It’s been a week since the meeting with Marina.

  The training ground was quiet... too quiet.

  Yon’s team was out monster-culling.

  My other friends were off playing spies: Nakera had them combing through the slums, searching for signs of Old Realm activity. Calr was checking in with his gang contacts. Vena was conducting health checkups and providing coverage so Kuru could attend to her tasks. Even Kan had been roped in as Calr’s backup.

  And me?

  I was benched.

  Not that I was too hung up on it. I came here to learn magic and have fun, not to solve this world’s cult problem.

  So I ran.

  Laps around the practice field. An hour in, my mind wandered to Calr, specifically the moment he’d used the Perfect State spells during our sewer ambush. Force Ball to disrupt the swarm. Dash to escape the stampede. He was messy compared to Nakera, but it was effective.

  I decided to try it.

  I focused, not just on speed, but on the idea of speed. Momentum. The world slowed down.

  Dash.

  In a blink, I surged forward. Twenty meters passed in a blur before I stumbled to a stop.

  “Whoa.”

  It wasn’t clean, not like Nakera’s elegant sprint that barely disturbed the grass. Mine was more like a human slingshot. But it worked.

  I tried to trigger it again.

  Nothing…

  Right. Once per hour. Perfect State cooldowns were merciless.

  Still buzzing from the rush, I pivoted toward one of the training dummies. I raised a hand and willed a Force Ball into being.

  No strain. Just pop, and the glowing sphere launched straight into the dummy’s chest with a satisfying thud.

  No mana drain.

  I narrowed my eyes. “Seriously?”

  I cast again. And again. Five total. One for the shoulder, one for the stomach, three rapid shots to the head.

  Still no mana loss.

  The next one fizzled before it finished forming.

  The cooldown limit has been reached.

  I nodded to myself. “Got it. Perfect State spells aren’t about mana, they’re about cooldowns.”

  I wonder if all static soulbooks are like that, or is it just Perfect State.

  Useful to remember next time I run dry in the middle of a fight.

  Feeling sweaty and smug, I called it there. there was no point practicing a spell I couldn’t cast for another hour. I hit the baths, changed into something nicer than my training gear, and decided on my next destination.

  The temple.

  I was not going there to pray or beg forgiveness for electrocuting sewer beasts. I had a more practical goal.

  I needed a new weapon. And not just any weapon.

  This time, I wanted something custom.

  Something perfect.

  Something worthy of a girl having an adventure in another world.

  The temple’s inner courtyard was as calm as usual. A few people were meditating, others wandered between benches and bookstands; the air was serene. Peaceful.

  I found Louis at the reading benches beneath the big window. Her white-and-gold robes were tucked neatly around her legs. Beside her sat a boy about 3 years her senior, hunched over a tome thick enough to knock someone out cold. His brow was furrowed in intense concentration, or maybe silent suffering. I recognized him instantly: Silnar, the son of Louis’s cooking teacher.

  He looked like he was losing a fight with the book.

  I strolled over casually. “Louis.”

  She looked up and smiled. “Alice! You’re back.”

  “Yeah. I had a free day. Thought I’d stop by.”

  She stood up, got near me, and whispered,

  “Did you… have anything to do with the commotion upstairs?”

  “No,” I said. Then hesitated. “Maybe. I’ll check in on it in a sec.”

  She chuckled softly. “I thought so.”

  I nodded toward Silnar, who hadn’t noticed I was there. He was still locked in combat with a dense volume of sermons, one I’d tried to read once. I nearly died of boredom.

  “So… did you bring him here?” I asked, keeping my voice low so it didn’t carry over to him.

  “He asked to visit,” she said, glancing at him with a mix of fondness and gentle amusement. “He’s been curious about the temple lately.”

  “He’s not Mythic, right?”

  “No,” she agreed, “but he’s open-minded.”

  I gave her a look. “You’re not trying to convert him, are you?”

  She flushed. “I’m not, I mean, He asked questions!”

  “Uh-huh. You sure he didn’t just come because you’re cute and he’s hopeless?”

  Her face turned pink. “Alice.” She looked over her shoulder to make sure he didn’t hear that comment.

  “Hey, I’m just saying. If you really want to win him over, maybe invite him to try your pizza. That recipe you made last week, the one with mushrooms? Unholy levels of delicious.”

  Louis tried to suppress a smile. “Maybe. Later.”

  I leaned over and looked at the volume Silnar was wrestling with. “You gave him Sermons on Jurisprudence After the Third Holy War? That’s your opening move?”

  “I thought it would be… grounding,” she said weakly.

  “He looks grounded straight into the dirt.”

