“Station Fourteen’s acting up—it lost tracking,” he said, the screen a dead eye gone blind like a fish in silt.

The guard at the console filed the report, his voice flat as rain on tin. Orders came down like cold iron: go fix it. Cameras aged fast, like fruit left in sun; some died when their cheap power stones ran dry. This batch wasn’t even a year old, and trouble had already rippled through two or three times.

He pulled on his patrol gear, grumbling that the Modification Center must’ve bought junk lenses from a back-alley market. His eyes skimmed the halls like a broom across dust, and his feet carried him, practiced as a river following its bed, straight to Station Fourteen.

Station Fourteen sat inside the elevator, a cyclops in the metal throat. He unmounted it, ready to haul it back. A careful check later, he found the Magic Stone inside ground to flour—powdered like old bones. In his eyes, it was a cheap stone; half a year of use and it was spent like a candle stub.

He turned to leave, but the elevator rose slow as a tide toward the top floor. A girl with black hair and a mask stepped in, quiet as night water. She glanced at him tinkering with the camera, then tossed a casual question, half-curious and half-aimed, at his work.

He looked at the badge on her chest; first-floor pharma staff, most likely. Suspicion settled like dust, thin and harmless. He chatted with her, voice an easy stream.

When he asked what she was up to, Night Frost shook her head, like a leaf saying no to wind. She wanted to wander; she was new and didn’t know the Center’s maze.

He’d worked here years, a veteran of monitors and patrols, a night watch with maps in his bones. No one knew the layout better. The Center was big, a forest of rooms, but if you watched where you stepped, the paths opened like trails after rain.

Work tugged at his sleeve like a dog on a leash. He’d take the camera back, repair it, pull the recordings, then show her around. Still, he pressed the warning like a seal in wax: don’t go below Basement Nine. That’s reserved for the execs, their offices sealed like vaults.

Unless it’s urgent, you go straight to Basement Sixteen and report to the boss, he said. But the boss hates being disturbed mid-work; his temper shifts like a storm at sea. Without a solid reason, your head might roll like a dropped melon.

He handed her these truths like lanterns in fog, hoping the newbie wouldn’t blunder and touch the boss’s thunder. Then he stepped out of the elevator, the camera under his arm like a metal baby.

The girl eyed the elevator, then set her sights on Floor Nine. She wanted to see the show floors meant for outsiders, the glossy skin of the beast. Night Frost also wanted to learn how the Center made its money—what gears turned beneath the smile. Still, her first aim stayed sharp as a needle: infiltrate the higher tiers, then wriggle her way into the Seeker.

The base was an inverted cone, a mountain flipped like a cup. This elevator didn’t pierce the whole body; it ran through Floors One to Nine. After that, you walked a stretch, long as a corridor of winter, to find each door.

At the gate of Floor Nine, she found the office warren—paper lungs and keyboard rain. It was a place to sift a few useful secrets. She stood at the elevator mouth. Nearby, a dedicated admin corridor cut deep like a straight river, fast access to the inner rooms—but you needed an admin fingerprint, the key printed in skin.

“Did you hear? The Mud King stirred up the Order Keeper. If we don’t handle those gnats, they’ll stick their hands into our pie,” one woman said, her whisper thin as smoke.

“Eh, I believe our Modification Sovereign will crush it,” the other replied, faith solid as a pillar.

Night Frost’s ears were good; she caught every word like a net catching silver fish.

From that, she guessed: the Order Keeper in District Twenty One had ties to the Modification Center, but shallow ones—maybe none at all. The Center might stand opposite them, two cliffs facing across a gorge.

That “Modification Sovereign” was likely a nickname, a crown-and-iron joke. It fit the one who fired two or three shots by the lake and made no waves. Aside from his head, the rest of him looked rebuilt in steel and wire; face him head-on, and Night Frost might suffer like frost under noon sun.

A supervisor had said each zone had a Cantata Two watching. At the lake’s heart, Night Frost saw four, plus a woman whose mana blade cut like moonlight on ice. The other two, a man and a woman, had strength unknown, but probably not frail.

Five in total at Cantata Two. The Twelfth District’s visible Cantata Twos were about the same. To think one Modification Center could match a whole Magic Maiden district, like a single fortress standing against a city.

Floors Eight and Seven had many empty rooms, hollow shells like beehives after winter. They were more for staff to unwind, places of tea steam and slow breath. Floor Six upward shifted into smaller offices and admin dorms. Every staffer had a single room, except for special cases.

Floors One to Three held most of the core plates, the research fields gathered like islands in a tight archipelago. One block on Floor Three had shut down because of the Mud King, a wound scabbed over.

Floors One to Three had dorms too—Zhou Jiaxin’s Phase Two Pharma dorm and the neighboring mech-mod dorms tucked near their work areas. Those departments ran hot and late, time tight as drumskin, so the higher-ups turned nearby storerooms into staff housing, practical as bricks.

