Because of the blizzard, Night Frost and Ms Feng lingered here a while longer, like travelers stalled beneath a sky that kept throwing knives. The workers said storms on this peak came like a slammed door and left like a torn curtain, their voices as steady as old pines bent by years of wind.

The old hands kindly explained the Ray’s guts to Night Frost, their words clicking like tools on steel. The craft was forged from a special Mana-metal hauled up from the Abyss, a metal that drank energy like a thirsty beast—feed it more, and its pull grew like a tide.

At that, Night Frost thought of the silver cube in her box, a cold moon of a thing. Feed that cube a Magic Stone and it birthed brutal suction; anything it faced was either ground to dust like brittle shells, or swallowed into the space behind it like a pebble into a deep pond.

But her little silver cube had likely been confiscated by Ms Feng, a magpie with silk gloves. Hopefully she hadn’t figured out how to use it yet, like a child not yet finding the latch on a locked candy tin.

The Ray’s power came from solid energy bars so dense they felt like frozen lightning. The principle was simple as winter and cruel as a press—compress ambient Mana again and again, from gas to liquid to solid, until you forged a high-grade product that cost a small mountain of coin.

The old workers said these “helicopters” had only entered experimental runs in recent months, like seedlings coaxed up in a harsh garden. Production was a headache of thorns, so after months, only a few units were barely good enough to fly.

“So… these are experimental builds,” Night Frost asked, her voice a thin thread in the howl of the hangar. “Is this… safe?”

Her gaze slid to the Ray beside her, and a prickle ran up from her spine like frost under skin. She cut a glance at Ms Feng not far away, then at the two special Rays, and she lowered her voice as if the wind might eavesdrop.

“Safe,” the worker said, his tone like a glove on hot metal. “They’ve been through several rounds of tests. These few have no issues.”

His answer steadied Night Frost like a hand on a skittish horse. She had reason to suspect Ms Feng came here just to taste a new toy, curiosity gleaming in her eyes like a cat pawing glass—seeing that gleam only hardened Night Frost’s hunch.

Night Frost was certain: even if this Ray hadn’t reached testing, Ms Feng would’ve dragged her here for a joyride anyway, like a child tugging a kite into storm light.

When the blizzard finally peeled away, leaving the sky pale as bone, Night Frost boarded the Ray with Ms Feng, her heart a drum of dread and thrill. Even with the staff’s assurances, fear pawed her ribs, and she caught herself checking for some passive aura that killed vehicles like moths in a flame.

“Relax,” Ms Feng said, her voice smooth as oil on steel. “If you somehow fall, my tentacles will catch you first. Not that you can fall—unless you stick your head out. I’m sure you’re not that dumb.”

Ms Feng promised to catch, but never said to haul her back up; Night Frost pictured herself drinking the north wind for ten whole minutes, lips blue as glaciers.

Back when Ms Feng was nothing but an Eye Orb, Night Frost could squeeze her like a rubber ball. Now Ms Feng had her strength back, while Night Frost’s Mana was shackled like a river under ice—fortune’s wheel turned, and heaven’s cycle spun.

Thinking that, she clipped her belt and eased back, a leaf choosing to lie flat in a gust. She had no desire to lean out and sip that north wind.

“Wait—are you sure you’re not getting a pilot?” she asked, words tripping like pebbles. “You’re flying? You’re a geneticist… can you even fly this Ray?”

“Why can’t a geneticist fly?” Ms Feng’s smile curved like a scalpel’s edge. “I dislike crude augmentations, but I don’t reject sensible tech. Without tech, you can’t chase gene secrets. I’ve got a pilot’s license. Want to see it?”

Night Frost shook her head so fast her hair fluttered like a flag. When it came to Ms Feng, she could believe this; Ms Feng wouldn’t joke with her own life, and right now, Night Frost didn’t look easy to kill by falling anyway.

She donned a flight helmet, breath fogging like a small cloud. Pale-white tentacles rippled over the console switches like silk streamers in a draft. The battered, cobbled wings woke, turbines spinning like silver wheels; white gas hissed from tail and belly like a whale’s breath, and the Ray rose slow as a heron lifting from reeds.

“Anti-radar system, on!”

The Ray gathered speed, triangular fuselage spearing the air like an arrowhead. Streamlines along its skin shaved off drag like a razor on hair, and soon it punched through the cloud sea, bursting into a plain of blinding white.

“This,” Ms Feng murmured, “is a man’s romance.”

Night Frost pressed her face to the thick window, leaving a smear like frost on glass, looking a little ridiculous and not caring.

Ms Feng shot a sideways look to the back seat. It’s just a transforming plane, her gaze said, like a city dweller watching a bumpkin marvel at streetlights—calm down, you’re shaking my hands at work.

“But you’re a girl right now,” Ms Feng said, lightly, like tapping a bell.

