Turns out that old line—“a mouse’s child knows the tunnels”—has more than folk charm; it carries a little evolutionary truth.

Yekase, self-proclaimed once-in-a-century genius mechanic, heir to Newton and Da Vinci, top ten world-changer of the 21st century, obviously wouldn’t have a daughter who’s dull.

Ivaris may have dragged the average down, but lately she’s been using her status to slip into the Four Princesses’ painting circles, audit the Slackfish Cult’s little class, and even sit a midterm. The score wasn’t great, yet those wild, innocent eyes finally picked up a glaze of wit.

Ling Yi, long mocked as the clown of the group, is actually a top student. The rumor that Ivaris’s knowledge level is low… is, in fact, true.

Why did Yekase suddenly get all sentimental?

Because just now,

while rambling to Lijie,

she heard a tiny mouth puff out a soft “ba.”

…

“See? Our Lijie’s sharp. She looked right through me! That’s right, I’m Dad!”

One fuzzy syllable sent Yekase into a sugar-high. She hugged the baby and spun circle after circle around the room. Ivaris watched, helpless. “Didn’t you admit you’re the mom? Don’t tell me your leftover male dignity just woke up.”

“But she called me ‘Dad,’ so I’m Dad!”

Yekase went righteous, ready to walk through fire for Lijie. Whatever her daughter says, goes. If she wants to call Yekase ‘big sis,’ that works too!

Yet no matter how they coaxed, Lijie refused to say it again. As if that “ba” was Yekase’s hallucination—expectation overdosed and turned into fantasy.

Maybe it was just a sound alike.

The first child ever born from two Ascenders, Miss Ye Lijie carries humanity’s possibilities on her tiny shoulders. But she’s still two days shy of her full moon, and normal babies don’t say “mom” or “dad” till five months. Evolution doesn’t explain that gap. Yekase started suspecting her baby was the protagonist of some idiot soul-transmigration fic.

She set Lijie back in the crib, regret heavy as rain.

“Right, I’m heading out after lunch. I’ll eat dinner out too.”

“Where?” Ivaris asked.

“A routine meetup of Grand Magi. You know, that shounen thing where mysterious folks with sequences and flashy titles gather to ‘have a meeting.’”

“Oh.”

“The one person I don’t want to see probably won’t show. The rest are friends. I delivered letters to several of them a couple days ago.”

“Grand Magi, huh…”

Ivaris helped Yekase with her coat, then thought twice and fished a pointed hat from the back of the wardrobe.

Her logic was simple: abbreviate “Grand Magus” to “wizard,” so dress the part and lean into it.

In reality, out of the six Grand Magi, two and a half are gearheads—Sandryon tinkers with everything, so count her as half—plus a body-type bruiser and a weapon master nobody remembers. The most “wizardly” one, ironically, isn’t coming.

Yekase still accepted Ivaris’s help. She settled the grand pointed hat just so. It felt like being dressed by a wife before heading out, and her heart was all honey.

She stepped outside. The construction crew’s banquet traces from last night were gone, cleaned by their own hands. The finished floating garden isle drifted beside the Ambition Divine Ship, linked between the two by a staircase of Sorcery. Like second nature, Yekase tapped into the base-plate and chanted the Levitation Spell, swung herself sideways onto the staff of Southern Sky Cross, and rose in a soft glide.

Dark coat chosen for riding the wind. An elegant, dignified witch.

If you’re going to play wizard, then play it well. The flying bed had looked magical, but after Yekase turned it into a half-closed RV, it resembled a giant cardboard box. Show up in that and the old masters would nag for hours about an alchemist’s restraint, taste, and all that.

“Alright…”

She drifted off the Ambition Divine Ship’s deck.

She lowered the staff’s tip.

She set her word-weave.

“B-666, ‘Luciferin,’ launch!”

…

…

The Magus City, Mysidia.

In that world-shifting war in France, the World Tree that sheltered one nation and one city for centuries was first drained of stored Sorcery by the transcendent Alice, then split clean in two by the two-in-one Flash Blade Princess. It faded from heaven and earth, surviving only in memory and history.

Built on its branches, Mysidia now had to float wherever, like Silver City, stunned by rerouted ley-lines and forced to find a new path.

They don’t have a Silver Star Engine. Their fuel for wrestling with gravity isn’t infinite. The city’s founding plan never imagined long-term flight—loose clusters of timber houses gain a degree of disintegration with each day aloft. Sooner or later, they must find a new anchor.

Where’s the future?

The wise magi and alchemists of the city had no answer.

In a season this dire, they longed for their lord to grant them faith, steer the city-state into a new era. But Endymion had vanished who-knows-where.

Of course, that wasn’t Yekase’s problem.