The Center was huge and its layout messy, like vines over stone; a newbie could get lost in that green. Night Frost’s memory held like lacquer, and she found her way back to Zhou Jiaxin’s room.

She slipped inside. The door swung, and the sharp smell of luosifen poured into Night Frost’s nose like a peppered wave. The scent was rough, a slap of swamp and spice, but she could bear it.

Good thing the door sealed tight as a jar. If anyone who knew Zhou Jiaxin walked by and smelled that fierce luosifen, they’d notice she hadn’t gone to work. And if they then spotted “Zhou Jiaxin” actually at her station, what would they think? Minds would knot like tangled string.

Night Frost sighed, a soft wind through reeds, eyes on Zhou Jiaxin slurping noodles and chasing a drama. No wonder her headset went silent later—this little gremlin had been binging here like a cat in sun.

If Zhou Jiaxin weren’t outside Aklatia, Night Frost wouldn’t scold. It’s her life, her bowl, her screen. But if any member of Aklatia pulled a stunt like this mid-mission, Night Frost would “take care of them,” and teach them why flowers bloom red when pricked.

Night Frost leaned over Zhou Jiaxin’s shoulder, a shadow checking the screen. It looked like a crime drama, but tailored for fujoshi tastes, sugar spun for a certain crowd. Not her thing. Still, perspective turns like a wheel—girls watching BL, guys watching GL, same root, different branches.

The girl was too absorbed. Night Frost slipped off her mask, tossed it aside like a russet leaf, and at the sink scrubbed off her makeup. She changed out of the clothes borrowed from Zhou Jiaxin, folded them neat like stacked waves, then fell onto the bed.

She had to admit—today was heavy as wet wool.

She’d crammed a mountain of drug uses and effects into her head, solved the supervisor’s headache, and mapped the Center’s bones. Her skull felt ready to crack like baked clay.

Watching Zhou Jiaxin eat and watch, Night Frost felt a pinch of envy, a soft ache like frost sunlight. She shook it off, a bird shaking rain. The venture was barely begun; how could she slack now?

“Knock, knock, knock.”

The door drummed like wood in wind. Night Frost tensed, a string pulled tight, grabbed everything, and darted into the bathroom like a fish into reeds. Zhou Jiaxin, startled by that flash and slip, paused her show and opened the door.

A tall woman stood outside, her voice smooth as tea—likely the senior with the surname Wang. She sounded concerned. “Zhou Jiaxin” had angered a supervisor on shift and she wanted to know what happened.

The door opened, and the luosifen smell surged like a spicy tide. Senior Wang pinched her nose fast, hands clamped like a vise, or the disaster would splash deeper.

Zhou Jiaxin fumbled through it, words like loose buttons. Honestly, her cover skills were thin; you could see the seams. Night Frost’s voice didn’t match Zhou Jiaxin’s either. But if Night Frost showed her face, it could implode—the two had likely met before, and masks wouldn’t hold.

First day of infiltration and already a misstep, a shoe sinking in mud. Night Frost, oh Night Frost—go train with the Order Keeper’s auspex team; stealth might not be your blade.

Senior Wang scanned the bed, eyes a hawk’s sweep. She glanced at the luosifen bowl and the paused drama on the phone. Understanding settled like a quiet stone.

Night Frost hid in the bathroom, not daring to breathe, smothering her mana like embers under ash, terrified of a stray sense picking it up.

Senior Wang didn’t press. She chatted a few more lines, then turned and left fast, finally freeing her hands from her nose like a lock opened.

Zhou Jiaxin shut the door, nerves like thin ice. She stared at the locked bathroom; in her mind, she’d handled it well. Night Frost was already plotting a retreat route, feet itching like a runner’s.

She finished the bowl, no drama this time. Her slurp speed surged, a stream in flood. Wiping her mouth, she even asked Night Frost if she wanted a bowl.

Night Frost inhaled the lingering luosifen air, a stubborn fog of snail and spice, and refused at once. If this happens again, she warned, she wouldn’t mind pickling Zhou Jiaxin like the bamboo shoots in luosifen.

Zhou Jiaxin shivered, a leaf trembling. She swore she’d never eat luosifen in this room again. That Senior Wang had smelled a hint already. Night Frost considered the next step—tomorrow, or tonight—should she “take care” of Senior Wang too?

Senior Wang walked straight back to her room, spine weary as a late flag. Today had shown her a scene she’d never witnessed in her career.

An infiltrator had thrown hands with a supervisor on day one, right in front of staff. And the supervisor hadn’t reported her—likely got puppeted by Night Frost’s strings. Bold as a calf facing a tiger. If Senior Wang had filed the report, Night Frost’s undercover run would end like a candle snuffed.

If Night Frost wanted a promotion, access to deeper rooms, she just needed that supervisor to recommend her upward. Sign the secrecy pact, and she’d step below Floor Nine, into the Center’s hidden heart, the river that runs beneath stone.

Her aims aligned with Night Frost’s like two arrows pointing inward, though they stood on different banks. Now, it seemed a small cooperation could bloom like a white flower in dusk.