The morning sunlight streamed through the tall windows of the East Tower, creating trails of dust that danced slowly in the air. The room was silent, except for the coarse scritch-scratch of charcoal on rough paper and the soft snoring from a corner of the room.

  Mira sat cross-legged on the wooden floor stained with paint. Around her, dozens of crumpled paper balls lay scattered like the corpses of failed ideas. She stared at the paper in her lap with a hatred she usually reserved for trying to counter Kars' chatter.

  “That thing looks like a potato with a tumor,” Laich's hoarse voice broke Mira's concentration.

  Mira looked up. Magister Laich Klippenberg wasn't sleeping—at least not fully. He was lying on a pile of old rugs on a platform, one eye covered by a straw hat, the other peeking down at Mira's sketch. Spoony, his brown rat, was busy cleaning raisins off Laich's stomach.

  "It's a rose," Mira defended, holding up her sketch. "See? These are the petals. These are the thorns."

  "That's a wire wrapped in lettuce," Laich corrected flatly. He yawned, then snapped his fingers.

  The sketch in Mira's hand suddenly burst into cold blue fire that wasn't hot, then turned to ash in a second.

  "Do it again," Laich said. "And this time, stop drawing with the intent to kill. The paper won't attack you."

  Mira growled in frustration, taking a fresh sheet of paper. "I don't understand the point of this exercise, Laich. I'm a fighter. I need a weapon. Why do I have to spend three hours drawing this damn flower?"

  Laich finally stood up. He sat down, stretching his back until a loud crack of bones echoed. With a lazy movement, he stepped down from the platform, landing silently on the floor.

  He walked over to Mira and placed an object on the floor, right in front of her. It was a single white rose placed in a glass vase filled with clear water. The rose was slightly wilted at the tips, fragile, yet had a sorrowful grace.

  "You see this object as a target," said Laich, crouching beside Mira. The smell of oil paint and old tobacco wafted from his robe. "You see the stem, you see the thorns, you see the vulnerability."

  Laich pointed at Mira's head.

  "Your left brain—your killing brain—analyzes its structure. But to use high-level Imagination Magic, you need your right brain. You have to feel the weight of its petals. You have to feel the stem's thirst for water. You have to understand why it's beautiful, not just why it's sharp."

  Laich reached out his hand toward the vase. He did not touch it. The bracelets on Mira's wrists hummed softly, responding to the resonance of the Intian in the room. But Laich was not wearing a bracelet. He was that Intian himself.

  "Look," Laich whispered.

  In the empty air beside the real rose, another rose began to form. Not from glass. Not from ice. But from pink-colored smoke that solidified.

  Mira held her breath. She watched the process. Laich didn’t form the outline first. He formed the core. Mira could see layer by layer of the petals forming from the inside out, blooming naturally as if time had been sped up. The texture looked so soft that Mira was sure if she touched it, her fingers would pass through the mist.

  "This is not a rose," Laich said softly, the smoky rose spinning slowly in the palm of his hand. "This is a memory of a rose. It is the sad feeling of seeing something beautiful that will die tomorrow. That’s why it looks real."

  The smoky rose dissipated into thin wisps that vanished.

  "Now it’s your turn. Not with a pencil. With Intian."

  Mira swallowed. She put down her paper. She activated her bracelets. A faint humming was heard. Dark blue liquid seeped from the pores of her hands.

  "Close your eyes," Laich commanded. "Don't imagine its shape. Imagine its texture."

  Mira closed her eyes. Texture... She tried to picture flower petals. But her brain, accustomed to combat efficiency, kept presenting images of knives. Thin. Sharp. Slicing.

  Mira forced her Intian to solidify. Be soft. Be soft.

  "Open your eyes."

  Mira opened her eyes. In her palm was a blue glass rose. But it wasn't a beautiful rose. The edges of its petals were jagged like saws. Its stem was thick and covered with sharp thorns like steel spikes. The flower looked aggressive. It was a weapon disguised as a flower.

  Laich wasn't angry. He simply stared at the glass flower with a bored expression. He extended his index finger and touched one of the petals Mira had made. The tip of his finger got scratched slightly. Bleeding.

  "See?" Laich said, showing the tiny drop of blood on his finger. "You hurt your audience even before they had a chance to appreciate your work."

  Mira lowered her head in embarrassment. "I can't, Laich. My mind... my instincts always go back to defense mode. Every time I try to create something fragile, my brain screams that it's weak."

  Laich let out a long sigh. He stood up and walked toward the giant window overlooking the snowy mountains in the distance. He didn't turn around, but he spoke.

  "Weakness is part of art, Rhea. Something perfect and impenetrable is boring. The walls of a fortress are strong, but no one cries looking at the walls of a fortress. People cry seeing a cracked stained glass."

