“Skill? Or is it something in the book you don’t get?”

His face was a map of deep-cut ravines, wrinkles etched by time like dried riverbeds. Yet warmth lingered there, like winter sun on old stone. In those weathered eyes, wisdom flickered, steady as lantern light, no hint of a life nearing its final embers.

Since he joined the roster, Blade had found him life-extending medicine. The fire in him burned steadier now; one or two more years seemed possible. Compared to a few months ago, his spirit felt less tattered, like a cloak newly mended.

Night Frost spoke of her recent array work, her thoughts on binding an Array Pattern to wood carving. At the idea of carving marks into a shaped wooden figure to “animate” it, her mentor’s brows first knotted, then smoothed, like wind leaving ripples on a pond.

Night Frost saw the shift and felt a prickle of doubt. He smiled and answered, voice slow and even, like tea poured in a quiet room.

“Your line of thought mirrors a friend of mine. He asked me something similar. We studied it for a while. In the end, we failed.”

Night Frost hadn’t expected her idea to have a precedent. No wonder the books he gave her had notes on “activation” marks.

“But we did make something interesting,” he went on. “A kind of puppet. Split the carved object into movable parts, inscribe a Formation on each, then control it manually. We called them inscribed puppets. Ordinary folks can’t really operate them. Even Cantata Two can’t bear the Mana drain.”

Her path wasn’t quite puppetry, but both used carved marks on wood. He grabbed a piece of timber and demonstrated the only ‘Activation Formation’ the textbooks acknowledged.

The Formation gave dead wood a heartbeat of life. Only a heartbeat.

“That’s the flaw of activation,” he said, voice like a bell struck softly. “Breathing life into dead matter mostly doesn’t work. For us carvers of Formations, time and things trade evenly. You spend heaps of material for offense and defense. But mountains of dead matter can’t match living breath.”

His words landed true. Night Frost felt agreement warm her hands and feet before she spoke, then she said her second idea, careful, like laying stones across a stream.

First, inscribe ‘softening’ marks on the body. Then carve ‘hardening’ marks at mirrored points, skin and bone in tandem. Next, etch ‘spirit’ marks, gifting pressure and a false soul. The figure can move, but it’s not true “activation.”

This method leans toward puppetry, shaving off a few steps. Puppets need parts split clean; Night Frost proposes carving a skeleton within, like copying the blueprint of a beast. It could work.

But it tests the carver’s finesse and grasp of structure, a knife-edge of craft. Puppets demand finer work; her plan is rougher, a beginner’s trial by blade.

By Night Frost’s approach, the carving takes commands. Picture a Dreadwolf: the four limbs move, but limited, not as fluid as a puppet or an “activation.”

Even so, two or three months in, pulling this off is no small feat. In his eyes, she was a bright-cut talent, and self-taught at that. He hadn’t fed her much—she’d climbed here on her own grit.

“I’ll test you on defense, offense, and energy isolation,” he said, setting the stakes like stones. “Understand these three beginner Formations, and you’re through the gate. Otherwise, you’re reaching too far.”

He took out three simple formation plates he’d made and set them on the table. If Night Frost carved them, he’d pass over the techniques he’d just mentioned without holding back.

With thinking like hers, he believed she’d pass.

She did not disappoint. She handled all three with sure hands, the defense Formation most of all. She added her own ideas to its roots, turning it into something new, like grafting fresh branches on an old tree.

She sealed energy cleanly. Her offense Formation caught for a beat, then flowed through the trial, sharp enough to cut.

“You’re slick with defense Formations.”

“Yeah. I had to be.”

If she weren’t, she would’ve drowned long ago in a tide of Monsters. To survive, she gnawed at defense Formations day and night. Whenever she could, she stacked and tweaked them within her means, chasing thicker armor around her heart.

He seemed to understand. A sigh rose and fell, carrying the rough of her road. Since she’d passed, he would teach her all he had.

“By the way,” Night Frost asked, a thought shining cold as moonlight, “do you know a Formation that locks and compresses large amounts of Mana? The Mana inside doesn’t decay.”

