg calving from a glacier.

Then it was simple: a Levitation Spell lifted the earthen slab like a cloud on the breeze and dropped it to the side.

“This…”

Science is awesome! he thought, a spark in the dark.

No—Sorcery clearly did the heavy lifting, his mind corrected, like a compass settling north.

“Dorothy, slice the soil with me. We’ll berm three sides around the tent and cut a step at the door.”

“Okay!”

With only Oz Floating Disc and Levitation Spell, the two carved a neat little trench node, clean as a carpenter’s join. Harrison’s view of magic cracked like ice.

No dense runes. No high secrets. Just the cantrips any European learns in the first two years of school.

Modern magic, simplified by Newton to spread Infinite Power like bread to the hungry, had been twisted under feudal lords, capital, and the Church’s quiet nods.

It turned into a badge of prestige and a ladder for envy, with guilds of merchants gluing price tags like barnacles and writing rules to bleed stones.

Like this: arrays must be penned on parchment; the pricier the spell, the more complex its pattern, even if it’s useless; teaching methods without license is a crime.

Knowledge here wore a price tag like a collar.

“Because it’s the most basic of basics, it holds the most possibility and plasticity.”

Yekase hefted the tent bag from the ground and handed it one-handed to Harrison. He reached on reflex; the weight dragged him like an anchor and nearly toppled him.

“Modern magic is idiot-proof software in a box. Newton still left some DIY space. That’s the one thing I like about him.”

“From where he stood, modern magic was rising. Classical alchemy was a dead pond. For stance and profit, he had to deny the old masters in public.”

“But with actions like this, he showed he wasn’t a pure traitor to teacher and ancestor.”

Still, a line is a line, a river is a river.

If the Little Painters’ intel is right, and Newton himself heads the Shadow Realm War… then that’s a pity written in ice.

Harrison spread the black waterproof cloth, lining the pit’s base and walls like a pond builder. Dorothy and Lu Yao lowered the pop-up tent straight into the hollow.

They threw the tarp over the roof, pinned the four corners with a screwdriver, like spiking a sail into sand.

A half-buried camp took shape, snug as a fox den in winter.

The living room ran about six square meters. The other half split into two little rooms, each with a window just peeking above ground, secret-base vibes at once.

Yekase tossed soft pads into the rooms and set up a simple workbench in the hall. Four people took their places around it like stones circling a fire. Then she pulled a small metal bird from the transfer crate.

“Wow, it’s so cute, so intricate,” Dorothy breathed, eyes caught like moths by a lantern.

“Remember, A-Ping? This iron beast-bird is the sister to the one I gave you. I added a camera. Like this…”

Yekase flicked her wrist. The mechanical bird whooshed out the tent door like a darting swallow.

She pulled out her phone; the screen lit with a mottled field of brown-black and white, tundra and snow braided like fur.

“So it’s… a drone?!”

“Yep.”

Yekase’s smile turned sly, a crescent in the night. “They might be monitoring the tundra for the Shadow Realm War. We’ll scout, and check if they’re doing their job.”

“How do you keep it from exposing us?”

“This bird’s guts are pure circuitry. In plain words, a modded consumer drone. Not a whisper of Infinite Power in it. Detection spells slide off.”

“What if they have radar…”

“Stealth coating.”

“Then we’re good.”

Do you even need to go this far with your combat power… Dorothy and Harrison thought, the same wave lapping two shores.

Lu Yao was used to it. If Yekase charged into enemy ground without prep, that would be odd as thunder without rain. He’d suspect a hidden ace—less PTSD than profile.

Night in the wild is a blank page. Dorothy and Harrison grabbed sleeping bags and crawled left and right into the small rooms, like foxes into burrows.

Only two stayed by the workbench.

…

“The Slackfish Cult I started on a whim is now a mildly famous secret society in Europe.”

Seeing Lu Yao groping for words, Yekase tossed the topic like a pebble into a pond.

“What for?”

“To spread knowledge.”

“As a test field?”

She shook her head gently, like willow leaves in a breeze. “No. The gap’s too big.”

“Even if I wanted to go back to Huaxia, I’ve got a five-year pact with Gu Xiangshi. What I’m doing now is just acting when I can’t look away.”

“You’ve been in the City of Ivalice as long as me. You read the news. How do you see Europe?”

“Closed,” Lu Yao said after a pause, the word a cold stone. “City-states or nations, closed. Even Ivalice.”

“Stuff that’s common in Huaxia—tech exchange and cooperation—you hardly see here.”

“Exactly. Know why?”

“Monopoly of knowledge?”

“You do get it,” Yekase smiled, eyes bright as stars. “Because of the Church, the Sinister Organization became an official black glove.”

“They can’t form an open Infinite Power market like Huaxia. Even if someone researches, there’s no applause, only silence.”

“And because magic is self-enclosed, combat power sits under nobles and the Church like swords under seals.”

“I used to say this: a Huaxia kid who wants to be a hero walks into a weapon shop, and all his money ends up in a Sinister Organization’s pocket.”

“But in Europe, you don’t even get to spend. They won’t sell you scrolls. They choke off a whole generation of would-be heroes at the bud.”

“So you spread knowledge, put the weapon of critique in their hands…”

Yekase nodded lightly, like a candle answering a breeze.

She took the leftover beef soup from her space button, warmth still clinging like the last ember. She watched the iron bird’s feed and spoke with a touch of regret and awe.

“That’s the truth they were always meant to approach.”

…

…

Next morning, they packed the tent, filled the pit like smoothing a scar, and climbed into the off-road, north toward the pole.

Yekase had scouted the route; within a hundred kilometers, not a human trace, only wind and sky. Dorothy even muttered about not seeing Inuit on the way.

Ten minutes later, that thought melted like frost. She turned to Lu Yao in the back. “Can we see the aurora tonight?”

“Auroras peak in winter. Now it’s luck,” Lu Yao said, reluctant as a cloud to rain.

“Good thing we came in early autumn,” Yekase added from the front, voice drowsy as a drifting leaf. “Otherwise you’d stare at a bright ‘summer night’ for 24 hours…”

She’d played with the drone all night. Her feet were off the ground, her brain on low power, hemispheres taking turns like oars on a slow river.

She’s getting less and less human, Lu Yao thought, the idea a thin smile.

She became a Longlifer at the year’s start, and by midyear she’d tuned her body to this. What will she be in a hundred years?

In a hundred years, will she still be her?

Lu Yao froze, then let out a breath of a laugh, sound light as snow.

No. If there’s anyone you don’t need to worry about, it’s her.