  Laich turned around. The sunlight was behind him, casting his figure as a black silhouette with messy gray hair.

  "You scared," Laich said. Sharp.

  "I'm not afraid," Mira denied quickly.

  "You're afraid of being soft. Because in your head, soft means death. Whoever taught you before me, he must be a fool and a selfish person."

  Mira remembers Kars. If that man had listened to this, he would have already burned Laich in the blink of an eye. Ah, for some reason, Mira misses Kars, even though it was only yesterday, the day after she met that man.

  Laich walked back, his steps dragging lazily, but his goal was clear. He took the sharp glass rose from Mira's hand, then squeezed it. The glass shattered in Laich's hands. The fragments fell to the floor. Laich's hand was not injured—his skin was coated with a thin layer of invisible Intian.

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  "You're now in an artist's studio, not in a training arena. Here, we learn to deceive the eyes. And the best trick is to make your opponent think you're beautiful and harmless, until the last second before you rip their throats off."

  Laich's eyes glittered. "You want to make a weapon? Fine. But make a weapon that looks like a gift."

  Laich took a small wooden doll from the shelf—a faceless marionette. He placed it on the floor.

  "Stage two training," said Laich. "Forget flowers. Flowers are too sentimental for your broken soul. We're going to play with dolls."

  Laich snapped his fingers. The wooden doll stood up on its own.

  "I want you to make threads," Laich instructed. "Not threads to tie your opponent's legs like when you fought that fire girl. I want you to make control threads. The Intian Threads."

  Laich raised his own hand. Five very thin transparent threads came out from the tips of his fingers, attaching to the joints of the wooden puppet. Laich moved his fingers slightly. The puppet danced. Its movements were smooth, fluid, human-like. The puppet did a pirouette, then bowed respectfully.

  "This requires the Dual Processing we learned yesterday," Laich explained. "Your left hand holds the thread structure so it doesn't break. Your right hand... doesn't do anything physically, but your right brain has to visualize life."

  Laich cut the threads. The puppet collapsed like a corpse.

  "Your turn. Make the puppet walk towards me. Without touching it. Without rough telekinetic magic. Use liquid glass threads."

  Mira stared at the wooden doll. This made more sense to her than flowers. Controlling something. Manipulating. This was a tactic.

  Mira took a deep breath. She activated her bracelets again. Blue liquid flowed from the tips of her five fingers. She visualized fishing lines. Strong. Thin. The threads shot out, attaching to the doll's head, hands, and feet.

  Now, move.

  Mira snapped her fingers. The doll jerked upward roughly, as if forcibly hung. Its legs kicked the air stiffly. 'Walk!' Mira commanded in her mind, moving her index and middle fingers.

  The doll stepped. But its movements were jerky. Like a convulsing drunk. The doll stumbled over its own feet and fell face-first onto the floor.

  "Rough," commented Laich, who was now back in his armchair, eating a biscuit. "You're treating it like a corpse being pulled by a string. Give it weight. Imagine it has its own gravity."

  Mira tried again. She lifted the doll. Focus. Bent her knees. Heels first, then toes.

  Mira split her mind. Left: Maintain the glass-thread viscosity so it doesn't harden completely. Right: Imagine someone walking. Imagine Kars walking.

  The doll stood up again. This time, its posture was straighter. Slightly tilted and slouchy—unconsciously, Mira mimicked Kars's posture. The doll stepped. One step. Two steps.

  "Good," muttered Laich, his mouth full of biscuit crumbs. "Don't be stiff. Don't pull the string. Guide the string."

  Suddenly, Laich threw the biscuit in his hand toward the doll. "Watch out! Airstrike!"

  Mira's reflex worked. Instead of protecting herself, she moved her fingers to protect the doll. The thread in the doll's hand was pulled. The wooden doll lifted its hand, swatting away the biscuit. The biscuit shattered. The doll remained standing in a defensive pose.

  Mira panted, smiling widely. "I can do this!"

  "Don't get happy just yet," Laich grinned wickedly.

  From behind a pile of canvases, three other wooden dolls rose. This time, they held small, sharp palette knives. They were controlled by Laich.

  "Now," said Laich, his eyes glowing with a rare playful excitement. "Let's see if your doll can dance the Tango of Death."

  The three of Laich's dolls charged. Mira had no weapon in her hands. Her weapon was the doll.

  Left: Analyze the enemy's attacks. Right: Visualize martial arts movements on the small wooden body.

  Mira moved her ten fingers like a crazy pianist. Mira's puppet leapt (Backflip), dodging the slashes of Laich's puppet knife. In midair, Mira snapped her pinky. The puppet's legs kicked. One of Laich's puppets was thrown.