He paused, gaze drifting like a boat into old fog. He’d met his friend through a Mana storage project. His friend was more than ten years younger, called him brother, and he called the friend brother back.

After one experiment, the lab dissolved. He never learned why. The Mana storage study was canceled. Still, the two of them kept at it, shoulder to shoulder.

They finally scraped out a first result. The Formation could store forty percent of Mana, though the quality stayed low.

The team rejoiced like spring breaking. Then his friend left without a word. The team split and scattered, leaving a bitter taste.

He met his friend again years later. The man’s hair had grown; the razor had been forgotten. He’d begun studying “activation” Formations. The mentor didn’t know why, but it mattered to his friend like fire in winter. He forgave the leaving and joined the study. They only made a knockoff. Then the disaster hit.

His friend was confirmed dead in the disaster. The weight was iron. A friend who vanished, then died—what a sad ending.

Night Frost saw the grief on his face, the ache behind his eyes. She felt a quiet sorrow for a broken bond.

“So why ask?” he said softly. “Did you find a Formation tied to energy storage?”

Night Frost nodded. Yet she carried nothing now. She’d absorbed the Magic Stone once set inside her carving. The Key etched with Formations had been taken by someone unknown.

“It could be your friend’s legacy,” he mused, “or someone else’s success. The path of Formations has been fading for a long time, but it’s not gone. Some in the Seeker study these secrets.”

Night Frost fell silent, thought circling like crows. A line clicked into place. Her mentor might be tied to the father she had never met. One question could lay the threads straight.

“Was that disaster the Calamity Dragon from eleven years ago?”

He nodded, no hesitation.

Night Frost bit her lip. The picture spread out like a scroll.

Her father and her mentor were friends. Her father was a research prodigy and a Formation genius. He developed storage and activation Formations, tried to spread Formations to the many. In the end, he was murdered in the disaster.

Her mentor wasn’t slow. He read her face and linked it to what Blade had told him of her past. He understood—the girl before him was his old friend’s child.

He hadn’t imagined the child survived that calamity, let alone grew this far. Stranger still, fate had braided her path to him, making him her mentor by chance.

His eyes reddened, tears blurring the years. He hadn’t cried like this in a long time. After so many seasons, he was still tied to his friend.

He wanted to take care of his friend’s child. Those were the three proofs his friend had walked this world: his memories, his notes, and his child.

“My father… what was his name?”

He shook his head. He didn’t know. Agents and Magic Maidens like Blade used codenames. He only knew Night Frost’s father’s codename:

“Zhixiao. A clever name for a clever man. Doesn’t sound as good as my own codename ‘Bolan,’ but he was a true genius.”

He shared the piece and, without stinginess, praised her father.

“What about my father’s past…”

That was what Night Frost wanted most, the thread that tied her story and the hunt for the murderer of her parents. She hadn’t thought the hints from her dreams would surface this way.

Her mentor wasn’t simple either.

After a few minutes, he laid out the basics. In his eyes, her father was genius among geniuses, kind in his ways, a man you could entrust your life to.

He once tried to popularize Formations. The dream didn’t come true. He wanted the Twelfth District to grow strong. But a single genius is still only one. Even if the Twelfth District didn’t block him.

“The Twelfth District didn’t block him? Then who killed my father?”

Night Frost thought, and the path turned misty. The Twelfth District hadn’t stopped her father from spreading Formations.

So the Twelfth District didn’t kill him. He didn’t die for that dream. He must’ve cut into someone else’s bread.

“He was murdered?!”

Her mentor stared, stunned. He hadn’t known. He’d thought the man died to sky-borne calamity. He’d raged at fate for him. He hadn’t expected human hands behind it, with the disaster for a shroud.

“The Twelfth District wouldn’t kill your father,” he said, voice tight. “They even funded his research. I met him in the Twelfth District. Before that, I know nothing…”

“Your father once said he met his wife in the Sixth District. He’d also been to District Twenty One. If one day you chase the truth, look in those two places—once you have the strength.”

“Cantata Two is far from enough.”