Lingchen Yao drew the slanted knife and scored the rough carving like wind scratching bark. Animal pieces were a trap: muscle, fur, grain. His hand wasn’t there yet. Every cut lost depth. Texture tangled. He even took the tail clean off, leaving the wolf stump-tailed and sad.

“Uh… your earlier carvings looked fine. Why’d you crash on this wolf… don’t tell me you follow tutorials line by line?”

The Eye Orb got tossed aside. It had hit the mark. Lingchen Yao had carved by the book. The flaw was in the first spark, the design itself.

“You said I could practice magic like this.”

He set the carving upright, careful as placing a bird’s egg. It was ugly and out of place among the others, yet he was pleased. It was his first creature after cubes, his first breath of life in wood.

“First you need to feel Mana… which I don’t. I only know Mana sits in cells, tied to unseen meridians. The rest is hearsay. Unless you find a real mage to teach you… but I trust you’re not an idiot.”

He killed the light, drew the curtains, washed up, and went to bed. A shadow fell onto the bay window. Even the Eye Orb missed it. Behind the figure, darkness rose like ink and swallowed moon and stars.

That darkness seeped through the cracks of the window frame like cold water.

A large black sphere, soft with faint Mana, cradled a girl and eased her inside. She landed without a sound. Not a whisper, not a floorboard sigh.

Moonlight lay in her eyes, a clean silver. She scanned the desk. She checked under the bed. She studied everything on Lingchen Yao. She found nothing strange—just two wooden carvings with a fading trace of magic. Ordinary people could own a Magic Tool. Nothing to see.

“Everything normal. Likely a victim who slipped the net.”

Moon Owl stepped back into shadow and stood on the window ledge. The black Magic Stone on the back of her glove held a pattern of stars. It caught moonlight and starlight and glowed.

Mana wove her back into black wings that wrapped her like a cloak. Silver sigils studded the feathers. In that pale light the sigils breathed a misty glow.

She sprang high and beat her wings once. She slipped beneath the night and its stars. Then she felt something. The dark swallowed her in an instant.

The Eye Orb trembled in Lingchen Yao’s arms. The danger slid away. A moment ago it had felt a vast Mana, the kind that could kill it with a finger twitch. When the darkness flowed in, it masked the ring’s Mana, and borrowed that spill to scour off its own Abyssal Aura.

Two forces clashing meant death for it. A minute longer, and by morning Lingchen Yao would’ve found a dead octopus of an Eye Orb.

Luck held. The girl left.

Lingchen Yao noticed nothing. He slept like a stone. Good thing he did. One turn in that state and his balance would’ve snapped, and so would his life.

Creak, creak…

He lay prone on cold ground, wrapped in darkness like damp cloth. Panic first, then struggle. He tried to rise and failed. Something heavy pressed him down. Far off, metal rang crisp, and water dripped a beat.

Time thinned and stretched. He fought the binds until his mind frayed. He didn’t know how long he’d been trapped in this damned place. Maybe it was a dream. He didn’t know when he’d wake. It was…

Torment.

Then harsh voices bled in. Low chants fell in order, like drums under fog. A great hexagonal Formation surfaced beneath him. Blood poured.

At first the Blood ran in streams. It rose to a river. It filled half the cramped black box. He lay in Blood. The six-pointed Formation under him burned with black light. The Blood drew away, thread by thread.

Sharp sounds broke from above, unlike chains. The dark ceiling cracked like glass. A black pillar of light roared upward. Warm sunlight spilled down.

Sun, after so long, made him squint. Relief flickered. He reached up on instinct, and a black-red claw with scales shielded his eyes. Before he could savor it, a light cannon struck. Smoke boiled off his skin.

Only anger lived inside him. Who had smashed his dream to pieces? A shrill chime pecked at his ear. He jerked awake and thumbed his screen. The ringtone he used to love stabbed like needles.

“The dream… changed.”

He exhaled slow. He picked the sheet off the floor. Somewhere in the night it had torn in two. The bedsheet too had deep gouges, ripped by something not quite human. He shook the Eye Orb where it napped on the cabinet.

“What happened last night?”