  She laughed, a small snort escaping before she covered her mouth.

  I walked over to the nearby shelf and pulled out something a little more humane: The Travels of Lady Laurel. The book was less a theological text and more a holy adventure tale written in prose similar to any YA fantasy novel from back home.

  I brought it over and set it gently on top of his current book.

  “Start with this one,” I told him.

  Silnar blinked up at me, then down at the cover.

  Louis leaned forward, scanning the title. She looked from the book to me… and then to him.

  She nodded slowly. “Yeah. That’s probably better.”

  The upper floor of the temple was less serene than the courtyard below. I could hear the murmur of excited voices even before I reached the wide double doors of the study chamber. When I stepped inside, I found a small crowd gathered around a polished wooden table, and at the center of it, like a holy relic, was the telescope. Or rather, a microscope.

  A brass tube mounted to a swivel joint, perfectly balanced with clean lenses and delicate screws; sleek and functional, and unmistakably based on the design I’d sketched a few weeks ago. They’d actually built it.

  Lady Sana looked up first and beamed. “Alice! You’re just in time.”

  Sir Jaime gave me a grin from across the table. Sir Price smiled politely. Sir Gray was hunched over the lens like a child with a new toy, while his wife Camille, who was starting to look visibly pregnant, sat beside him with a writing board, rapidly scribbling everything he muttered. Lady Marca had her arms crossed and looked skeptical, but she didn’t argue.

  “You’re just the girl we need!” Sana said.

  “Yeah!“ added Jaime. “Can you show us how to use this?”

  I blinked. “Uh… let’s see, I think I remember something easy to do.”

  They brought out the slides, the droppers, and stared expectantly.

  “Okay, first we need something to look at.” I paused. “Get me some old, stagnant water. From the horse trough, if you have it.”

  A few minutes later, a small glass vial was handed over. I placed a single drop on the slide, set it under the lens, and adjusted the focus. Slowly, the view sharpened into fuzzy and tiny oval shapes that looked like jelly-beans that darted around. Some clustered. Some spun. All very alive.

  Paramecium.

  I pulled back from the scope. “There’s life in this water.”

  The Justicar Gray and clerics lined up to look, one after another, gasping or gagging.

  “Lady’s Mercy…” gasped Gray.

  “Do we drink that?” said Camille, resting a hand on her pregnant belly.

  “Not if we boil the water first before drinking it,” I said.

  “By the Lady’s grace, that’s why the Lady ordered us to do so,” gasped Marca.

  “The Lady is wise,” praised Sana, hands folded reverently.

  That’s when it happened.

  A presence brushed the edge of my awareness, like a draft that didn’t move the air. A woman appeared beside the table, tall and regal, with long blond hair and silver armor polished so finely it caught light like water. She wasn’t there a moment ago.

  No one reacted to her arrival, not Sana, not Jaime, and not even Gray.

  She leaned over the microscope and looked through it, her motion graceful and precise.

  And the world… stopped.

  No, really. Stopped.

  The breeze outside froze mid-stir. A page that had been fluttering in Camille’s notebook hung still. A droplet of ink clung to the tip of Gray’s quill like it had forgotten gravity.

  I didn’t move. I couldn’t.

  The woman finished her inspection and looked at me. She smiled warmly. Then she winked.

  And vanished.

  Time resumed with a snap.

  Camille blinked and dipped her pen. Jaime adjusted his collar. Sana turned toward me and opened her mouth.

  I inhaled sharply, the breath catching in my throat. “Did anyone just…?”

  Wait. What was I saying? My thoughts slipped through like water in the sand.

  What was I just thinking about?

  Sana’s voice pulled me back. “Alice?”

  I blinked. “Sorry. I was… lost in thought.”

  She nodded.

  “I have already started to prepare for the next test.”

  “Next, let’s boil the same stale water and see what happens. Are the creatures still there?” I said, ignoring the weird feeling I was having.

  Sir Price boiled half the sample of stale water in a small pot over a coal burner.

  I took a drop from the boiled water and repeated the test. I watched it again. Nothing moved.

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  “Clear,” I said. “They’re all gone.”

  “Let me see,” Gray said. He peered again, then gave a low whistle. “Fascinating.”

  After another series of observations by everyone, we went over the next test, stale water treated with the Cleanse miracle, a standard Cleric purification spell used for washing wounds or emergency cleaning when you don’t have enough water in the desert.

  Sana cast the spell with a practiced wave and whispered prayer. The water cleared instantly, sparkling like spring melt.

