Moon Owl stood before the wall of screens, her black eyes a deep sky with no stars, fixed on a hive of windows.

“Relax, this test hasn’t glitched in a hundred years,” someone said, steady as an old stone bridge over a slow river.

Moon Owl nodded, half-believing, like a leaf that won’t fall though wind tugs at it; accidents sprout like weeds after rain.

The girls took their marks, and the trial rang out like a bronze gong rolling across still water.

Night Frost opened her eyes into a forest thick as a painted scroll, and vines coiled her ankles like cold snakes as she hung upside down.

Panic pricked first, hot and sharp like nettles; then she flared fire from her palm, a red flower that bit through vine, and she spun midair and crashed into mud like a dropped gourd.

“Ow, ow—what is even happening? Where is this place? Wait—why am I already transformed? Don’t tell me I got dragged into an Order Keeper exam as a Magic Maiden? Could my luck sink any lower than a stone in a well?”

Fear throbbed like a trapped sparrow, but it was useless; the only solid ground was that she still had Mana and her transformation like a cloak against cold wind.

The Eye Orb wasn’t beside her, a missing lantern in the dusk; who knew where it rolled.

She swallowed the nerves like bitter tea and reached to cancel the form, but a clean red-and-black dress refreshed on her body like dawn light over lacquer.

Her phone to Qianchun was a dead plank in a storm; the signal was caged and silent.

“Hold up, why didn’t I change back? Am I stuck like this?” she muttered, heart a drum in a narrow alley.

Now wasn’t the time to stew; thinking too hard eats brain cells like moths eat silk.

She chose to scout, light on her feet like a deer testing ice.

She’d barely gone a dozen steps when a round shape shot from the brush like a skipping stone—if it wasn’t the Eye Orb, what else rolls like that—and a pitch-black boar thundered behind it like a storm cloud with tusks.

“Ahem, help! Its weak spot is the butt!” the Eye Orb hollered, voice bouncing like a pebble in a tin can.

“Huh?” she blurted, thoughts scattering like startled sparrows.

The Eye Orb landed on her head like a ridiculous crown; the boar slammed into her like a battering ram, and she flew back, pain blooming from her palm like frost spreading on glass.

“Great, this pig hits like a landslide,” she hissed, knuckles trembling like reeds in wind. “My turn, right?”

She rubbed a flame to life in her palm, a small sun that made the air shimmer like summer road haze; anger surged, hot as chili on the tongue—since when did barnyard beasts bully her?

The heat shoved the boar back a few steps, like surf forcing a rock to yield.

“Trying to run? Too late,” she snapped, voice a whip crack in dry air.

The boar howled, rolling on dirt like a log in a river, trying to smother the flames licking its bristled hide; but the fire in her hand drank wind and grew like a hungry kiln, and soon the smell of roast meat drifted up like a picnic dream.

“Lunch is secured,” she grinned, dragging the boar toward a creek that glinted like a silver ribbon and scrubbing mud off its hide with water bright as glass.

“I just realized I can’t butcher this thing,” she sighed, mood drooping like a wet sleeve. “I brought nothing. Didn’t expect any of this. Eye Orb, stash it for me, will you? I’ll look for something edible straight up.”

Before she finished, the Eye Orb tossed her a few fruits, little suns in a green nest of leaves.

“No poison, right?” she asked, nose twitching like a curious cat.

“Nope, fresh-picked, or why do you think a boar chased me,” it said, voice smug as a rooster at dawn.

She bit in, sweet juice flowing down her tongue like spring water, fragrance rising like blossoms in a courtyard; strength returned like warmth from a brazier, and she didn’t care what it was as long as it tasted good.

“Orb, where are we, really?” she asked, voice soft as evening wind.

“If I’m not wrong, this is a man-made space, a room behind a mirror,” it said, tone steady as a plumb line. “We probably slipped into the Order Keeper reserve tryouts. We just wait till the girls decide a winner, then we can leave. Let’s hide a while—food and water are no worry here.”

Its logic sat solid as a millstone, and Night Frost nodded; then a chill thought pricked like a needle and drained her color.

“Wait, Orb! My transformation lasts only half an hour—then what? My Magic Stone won’t support me,” she blurted, panic rising like floodwater.

If she reverted suddenly, she’d be stark naked under cold daylight; someone would brand her a creep before the wind even turned.

“Don’t worry,” the Eye Orb said, soothing as a warm hand. “You were force-transformed when you came in. I suspect here you’re locked to this look. If you don’t buy it, wait thirty minutes.”

Half an hour later.

“It didn’t cancel!” she cheered, leaping two meters like a springing cat, hugging the Eye Orb as if it were a fat pigeon—and then she froze, disgust rippling over her face like a sudden shadow, and flung it aside.

Ugh. Who wants to kiss that thing.

“I can’t believe you despised me,” the Eye Orb wailed, melodrama dripping like rain from eaves. “Cruel woman… you don’t know how much I’ve given… heartless!”

It sprawled on a branch like a sulking owl, eyes glinting like wet glass; Night Frost rolled her eyes and lobbed it a text-only slap.

“(￣ε￣) Scram!”

Eye Orb: “(T_T)”

“Hey, Orb, if this is a training space, what happens if I die?” she asked, drawing a finger across her neck like a cold blade.

“I’m not sure,” it said, truth plain as bare wood. “Some spaces boot you out when you die. I don’t know this one. I’m not an Order Keeper; why would I know? I advise against testing it with your throat.”

“Still, there’s decent stuff around. Go find some fun,” it added, voice whistling like a kettle.