The Eye Orb glanced at the window, then at Lingchen Yao, whose forehead shone with sweat. Its voice was flat with fatigue.

“You slept calm at first. Then a Magic Maiden of Cantata Two slipped in. I almost died. Not long after, a surge of Mana rose from you… massive. It seemed to remodel your body, to fit Mana use better.”

“The dream then… what did I see?”

His hands went to his head. Memory swam. He only recalled a narrow box, panic and fear, a wish to break free that died in a voiceless scream.

“I can’t remember much.”

He eyed the Eye Orb that had been recording everything about him. Prime lab material, right here.

“Don’t look at me. I know nothing about that. Short term, it’s good news. The Mana scrubbed your Abyssal Aura. Mana can’t hang in air long… wait. There’s a place that can store leaked Mana, but I forgot where…”

The Eye Orb squeezed whatever passed for its brain. Nothing surfaced. Lingchen Yao plucked it up mid-think.

“I only care if it’ll hurt me.”

He pinched a nerve-tail, swung it in a long arc. Its bounce was great, like the rubber balls he played with as a kid.

“Short term, no. Long term… honestly, I don’t know. You might stay human. You might not.”

It couldn’t promise. Its memory held no experiment like this. In its mind, this kind of thing had one label: Half-Finished.

“What a speech. Said a lot, said nothing. Fine. I can’t count on you. Power has a price. Then I’ll find a way to pay it. Life… stay upbeat.”

“That line doesn’t sound like you. Where to today?”

“Scouting.”

He stretched, changed clothes, pulled on a sun hat, and stepped out big. The landlady was staking out the door across from his again. One creak from the latch, and she’d pounce like a starving jackal and shred her prey.

[The subway you’re riding will arrive soon. Please board and exit in order.]

“So many people…”

The Eye Orb sighed. It rarely went where crowds churned. On that point, it matched Lingchen Yao.

“It’s Monday at eight. Rush hour. Crowds are normal.”

He scanned the river of bodies. His gaze paused on a woman on a call. His brow knit. His steps stopped.

“You feel it, right? She’s between First Symphony and an ordinary person… uh, by your label, ‘married woman’?”

“Married women can be Magic Maidens?”

“What do you think? That’s basic.”

The Eye Orb threw him a look that said are you dumb, because a look was all it could throw.

He squeezed onto the train. People flowed and pressed until breath turned thin. City noise drove him to a quieter side street. He prayed the map wouldn’t betray him.

“Finally here.”

He circled Jiuqiong University once, then reached its gate. This was the point of the trip—to scout Jiuqiong University ahead of time.

It was summer. The vast campus was almost empty. Only a few mentors and students who stayed behind drifted through.

At the gate stood an Old Woman. A paper bag in hand, a cane under her palm, she paced before two Obsidian Stone pillars.

“Excuse me, what are you doing?”

“You’re not a Jiuqiong student, are you?”

Her eyes narrowed to a slit. She pointed her cane at the Obsidian Stone.

“Only top academies can mount pillars like these… They’re the hardest magic-insulating material we know. Formations built on them block over ninety percent of Mana.”

“Of course, these Obsidian Stones are a lower grade. The higher the grade, the stronger the Mana isolation. Also, the harder to work. The toughest Obsidian Stone Formation we know is at the Order Keeper headquarters.”

His world widened. High school didn’t offer Magical Materials. Only at a university would you touch this. He realized how much he had to learn.

“Mm. I forgot my card… can’t go in. I’m waiting for someone to bring it.”

“Then you are…?”

If she had an access card, her status wasn’t simple.

“Just a mentor’s mother.”

Her wrinkled face bloomed with pride, silver and warm as noon. A child who’d become a mentor—something to glow about.

“And you, child? If you’re not Jiuqiong’s, why come to Jiuqiong… Did you get in?”

“Yeah. You guessed it… I’m enrolling this year. I’m in the Twelfth District right now, so I came during summer to walk the paths and not get lost.”

His shy act made the Eye Orb itch to grow ten hands and dunk him headfirst into an outhouse.

You’re never that nice to me!

I’m a senior too!