  I checked under the microscope.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Not even a speck of dust. That spell doesn’t just purify, it’s better than boiling. Probably disintegrates everything.”

  That got murmurs.

  Then came the curiosity tests.

  Magically summoned water; Sir Price had a Soulbook for that. Under the microscope, the water was clean, probably distilled water. I suggested that they use either the Cleanse miracle or the summoned water to clean the glass slides.

  Finally, Jaime prepped the next slide. “What happens if we try… blood?” he asked.

  Gray raised a brow. “Isn’t that too much of a jump forward?”

  “Let the man satisfy his scientific curiosity,” I offered.

  Jaime pricked his finger with a sanitized needle and squeezed a small drop onto the slide.

  I adjusted the scope and leaned in.

  Red blood cells, round, soft-looking disks. Like flattened doughnuts without holes. I turned the dial and saw a few white cells, larger, oddly shaped, and almost floating between the red ones like patrol guards. Everything moved slowly, pulsing ever so slightly with the warmth of life.

  “All clear,” I smiled.

  “It’s beautiful,” whispered Jaime. “Like a city.”

  Sir Price looked unsettled. “There is life inside us, too.”

  “There is life within life, and life even within death; the root feeds the leaf, the leaf feeds the flame, and the flame returns to ash, which feeds the root again. All is harmony beneath the Holy Design, even endings are beginnings,” recited Marca. She no longer looked skeptically at the new invention.

  “The Book of Holy Nature,” nodded Camille.

  Sana placed a gentle hand on the desk. “This changes everything.”

  She turned to the others. “Excuse me. I need to write a letter to the Holy of Holies in the high Temple in the Mythic Realm.”

  Without waiting, she turned on her heel and left the room.

  The others remained quiet, watching the microscope as though it had just revealed the face of the divine.

  I wasn’t immune to the feeling, especially once I noticed how well-made it was.

  “How did you make such a good telescope?” I asked Gray as he polished the brass tube lovingly.

  He looked up and gave a sheepish smile. “This wasn’t actually the first try. The first build... didn’t go well.”

  “What happened?”

  “At first, I didn’t want the design to spread. So I had the lenses made in one shop, the frame parts in two others, and I tried to assemble it myself.”

  “And?”

  He made a face. “Let’s just say precision is not my virtue. It didn’t work.”

  I laughed.

  “That’s when I remembered an inventor I knew, one of the Dreamers. Trustworthy and Talented. Curious in the right way. I brought her the parts and the sketches... after testing her sincerity with my Justicar miracle. She passed. And she didn’t just fix it, she rebuilt the whole thing from scratch. Better than I imagined.”

  I nodded slowly. “Do you have her address?”

  Gray blinked. “Thinking of another custom job?”

  “Something like that.”

  The workshop didn’t look like it belonged to a single person. It looked like six inventors had rented space in the same room, and none of them talked to each other.

  Alchemy tubes lined one wall, bubbling in soft glows of red, green, and gold. A pile of half-carved wooden instruments, flutes, pipes, something that looked suspiciously like a warhammer with an ocarina mouthpiece, sat beside a crate of metal scraps.

  One table held a dozen unfinished weapons, including a strange double-bladed sword shaped like two crescents in a V shape, each blade socketed with a glowing core, one red, one blue. Fire and water? Fire and ice? Hard to say.

  The place smelled like boiled herbs, sawdust, and oil. Books were stacked in impossible piles. Sketches. Spell marks. A contraption that might’ve been a drill, or maybe a bell, hung from a rope above the door.

  And in the middle of it all, perched on a tall stool, was a woman.

  She had blue-gray pigeon wings patterned with darker stripes. Her hair was similarly dark, and her outfit was a single wrap of cloth, tied at her left shoulder like a sarong. A belt kept the rest secure, leaving her right shoulder bare and creating a slit that ran from her armpit to mid-thigh. It had a tropical, breezy look, pastel patterns, slightly wild.

  At the moment, she was adjusting a series of glass lenses around a candle, trying to focus the flickering flame onto a piece of paper.

  I cleared my throat. “Sunlight works better.”

  She almost jump in suprise, then blinked and turned.

  “I know sunlight works,” she said. “I wanted to see if it’d work with candlelight. I figured more lenses meant more power.”

  “It’s not just about quantity,” I said. “It’s about the kind of light. Candlelight is softer, scattered. Sunlight has more energy.”

  She tilted her head. “You sound like someone who knows things.”

  I grinned. “I dabble. Name’s Alice.”

  She watched me a moment longer, then hopped off the stool and extended a hand. “Nina Rockfeather.”

  Her handshake was firm, her fingers dusted with soot and glass.

