The rebuilt Ming Duo was locked away beneath the inner-city Sanctuary, sealed in a special cell, iron and sigils layering like frost and chains, watched like a caged moon.

Inside the partitioned chamber, Cerqin sat with a spark in her gaze, fingers on a book whose pages shone with the continental script—Selected Arcanotechnology and a spread of high-tier tomes, glinting like blades laid on velvet.

They all came from the Azuremist Empire’s advanced Arcanotechnology, the kind of upgraded methods that never reached the market, secrets folded like night under a cloak.

In short, not for sale—treasures kept behind lacquered doors, the hush of power that smells of ink and oil.

“Are you really giving them to me?” Her voice carried a tremor, like a plucked string in winter air.

“Would I joke about this?” Ninexiao smiled, easy as warm tea on a cold step.

The texts decrypted from Ming Duo’s storage gear had been copied already; the Sanctuary was training Arcanotechnology staff, seeds sown for iron forests.

Cerqin belonged to the Sanctuary, and with her particular standing, her share was natural, like rain owed to spring fields.

“The long-range communication trials are going smoothly,” Ninexiao said, tone light but eyes bright. “Your blueprint looks solid. If it works, the Emperor will reward you. At least a Grandmaster’s seal, nailed down like a decree.”

For a project that could turn the sky, the fame and standing would follow like thunder after lightning.

“Maybe I’ll even get a title,” Cerqin laughed, hope a flicker behind a blush.

“Don’t tease me,” she added, scratching her head, her pink-hued eyes wide with helplessness, but every so often slipping to the high-tier books with a molten stare.

“Where did Ming Duo get this kind of thing? These should be Azuremist state secrets.” Her curiosity rose like steam from a kettle.

Cerqin had already seen the arcanic construct bodies—some intact, some shattered—and she’d even received a almost-whole shell as a sample, a cold mannequin heavy as dusk.

But with her current skill, she couldn’t yet decrypt or study it. As fate clicked its gears, one of Aileaf’s husk’s storage devices was cracked, and secrets spilled like grain.

That’s what led to today’s windfall.

She had come to the dungeon to ask Ming Duo about the Arcanotechnology body, the urge sharp as a needle under the skin.

“Word is she robbed a great noble in the Azuremist Empire,” Ninexiao said, voice a low river.

After advancing to the Seventh Rank, Ming Duo tried puppet arts and magic to develop a split-body method, using flesh-regeneration to lay the soil for a separate self.

Yet that approach only split her evenly into two, each weaker than the original, halves of a broken mirror.

Not long after, one split body got pressed by a leader of the Beauty Association, which lit the fuse for her revenge, a storm crossing a calm lake.

At the time, Ming Duo’s true body was chasing a relic in the central lands, the Azuremist heartland, where she obtained these hush-kept manuals and technical books, secrets stacked like bricks behind palace walls.

“We did get an alert from the central Sanctuary,” Ninexiao added, words steady as incense. “Ming Duo used to only attack Sanctuary knights on occasion. That incident made waves.”

The noble she struck held high standing in Azuremist, the Emperor’s own brother, a famed Arcanotechnology master, a Great Grandmaster second only to the Emperor, a mountain beside a mountain.

“I see.” Cerqin’s face cleared, then tightened; she glanced down at the book in her hand like a bird sensing a hawk.

“But it’s only been a few years. Ming Duo taught herself and built such classified arcanic bodies…” Her voice carried awe like starlight through leaves.

“She’s sharp,” Ninexiao said, admitting it with a thin line of jealousy, a knife sheathed in silk. “She’s a grandmaster in magic itself.”

Back in mid-tier, Ming Duo had already mastered more spells than Ninexiao at the Eighth Rank. She couldn’t match the higher-tier force, but quantity stacked like bricks becomes a wall.

Monster’s talent wasn’t an exaggeration; it fit her like thunder fits a storm.

“That girl was born an aberration,” Ninexiao went on, tone like a temple bell. “Many strong folk win by bloodline gifts. A scholar of pure magic, strong to that degree—I’ve only seen her.”

Her secret was an abnormal spirit force and a brutal control over it, a needle thread through steel.

That’s not something most people can do, not without burning their fingers.

“Enough about her,” Ninexiao said, voice cutting like a fan through smoke. “Even if you want to ask questions, I don’t suggest it. Frequent contact with something almost emotionless is dangerous, like staring into a winter river.”

The warning doused Cerqin’s impulse; she scratched her head again, a shy cat under a lantern. Ninexiao watched her, gaze turning a shade strange.

As a bishop, Ninexiao knew Cerqin’s story—her abilities, the Eastwind City affair, the knots and blades in her heart.

To Ninexiao, Cerqin’s twisted emotions made her an aberration too, a crooked pine surviving cliff winds.

That sense of abnormality even covered the fact she’d won the Holy Maiden Spring Tide’s heart and gathered two other beauties at her side, a garden hidden behind stone.

“Don’t rush the research,” Ninexiao said, tapping the table like rain. “In the capital, keep your focus on that project.”

“You’re right.” Cerqin nodded, but the lure of the pages tugged her like a tide under a moon.

The techniques woven into those arcanic shells were pure bait to her mind, a constellation begging to be mapped.

“Then, Bishop, I’ll head out.”

“Go on.”

Back in the lab, Cerqin dove in with breathless delight. The foundation from earlier readings turned the climb into steps, not cliffs.

High-tier knowledge wasn’t so hard to swallow now. Seated at the bench, she drowned in a sea of ink and diagrams, time slipping like sand through fingers.

