“Great?” Fulin sat on the edge of the bed, swinging her white, porcelain-like legs, her question dropping like a pebble into still water. “Are you sure you mean me?”

“Maybe yes, maybe no… please don’t move.” Yuna’s voice was calm as frost on glass. She steadied those restless pale legs, then knelt like a willow bending, holding a clean lace panty.

Yuna was about to help the too-lazy-to-move Fulin put on the panties, like a maid dressing a snow doll.

“I’ll do it myself!” Fulin snatched it, cheeks pink as dawn clouds.

“Understood, my master.” Yuna bowed away, quiet as falling ash.

When Fulin finished dressing like a little sparrow fluffing its feathers, she took up the letter. “Yuna, open the window. Let the room be brighter, like morning pouring in.”

“Understood.” The latch clicked, and winter light spilled like milk.

Fulin read, eyes moving like fish under ice. At the Royal Magic Academy, an old prejudice had clung like moss—looking down on knights. Each generation of deans had tried to scrub it clean.

After long effort, that wrongheaded thought was almost washed away last generation, like a stain fading in rain. But turmoil stirred the mud, and it rose again like silt.

The headache-stricken dean got a suggestion from the royal family, sharp as a bell’s note in fog: introduce a model knight-student.

“Let apprentice mages learn, while still students, the right habit of active cooperation with knights. So, great Blazing Fire Knight, we hope you will… hmm.” Fulin finished, her thoughts folding like cranes.

Yuna lifted her rimless glasses with a finger as thin as a reed. She asked with no ripple of emotion, “What’s your will, Master?”

“We’ll see how it goes.” Fulin’s answer drifted like a leaf on water.

Her gaze slid to the magic staff on the wall, hanging like a quiet branch.

Layne had entrusted it to be delivered to his adopted daughter, yet it had hung there for half a year like a monk’s staff at rest. If not for Yuna’s weekly cleaning, dust would have webbed it like old silk.

“Half a year here. Have you grown used to life?” Fulin asked, voice soft as felt.

“Wherever Master is, this girl will follow.” Yuna’s tone was a lantern’s steady glow.

“Alright.” Fulin spread her hands, a little helpless bird opening wings.

After a cup of hot cocoa warming her like embers in the chest, Fulin asked about homework. “Still practicing gunnery lately?”

“I’ve been refining my martial arts as you wish.” Yuna’s affirmation was a straight spear in snow.

“Good.” Fulin set down the clay cup, hopped off the chair like a spring cat, and walked to the door. “To the yard. I want to see if your skill’s grown.”

“As you command.” Yuna lifted her skirt to salute, graceful as a lily stem.

It was still snowing outside, white breath swirling like drifting spirits. Fulin cleared a patch of the front courtyard with fire, flames licking the snow like hungry foxes.

“Here will do.” Fulin raised a hand in a playful “let’s spar” gesture, like a fan opening.

“Understood!” Yuna spun her long spear, set the butt, and akimboed like a statue of a war goddess.

The wind rose, cold and keen as knives. Snowflakes whirled, white sprites dancing in a storm ballet.

A single flake alighted on the spear tip, and Yuna struck in a flash—an incisive thrust like a hawk stooping!

“Not bad.” Fulin slipped aside, her body flowing like water; a few strands of silver hair were lifted by the spear’s rush like teased threads.

“Not done yet!” In battle, Yuna’s words flowed like sparks from steel. Her spear kept darting, each thrust a streak of lightning, each miss a droplet lost in rain.

After several empty stabs, she shifted like a cat changing footing—rear leg straight, front leg bent, weight forward and low. No more thrusts; she snapped into a forceful sweep, a scythe cutting wheat!

The sudden switch left Fulin no room to evade; her stance met it like a wall. She had to defend.

In that blink, Fulin brought the Sirius Sword to her side, like a crescent warding the wind.

Clang!

A strike bright as flint meeting steel. The rebound numbed Yuna’s hands like cold biting bone, and her balance pitched like a boat hit by a wave.

