"What an incredible structure," Feng Ye remarked with a look of amazement, standing before a vast clearing. At its center lay a massive magic circle drawn with enchanted powder.
Their taxi had dropped them directly at a ruined suburban farm, devastated by Beast attacks. The siblings had secretly repurposed this abandoned site to set up the large-scale array.
With his experience, Feng Ye quickly recognized it as a summoning circle after a brief inspection.
"Right? It's amazing!" Lin Tang beamed proudly, her twin ponytails bouncing slightly. "I deciphered this summoning array from Dad's magic book, *Alchemy and Magic Circles*, brought back from the Radiant Land. It took a whole month to set up, plus a ton of exchange points for materials."
The Radiant Land, a frequent adventure world for Awakened during Overdeity missions, was widely known—even civilians weren't kept in the dark. TV shows sometimes featured exotic items from there.
"You can read Radiant Land script?" Feng Ye asked, surprised. While the Overdeity automatically translated spoken language there, reading texts required self-study.
"My mom worked with ancient scripts," Lin Tang explained. "She made me learn writings from different worlds when I was little. I know the Radiant Land best."
"That's truly impressive," Feng Ye sighed, glancing at Lin Tang—about his sister's height. He felt a pang of discouragement. Was the gap between sisters really this big? Thinking of Coco, who just lazed at home gaming all day, he decided she needed exposure to the Awakened world too.
Awakened would only grow more common in the future.
He had to prepare that girl early.
Lin Chuan stared at the magic circle, his expression heavy with nostalgia. Here lay his lost youth. Months ago, he'd sold a precious memory crystal—bought from a mysterious Radiant Land vendor during a mission—to afford the powder. He clutched his side, wincing.
That crystal held invaluable footage of *Orcs vs. Elves*, a vital study resource on Radiant Land creatures. He hadn't even reviewed it properly before Lin Tang, that little demon, dug it out from behind his bookshelf and sold it!
It was gone forever...
Lin Chuan's heart ached. Whenever he hid "academic" books, Lin Tang always sniffed them out—either selling or trashing them. He couldn't even complain. He just swallowed his bitterness silently.
Now, seeing the array, old wounds flared. He almost wanted to compose a poem mourning his youth and the crystal's beautiful elf, Maya.
Unaware of her brother's tear-jerking memories, Lin Tang would've glared at him like scum had she known.
"This summoning array needs a medium, right?" Feng Ye asked curiously. "If you're summoning a Beast, what material did you prepare?"
"A fragment stripped from a Beast," Lin Tang replied, pulling a dull gray shard from her pocket. Feng Ye took it, gently pinching it. Its steel-like hardness puzzled him. "Is this really from a Beast? It feels more like weapon debris."
Lin Tang tilted her head. "Dad said it was loot from some Beast. Maybe it's just a scale? Some Beasts have metal-hard scales."
Feng Ye felt a nagging familiarity. He was certain this wasn't a Beast scale.
"But what exactly is it..." His head throbbed. After countless battles over the years, not every enemy stuck in his memory.
"Don't overthink it!" Lin Tang snatched the shard back, carefree. "Our team will have two B-Class Awakened joining us. With our strength, we can handle even an A-Class Beast." She was mostly excited about the summoning.
Feng Ye considered but didn't stop her. At worst, he'd intervene from the shadows. He preferred hiding his power but wouldn't let them die.
"Weapon and Beast..."
Feng Ye remained troubled.
Meanwhile, Lin Tang headed toward the circle's center, meticulously checking each detail. Constructing arrays demanded extreme patience—one tiny error could warp its nature or cause failure. A botched summoning might unleash horrors, like that incident where a demon's hellfire consumed an entire district. Only several S-Class Awakened sealed it away.
Lin Tang had triple-checked this array over a hundred times. Even now, on the verge of activation, she left nothing to chance.