Night Frost jolted like a sparrow at a firecracker. Her head lowered; her eyes slipped past her modest chest like a moon over a low hill, and fell on the smooth, unbroken skirt. It stabbed like a cold thorn—she was, without doubt, female now.

“Aren’t you one too?!”

Night Frost snapped back, pride flaring like a match. Ms Feng just shrugged, unbothered as a cloud—tech was mature; she could swap skins like gloves.

“Actually,” Ms Feng said, voice turning clinical as clean tile, “I’ve been studying why you turned into a girl.”

Night Frost’s shoulders twitched; hope flared like dawn over dark water. Her gaze hit Ms Feng as if greeting a savior on a high altar, holy and blazing.

If Ms Feng could change her back, Night Frost would kneel on stone—call her godmother, call her anything, the words tumbled like beads.

“Godmother above! Frost bows with half a—”

“Stop,” Ms Feng cut in, a blade to a rope. “I only have a few hypotheses. I need deeper tests.”

Her tentacles settled on the yoke, but her hands toyed with a tablet, screens flipping like paper in wind. Watching her hands leave the controls, Night Frost’s heart thrashed like a caged bird.

“Maybe talk later and fly first?” she said, and thumped her chest lightly, as if to soothe a porcelain-fragile heart that kept trying to leap away.

“Hypothesis one,” Ms Feng said, eyes narrowing like a hunter’s, “the Black Dragon’s heart inside you came from a female. Her heart assimilated you and tweaked your genes, a river dyed by the spring that feeds it.”

She idly pulled up a few academic papers, pages of dense text scrolling like rain. She’d collected them on the road and filed them like bones in a cabinet.

“Genetic shifts alone shouldn’t flip your secondary sex traits,” she went on, voice cool as a clean scalpel. “So maybe it’s a magic-side problem. Magic Maiden is called Magic Maiden for a reason. Perhaps a Magic Maiden can only be a girl.”

Magic Maiden can only be a girl… It sounded crooked, but it stood like a leaning tree that still held.

“Originally, the Magic Stone and Black Dragon heart only pushed your personality toward the dragon, a compass slowly turning. Overuse would let the Black Dragon erode your mind. This change wasn’t in the forecast. With finer instruments—ideally dissection—we could get precise answers.”

Dissection. The word rung like a drop in a silent cave. Night Frost pictured a dim theater, Ms Feng’s tentacles brandishing tools, her own chest opening petal by petal—she shivered like grass under sleet. Surely Ms Feng would be humane… right?

“Hypothesis two,” Ms Feng said, fingers tapping like raindrops, “you’re genetically female, but your traits presented male, a mirror hung crooked. That mismatch let you start the Magic Stone and earned its recognition. When you became a Magic Maiden, you ‘restored’ your original face.”

“The Magic Stone’s power let you switch between male and female, a door on a hinge. But the Black Dragon’s meddling burned too much fuel; at that moment, the Stone had no juice to swing you back.”

“It’s said Magic Stones have their own awareness. So even though your Mana recovered and the Stone works, it judged this state optimal. Switching costs Mana and fuss, so it fixed you in this shape like a pin through a butterfly.”

Night Frost was sure she’d been male since childhood, that memory a mountain that didn’t move. She’d heard of mismatches, rare reeds in a wide field. Whether Magic Stones had minds, she didn’t know—but she knew a dragon’s breath curled in her skull.

“It’s a stretch,” Ms Feng admitted, shrugging like a bird shaking rain, “but a Seeker proposed it. There are cases. It fits you well enough to wear.”

“Both guesses run too deep. Magic Stone and Black Dragon heart sit beyond current science, like stars beyond a fog. I’ll say it up front: turning you back is a low-probability event.”

Low didn’t mean zero; Night Frost’s resolve rose like a lantern in dusk. She had no urgent problem now; she still had a death to unravel, and no desire to marry or bear children. But if she reached her goal and only then chased a way back, wouldn’t that be late? She feared time’s slow hand; she’d get used to this, find its advantages, and stop wanting the old shape, like a river forgetting its source.

“I don’t think you need to change back,” Ms Feng said, casual as a breeze. “You’re good now. Easier on the eyes than before.”

Not change back? No way. Was she supposed to pick bros or grind tofu with girls? Either path made her skin crawl. Under Night Frost’s firm pushback, Ms Feng dropped the idea of keeping her female for good. It was the only good news Night Frost had heard in days, a small ember in a long night.

The Ray flew fast, a hawk skimming ridgelines. Crossing regions felt like blinking sand from an eye. In a few hours, it sailed over mountains and valleys, from the Fifth to the border of the Second District.

The border bristled with defenses, a hedgehog of steel. The Ray could blind radar, but its armor and teeth were light; if the AA locked on, it was game over, curtains down. Luckily, they didn’t need to enter the city.

“Since we’re here,” Ms Feng shouted, voice bright as a struck bell, “why not test it—Alpha Simulated Suit! Henshin!”

“Damn,” Night Frost groaned, toes curling like claws in her boots. “So chuuni.”