She didn’t notice Spring Tide appear behind her, quiet as dew, a shadow in lamplight.

Silver Luan was at a critical point in advancement, shut away behind doors, like a chrysalis refusing dawn. For two nights, she wouldn’t return to join their “activities.”

So the recent pattern was simple: Spring Tide one night, Aileaf the next, and a third for mixed doubles, a playful storm scheduled by moonlight.

Night had fallen. It was Spring Tide’s turn, according to the calendar they joked over like gamblers.

After waiting in the room for a long time with no Cerqin, Spring Tide’s doubt rose like mist; she came looking.

Seeing Cerqin submerged in the sea of pages, Spring Tide didn’t interrupt. She sat behind her, silent, watching, a calm lake facing a busy shore.

Spring Tide had little curiosity for Arcanotechnology itself. Because of the Phantom God, her core path was bloodline power, roots burrowing into time’s soil.

The Phantom God ruled time; its vast power demanded focus, like a river carving stone.

With that power’s backlash, as her rank climbed, her emotions thinned, frost settling where fire once lived.

Knowing Ming Duo’s past, Spring Tide felt a shiver and a glimmer of relief. Without Cerqin, she might have drifted to that same distant shore, a stranger to herself.

The thought surfaced unbidden, a carp breaking water.

Still, while Arcanotechnology didn’t tempt her, Arcanotech items did. She loved their bite and precision.

The instruments Cerqin upgraded with Arcanotechnology had multiplied their effectiveness by folds, steel tempered to song. Several were now promoted across cities under the Sanctuary’s route.

They won praise from the Law Enforcement Hall and the Nuns, like bells ringing down alleys.

There were a few Spring Tide loved to wield; their weight fit her hand like rain fits spring soil.

Beyond that, Cerqin’s joint work with royal researchers, the Sanctuary, and other factions—the long-distance communication experiments—glowed like lanterns strung across valleys.

She understood the value. It could change how the world spoke. City to city, real-time, a web of voices humming like bees.

Feeling the heat in Spring Tide’s gaze, Cerqin jolted back, as if a drop of cold water hit her neck. She turned, eyes wide, into Spring Tide’s steady stare.

“Ah, you scared me,” she huffed, heartbeat pattering like drums. “I just felt eyes on me.”

Lately, Ninexiao had been at the dungeon, busy with interrogations and decryptions, so Spring Tide handled some bishop paperwork by day, quills scratching like cicadas.

They hardly saw each other under the sun; each did her part in the machinery of the Sanctuary.

Cerqin started to ask why Spring Tide had time tonight, then her gaze flicked to the wall clock, the hands sharp as blades.

It wasn’t a pure mechanical device. It needed no periodic adjustment. Cerqin had optimized it with Arcanotechnology and a simple magic array, two rivers flowing side by side.

The method worked. The Arcanotechnology clock kept perfect time, and the array gathered ambient mana like leaves catching rain. They didn’t interfere; they leaned on each other.

Accurate, maintenance-free, a steady heart behind glass.

As long as its core didn’t wear too badly, it would run on and on, gears turning like stars.

Cerqin guessed the hybrid clock could tick for centuries, the sound a long thread through days.

Seeing the time, she realized it was deep night. Remembering their earlier “appointment,” she shivered, fear and thrill twisting like twin vines, her eyes lifting to Spring Tide.

“That frightened look,” Spring Tide said, smiling like a thin crescent. “You’re not even hiding the hunger behind it.”

She didn’t pounce, as Cerqin half-hoped. Instead, she eyed the books left on the bench, pages like feathers under lamplight.

“I heard these are Azuremist arcanic state secrets and some high-tier methods. How are they?” Her voice was calm, but curiosity glinted like light on water.

Azuremist birthed Arcanotechnology. This young craft had sprung from a genius Emperor, a new moon rising over old roofs.

Communication stones, machines for large-scale mining, arcane carriages—people said they were his ideas, sparks thrown onto dry grass.

But nobles there tangled like briars. Broad application of new tech met constant obstruction, hands pulling the weave loose.

Spring Tide had last heard about Azuremist back in Northfort’s Sanctuary, skimming reports like a hawk skims treetops.

Northfort mainly gathered intel elsewhere, not on the distant central Azuremist. But as a major mining city and the first in the Holy Dragon Empire to trade Arcanotechnology goods in volume, its Azuremist intel wasn’t much worse than the imperial capital’s, iron whispers traded for iron.

According to that report, the young Emperor had cleaned house among the nobles and begun sweeping promotion of Arcanotechnology. The Holy Dragon Empire opening borders to import tech was tied to that wind.

“How are they?” Cerqin echoed, a grin flickering like candlelight. “Impressive. But the owner of these, the Grand Duke second only to the Azuremist Emperor, is a martial type. Most of his research points to weapons.”

If she could, she’d take the Emperor’s own notes, a river straight from the source.

Still, a gift like this filled the basket. Even if most focused on weapons, she could backtrack techniques, pulling threads to weave new cloth.

In just a short read, with reverse engineering and advanced methods, she’d already thought of ways to optimize the long-range communication, ideas sparking like flint.

“Also, look at this.” Cerqin picked up a volume, flipped to a marked page, and pointed. Her finger rested like a stamp.

Spring Tide couldn’t read the dense jargon, but the diagrams and special marks spoke clearly, pictures cutting through fog.

“Automatic clockwork dolls…” she said, understanding settling like dawn. Ming Duo’s construct bodies likely came from this design, gears and flesh stitched like cloud to mountain.