Europe wasn’t in her bones. The literacy drives and infrastructure she ran while branching out—more honestly—were pilot fields for Huaxia’s future. Learn from big brother the Galactic Federation’s wins and losses. Take the marrow, ditch the dross.

She spotted Mysidia’s castle from afar—

Those houses shaped to fit the World Tree’s boughs, all thrown into the sky at once, stripped of leaves and shade, looked brutally ugly. A patchwork coat stitched only from scraps.

Closer, the misread peeled away. The entire city sat cradled by a giant cloud of magic, merging with the sky at a distance, only visible up close. A hair off, a mile astray—human taste is fickle. With a wad of cotton candy beneath, the piecemeal wood turned dreamlike.

Yekase floated above a rooftop landing pad near the castle and began to descend.

She chose it because she’d seen people on that terrace from the air. It looked like a welcome.

“Who goes there? State your purpose.”

…And two long spears crossed in front of her.

“Uh…”

It was a perfect chance to play pig and eat tiger, but the pig routine’s a pain, and she didn’t feel like flexing on hired guards. She pulled an invitation from her pocket and passed it to the one on the right.

“Your lord invited me.”

The guards had been briefed. No classic dumb lines like ‘that’s a fake’ or ‘you look like a kid.’ He checked the letter carefully, confirmed the seal.

“Our apologies, Lady Sword Destroying Mechanic. But you’ve landed at the wrong place. This is the Golden Branch Wardens’ barracks.”

“Huh?”

“The Royal Garden is that way…” The soldier pointed, awkward.

It wasn’t higher elevation. It was a low, shy hollow tucked at the edge of the magic cloud. Palace plus garden, looking like a countryside self-build.

“The palace looked towering because it sat in the canopy. Its core isn’t large. During special times we lack resources to add support structures. So, well, it’s like that.”

“Oh… oh…”

Embarrassment pricked like nettles. A Grand Magus getting lost in public—bit much.

“You’re the third Grand Magus to land here today. We should throw a carpet down with ‘Royal Garden this way’ and a big arrow, or we’ll get a fourth and fifth.”

“Oh.”

So two had already arrived. She barked two quick laughs without meaning to.

Yekase hopped over the wall and bolted along the cloud.

“…Feels like Grand Magi don’t look that different from us,” the quiet guard on the left said, watching Yekase trudge across the white fluff, steps sinking and rising.

“Only ‘looks like,’” the right-hand guard snorted, scorning his friend’s naivety. “That Sword Destroying Mechanic reportedly dismantles every mechanical weapon that enters her sight. She eats circuits still humming with Infinite Power as snacks, and savors power cores as a main course.”

The left guard’s mind staged a picture: Yekase under morgue lighting, a half-screw between her lips, wearing a refined English afternoon-tea smile. “Found you, my delicious mecha…”

“—Whoa, that’s terrifying! Lucky our city-state is the capital of magic.” He shivered.

“Why do you think she’s the ‘Mechbreaker’? Didn’t you notice the other Grand Magi’s prefixes—‘Crystalline,’ ‘Crescent,’ ‘Nightstar,’ ‘Iceblood’… and ‘Ironfire’—they’re all names of things. Only her ‘Sword Destroying’ is a verb-object phrase.”

“You’re right!”

Sword Destroying… must mean “destroyer of weapons,” yes? No wonder she breaks every mechanical armament. A young face masking an old-school magus steeped in classical honor.

She’s probably crossed centuries, which is why she acts so easygoing. But if she’s truly angered, the consequences write themselves—the yawning crater in France is iron proof.

As for that modern-cut black coat that looks mismatched with the pointed hat—surely that’s our blind, ordinary eyes. It must be a rare arcane garment.

That realm is beyond our lives.

The gap’s so wide, we can’t even summon chase or envy. Only awe remains.

“—Hi, could you tell me how to get to the Royal Garden?”

A new voice snapped them out of their reverie.

They turned. A black-haired Eastern woman, maybe twenty-something.

Round, flashy sunglasses. A white culture tee and faded jeans. On her flat chest, two breezy brush-stroke characters that, translated, read: “Me too.”

“P-please show your invitation.”

“Don’t have one.”

“…”

“…”

Three people, big eyes and small, all blinking.

“…What are you doing here without an invitation?”

She spread her hands, shameless. “No invite, but I’m friends with all the Grand Magi. Except dead men and feudal lapdogs.”

Dead men and feudal lapdogs?! Was she talking about—

“Oh, I see her. Bye.”

She took two lightbounds steps. Azure Mind Energy flared around her. On the third stomp, a heavy blast cracked out, launching her like a human cannon.

She traced a clean arc and dropped beside Yekase.

“Maybe we should just file for leave and go home,” the left guard said, drained.