  It was a strange sensation. Mira stood still in place, but her mind was three meters ahead, inside the wooden body. She felt like a ghost inhabiting an inanimate object.

  "Your right side is open!" shouted Laich. One enemy puppet slipped in, slashing Mira's puppet leg. The glass thread in the right leg of Mira's puppet broke. The puppet wobbled.

  "Improvise!" Laich barked. "Don't give up just because one string broke! You still have four!"

  Mira panicked for a moment. Her puppet was lame. She couldn't run. So she dropped her puppet. She let the puppet fall, but before it touched the ground, she pulled on the strings of its arms and head.

  The doll slid across the floor on its knees, avoiding the next attack, then punched an uppercut to the enemy doll's chin.

  The enemy doll's head popped off.

  "Enough!" shouted Laich.

  All the dolls went limp immediately. Mira dropped to her knees, breathing heavily as if she had just run a marathon, even though she hadn’t moved from where she was standing. Her head was spinning. Cold sweat soaked her recently healed back.

  Laich clapped softly. Three times. A dry sound in the large room. "Your fine motor control has improved drastically. You’re starting to think like a puppeteer, not a warrior."

  Laich stepped closer, picking up Mira’s doll, which had one cracked leg. He spun the doll in his hands, inspecting the remnants of liquid glass threads that were beginning to evaporate.

  "Glass Marionette technique," Laich murmured. "This isn't a basic technique. Most students take two years to move just one finger. You made this puppet fight in two hours."

  "Do all your students master the imagination style as well?" Mira asked, her chest still rising and falling rapidly.

  "Most of them do. And most of them graduate as Puppet Masters. But I won't let you graduate with just that. Ashart's blood needs more. Ashart blood is known for a high-level imagination style. This is only an opening, and you succeeded on the first try."

  Laich looked at Mira with a gaze that was hard to read. There was pride, but also a warning.

  "But you cheated, Rhea."

  "Cheated?" Mira looked up, wiping the sweat from her forehead.

  "You used the 'fear of death' emotion to move it. The puppet moved fast because it panicked, just like you. It worked, but it isn't sustainable. You'll die young of a heart attack if you keep it up."

  Laich placed the doll on Mira's lap.

  “True art—and true magic—must come from calm. Like when I made the smoke rose earlier. I didn’t panic. I just... told a story.”

  Laich returned to his armchair, picking up a sketchbook.

  “Tomorrow, we won’t be practicing combat. Tomorrow, you’ll sit here, and you’ll try to make a glass butterfly fly around the room without hitting the walls. And you’ll do it while smiling.”

  “Smiling?” Mira grimaced.

  “Yes. Smiling. Because if you don’t enjoy your own creation, how do you expect the universe to respect it?”

  The sun began to set outside the window, turning the light in the room from dusty white to golden orange. The statues and canvases in the room seemed to come alive in long shadows.

  Mira stared at the wooden doll in her lap. She tried to smile. It felt stiff. Strange. But then she remembered how that little doll had managed to knock down Laich's doll earlier. There was a tingling sense of satisfaction in her stomach. Not the satisfaction of killing, but the satisfaction of creating movement.

  "Laich," Mira called softly.

  "Hmm?" Laich had already closed his eyes again, the straw hat covering his face.

  "Why did you choose me? I'm a bad student when it comes to art. I ruined your real rose."

  A brief silence. Only the sound of Spoony chewing something in the corner.

  "Art needs conflict, Rhea," Laich replied from beneath his hat. His voice was low, blending with the twilight shadows. "A blank canvas is boring. You... you are a canvas that is already torn, burned, and stained with blood. And believe me..."

  Laich raised one finger, pointing into the air without any particular direction.

  "...the best paintings are always made on the most damaged canvases. Because they have stories to tell."

  Mira fell silent. She looked around the chaotic room. For the first time, this mess didn’t make her dizzy. It felt... honest.

  She held the wooden doll tightly. "See you tomorrow, Master."

  "Lock the door from the outside. And don’t wake me before night."

  Mira stood up, her legs still trembling slightly, but her heart felt lighter. She walked out, leaving the tower in golden silence. In her hands, she carried home not a new killing technique, but a new understanding: That she didn't have to be whole to create something beautiful. She just needed to be brave enough to pull the thread.

  In the north, just a month after using Singus, she had managed to master many things. The art of imagination and the art of light she had never imagined before.

  It was very different from when she was in the south. She was just a nerdy girl who couldn't do anything. Her body even recoiled in disgust when all she could conjure was a small fireball while watching her sister being throttled by a lava maniac.

  If only her current self had been there back then. She might have been able to change the situation. Save Sirra, meet her other sisters, defend her land.

  Ah, too many possibilities. Fate does not happen based on probability.