Fulin seized the opening and surged forward, a firestorm breaking the line. Yuna raised her spear to guard, but the weight crashed through like a tide, and down she went.

“I lost.” Yuna looked up at Fulin on top of her, eyes clear as winter ponds.

“Why did you lose?” Fulin’s question was a bell in a quiet hall.

“Because I failed to keep balance.” Yuna’s answer was simple as a plumb line.

“Mm. Balance matters. Almost every weapon lives by it.” Fulin’s tone was the measured beat of a metronome.

“As expected of Master. May I ask—how do you know?” Yuna’s rare curiosity flickered like a candle flame.

“From the Sword Canon—” Fulin cut herself off, words catching like a kite string. She stood and switched lanes at once. “Because I’m a vampire. With endless years comes deep knowledge, like roots burrowed far.”

“As expected of Master.” Yuna eyed the short Sirius Sword in Fulin’s small hand, her head tilting like a sparrow. “Won’t you turn it into a long blade?”

“First, I’m short. Second—” Fulin’s voice shrank, shy as a mouse. “I don’t have Battle Aura right now.”

Confusion deepened in Yuna’s eyes like ink in water. “Then magic?”

“None either.” Fulin said it plainly, bare as winter branches.

“Then why are you so strong?”

“Because—” Because she was a max-level Chaos Vampire, a mountain under the snow. But she couldn’t say that. So Fulin changed masks mid-step. “Essence. I’ve grasped the secret of essence, so I’m strong, like knowing the spring behind the ice.”

She had basically survived by bluff and careful dodging, whether or not she used Dual Incarnation, like a fox living between stones.

“That’s amazing.” Yuna’s gaze held worship, a star reflecting in still water, even if “essence” meant little to her.

A flock of geese crossed the white far sky, strokes of ink on silk. Fulin’s eyes tightened, tension snapping like a string. “Wait.”

She triggered an Arcane Mage map scan, sorcery rippling out like a tide. As expected, one goose carried a mage’s animal eye, a pebble hidden in the reed bed.

Fulin struck at once. “Counterspell. Secret Illusion!”

The goose bearing that eye dropped like a cut kite, and its master caught a backlash like an iron hammer to the skull. If Fulin guessed right, the caster was now wracked by a headache storm—paying for violating privacy.

Fulin spread her hands and shook her head, exasperation rising like steam. “Honestly. Those mages don’t know how to use drones by the book?”

“Drone?” Yuna tilted her head again, a curious robin.

“Uh, forget I said that~” Fulin rushed to roll a snowman, deflecting like a child tossing a ball. “Look, the snowman’s adorable!”

“Pfft. Master’s so strange.” Yuna hid a smile behind her hand, a fan hiding a grin.

The afternoon drifted by in white romance, like petals over tea.

Around four, a soldier almost stumbled in, breath smoky as a chimney. He knelt, voice tumbling. “Bad! Something terrible’s happened!”

Lance crossed one leg, annoyance like a crease between brows, and drank red tea like plain water. “What’s so urgent?”

“A great noble is making a scene at the city gate!”

Lance’s brow tightened, a rope pulled taut. Since “he” had made a name in Golden Bay City, a mountain town once empty became a marketplace—visitors flowing like a river, seeking the rumored Blazing Fire Knight.

Fulin wasn’t going to entertain such idle waves; she wanted quiet like a prayer hall. Count George handled most of the messes.

Yet a soldier bursting in meant—“Brother George messed it up again?”

“Yes! I’m truly sorry!” The soldier pressed his head to the floor, shame like lead.

“Raise your head. This isn’t on you.” Lance’s voice was firm, a rod across a stream.

“Yes!”

Lance uncrossed his leg, propped his chin like a thinking statue for a minute, then ordered, words crisp as banners flapping, “Call Jeremy and the others back from the training grounds. Tell citizens to clear out. Bring me my short robe.”

“Yes!” The soldier jogged out, feet thumping like drumbeats.