She jogged circles through the trees, boredom settling like dust; then she picked up a flat stone and ground it down, slow sparks like fireflies as she shaped a crude knife.

Before the screens, two girls crashed together like kettledrums, steel sang, and sparks flew like meteors; Moon Owl shook her head, frost calm, a thin line of disappointment passing over her face like cloud over moon—this cohort had bright spots, but not enough.

Her gaze dropped like a hawk’s, catching a girl in a red-and-black dress dragging a boar toward a creek; she frowned, checked the roster like flipping a bamboo slip.

Teacher Shen stepped to Moon Owl’s side, eyes nailed to the screen like pins, and only then spoke, voice gravel-soft. (That’s the talkative elder who’d hogged the podium earlier.)

“She’s in Cantata Two? Mentor Yue, she’s not on our list. And she’s not carrying the exam device. Want me to go in?”

“I’ll go. You proctor,” Moon Owl said, words clean as a sword edge.

Before Shen could argue, Moon Owl unclipped the obsidian nameplate at her waist; white glyphs bloomed underfoot like frost flowers, and she vanished like smoke in a draft.

“The Principal told me not to let her handle incidents,” Shen murmured, helpless as a reed in current. “I’m getting scolded for this… fine, proctor first. As the saying goes, the boat straightens when it hits the bridge.”

She sighed, sat, and fixed on the screens like a lighthouse eye; with Mentor Yue moving, there was no need to fear, for Yue had once slain a Cantata Three Monster alone, even wounded as it was.

“It’s been a while,” Moon Owl said, stepping into the arena that smelled like old cedar. “Still the same as before.”

A cluster of girls rushed her like sparrows flushed from grass, Magic Tools raised like farm hoes; Moon Owl tore space like silk and stepped to the forest, leaving their strikes kissing air.

They froze, shame dropping like cold rain; had they just tried to mug a mentor?

After a hush, they ducked into a bush like quail, agreeing they’d seen nothing, knew nothing, did nothing.

A second squad behind the same bush popped up like wolves from shadow and took them out in one clean swoop.

Moon Owl entered the trees, took a Magic Tool in hand, and watched four or five red dots glow like embers; they ringed a patch of terrain, and the girl in the red-and-black dress sat inside that circle like a speck of ink.

She knew only a rough position; finding the girl would take time like counting beads by touch.

Meanwhile, what was Night Frost doing?

Boredom stiff as stale bread, she had shaped a stone knife, enough to slice boar meat in uneven slabs like shale; she skewered them with green twigs and set them by a fire, smoke curling like lazy dragons as the smell drifted like a banner.

“When the meat’s done, we move,” the Eye Orb warned, tone a bell in fog. “Beasts avoid your scent, but they’re gathering like driftwood in a bend. Where beasts gather, Abyss Monsters come to feast.”

The warning came late, like thunder after lightning; the Abyss Monster had already arrived, patience coiled like a snake in shade, waiting for the herd to thicken for a fuller table.

When the herd churned enough, the hidden hunter dropped like nightfall—a pitch-black python as long as a fallen pine, carving through beasts like a blade in tall grass; blood-smell swallowed the roast like tide swallowing sand, and the herd broke like a clay pot, so the girl snatched half-cooked meat and slipped into deeper green.

Moon Owl reached the camp to find a ruin like a trampled nest, blood spattered like red maple leaves, bone shards scattered like chalk; a faint Abyssal Aura misted the air like cold breath.

Her emotionless black eyes swept the grove like winter wind; she tore a rift like ripping paper and stepped before the python still sliding away.

“Those,” she asked, voice chill as snowmelt, “you ate them?”

The python tasted a thread of terror from her like iron in water; this girl could kill it with less effort than snapping a twig, so it nodded, head low as a penitent.

New to Cantata Two, it needed food like fire needs fuel.

“The one who owned that fire—where?” she asked, words straight as an arrow.

It pointed to deeper forest with a tongue flick like a black ribbon; Moon Owl nodded and split space again like thin ice, chasing the ember.

The python exhaled like a bellows, grateful as a thief spared; it began to turn, but space tore once more like a seam, and a cold dagger punched into the green Magic Stone on its brow like hail on jade; a heartbeat later, the python ripped in two like rope under an axe.

“Almost forgot,” Moon Owl said, flicking black blood from her Blade like soot from silk. “Exam Monsters don’t enter Cantata Two. You overstepped.”

She followed the footprints like a hunter on frost, steps silent as shadow.

Night Frost ran full tilt, pulse loud as hoofbeats; even she felt the surge of Mana bloom behind her camp like a volcano waking, and dread told her she’d been seen.

She had no thought of clashing head-on; that’s a moth diving into flame. She poured Mana into her legs like oil into a lamp, and her speed sang like a bowstring.

But Moon Owl’s space-cutting was a cheat written by heaven; in moments she was there, reverse-gripping a cold Blade that drank light like ink, gaze on the girl like a coroner on a slab, raising gooseflesh like a north wind.

No escape—only fight.

Night Frost clenched two flames till they throbbed like twin hearts; a faint Abyssal Aura curled around Moon Owl’s nose like smoke from a wet wick, and memory flipped for her like a ledger.

“Self-styled ‘Night Frost,’ a girl drenched in Abyssal scent,” Moon Owl murmured, voice flat as a stone path.

“That was a random codename! Ugh, it’s so cringe. Can I change it?” Night Frost blurted, thoughts leaping like carp over a gate.

Moon Owl blinked, a rare stutter in a frozen stream; she was about to say, “No,” when she realized the girl had bolted like a rabbit into brush, leaving only a flicker of flame in the wind.