Lance looked around the suddenly quiet room, boredom fluttering like a moth. “Troublesome.”

“When will they be as reliable as you?” Lance looked toward the big cat at the side, its eyes lamps in shade.

The beast dipped its shoulders happily and padded from the shadows, revealing fur like night silk. Lance slipped back into Fulin, not dissolving but fading like ink into wash.

Everything the soldier had seen was illusion woven by this phantom beast, moonlight over a pond. The real Fulin hadn’t prepared to trigger Dual Incarnation.

“You’re reliable, you~” Fulin nuzzled the big cat, affection like warm fur on the cheek.

After a brief play like bells on a collar, Fulin triggered Dual Incarnation.

Now it was truly “Lance,” a step like an iron heel. Inside, Fulin checked the panel like a scribe reading ledgers.

Warrior Bloodline Lv.5. Strength Lv.5. Endurance Lv.5. Agility Lv.5… Battle Aura Lv.4. Magic Lv.1. That was the shape, numbers like stars in a small sky.

Half a year on, Lance could activate seven Battle Aura stones, lights bright as lanterns. Ten stones—entry to Earth Tier—was still a walk away, but he was close to Reina’s level—Rose Knight could activate eight.

Lance lifted the Sirius Sword. Battle Aura flared, and the short sword shifted into a blade, like ice grown long. The deadly edge rode a surge of aura, and Lance’s presence pressed out like a storm front.

“Mm, feels good.” Lance reined his aura, calm pouring back like rain after thunder, leaving a normal boy’s face. “That’s enough.”

He walked out of the castle, steps steady as drum taps.

He barely reached the street before citizens flocked, a tide of faces and warm breath.

“Look, it’s the Blazing Fire Knight!”

“Told you this kid wasn’t simple.”

“He’s the hero who protected Golden Bay City’s peace!”

Fulin felt pressure like a spotlight’s heat; she never wanted to live on stage. But if she chose to play “Lance,” she would play it to the hilt, like an actor in war paint.

Lance vaulted onto a high platform, his crimson cape snapping like a flame banner. “Let’s wake sleeping hope with fire!”

“Whoa!!” The crowd’s zeal burned hot enough to push back winter’s gray, like dawn prying open clouds.

Lance gestured for people to head home, fingers a gentle wind. They obeyed. He took the street down the mountain, boots tapping like beads on a string.

At the gate, soldiers saluted and parted like reeds for a boat. Lance didn’t go out; he chose the wall to watch, hawk-eyed over the field.

He heard a man bellowing, voice like a drum beaten wrong. “What is this dump? Poor and shabby, and you won’t let me in? Do you know who I am?”

“I’m a marquis of Maple City! Feng Wolf Marquis of the House of Feng Wolf! And who are you? A petty local noble, daring to block me?!”

Faced with silk and arrogance, Count George had to bow like grass in wind, apologizing with a smile thin as paper. “Sorry! Truly sorry! I deeply apologize!”

“But I still won’t let you in. If you’ve got guts, come hit me!” The count flipped masks in a breath, clearly having learned Lance’s shameless routine like a street trick.

“What did you say?!” The great noble burst like a firecracker. He snapped at his household Rose Knight, “Grab this small noble for me!”

“You dare?!” Count George shot back, blood up like wine. “Osborne, hit him!”

He’d had enough of paper tigers. Daily social wrangling wore down even a good temper, grinding it like grain.

So the two nobles and their two knights scuffled at the gate, rolling quick as dogs in mud, soon coated in filth like wrestlers in a pigpen.

People queued nearby sighed and snorted, half amused, half disgusted, like watching a play in bad weather.

On the gate, Lance couldn’t watch anymore. He felt both awkward and amused, like laughing with a hand over the mouth. Time to mediate.

He jumped straight down from the wall. When he landed, a ring of after-flame rippled out, heat shivering like a mirage. “I’m Lance Morrison. Feng Wolf Marquis, to come all this way—what business brings you here?”