  “Are you here to sell me something?”

  “Nope. I came after I saw something you built.”

  “Be more specific.”

  “Something I shared with the temple.”

  She blinked. “That was your design?”

  I nodded.

  Her lips twitched. “Well, you know then that I am not supposed to talk about it.”

  “Prove it to me,” she added. “Show me something interesting.”

  I have a letter of introduction from Gray, but showing off a little isn’t that bad, is it?

  I scanned the cluttered table, spotted a small stack of glass panes, and grabbed three.

  “Can I borrow these?”

  “Sure.”

  I arranged them into a rough triangle.

  “Got any wax?” I asked.

  She waved her hand dismissively. “No need.” She pressed two fingers to the corner where two panes met. A soft shimmer passed through the glass, and they fused. She repeated the motion on the other side, sealing the triangle.

  “Wait… what was that?” I asked.

  “A binding spell,” she said, almost casually. “I got it from the Fuse Soulbook. It lets me fuse objects of the same type together. It saves me from the hassle of using glue. As long as they don’t have a soul, I can fuse them.”

  Useful.

  I added a base to the triangle, filled it with lamp oil from a nearby jar, and fused the final pane on top. Making a prism.

  I held it up to the window and tilted it slightly.

  The light that passed through bent, twisted, and refracted into a warped rainbow. Mostly yellows, greens, and oranges. it wasn't perfect, but definitely there.

  Nina leaned in. “What am I looking at? Is that a rainbow?”

  “Yep,” I grinned. “A spectrum. A breakdown of light.”

  Her eyes lit up. “You can break light from a big white light into smaller parts.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “The prism splits light because different colors bend differently. A proper one made entirely of clear glass would show more detail, reds, blues, and violets. But oil works in a pinch.”

  She held it closer to the window, turning it slowly. “So... light can be pulled apart like ingredients in a potion?”

  “Sure. And the reason sunlight works better than candlelight is that sunlight has more ingredients.” I said while putting the prism near the candle. “See, now green light and smaller yellow.”

  She looked back at me and smiled. “I think I like you.”

  She picked up the prism and set it carefully by the window, letting the light filter through again. She watched the colors dance with a quiet, satisfied hum. Then, her gaze flicked back to me, evaluating.

  “Are you going to be my new Muse?” she said.

  I blinked. “Wait. What do you mean by ‘Muse’?”

  There was something, like a gentle twist in the translation spell wrapped around my soul. Phono-semantic matching, I realized. The magic hadn’t picked a random word. It had matched the word from her language to something close in mine, meaning layered into meaning. It happened before with holy class names like paladin or crusader.

  “You don’t know anything about Dreamer magic, do you?” Nina asked.

  “Nope,” I admitted. “Total novice.”

  She grinned and leaned back against the table. “Alright then. Let me tell you a story.”

  She gestured toward the sunlight streaming in from the window, wings folding neatly behind her.

  “In the Dreaming Realm, we live on floating islands. Whole continents adrift in the sky. In ancient times, people didn’t have wings like mine. They lived like tribes, isolated on their own islands, only able to meet when the sky drifted close enough. Sometimes, that took years.”

  With no bridges or airplanes, the people would wait for rocks to bump into each other. It sounds like an extrovert’s nightmare.

  “Even back then, every Dreamer had a personal domain whenever they slept, a sanctuary, a place for lucid dreaming. But they weren’t too useful since there was no clear path for growth.”

  “But then,” she continued, “someone created the Great Dream. A shared place where Dreamers could meet while they slept. A bigger lucid dream that connected sanctuaries. And from there, they could visit each other’s sanctuaries.”

  Hmm. So a sanctuary is like a personal computer, and the Great Dream is like the internet. Dreaming together on shared servers... weirdly elegant.

  “Sanctuaries grow when you’re inspired by people, by music, by emotion, by ideas. That’s where Dreamer magic comes from. But to be inspired, you need a Muse.”

  She pointed at me meaningfully.

  “Bards fall in love with melodies. Writers with stories. Painters with faces or scenery. Me? I fall in love with concepts, things that stimulate my brain. A good idea can change my whole magic.”

  I nodded slowly, absorbing every word. “So Dreamer magic doesn’t use mana?”

  “Nope,” she said. “It runs on inspiration. When we’re inspired, we can make Art. When we’re drained, we get depressed.”

  “What do you mean by Art?” I asked.

  She paused, her expression softening.

  “Art is something really subjective. Each person’s art is defined by her passion. My Art is crafting, all kinds of stuff,” she grinned while showcasing her bizarre workspace with both hands. “Other people are more focused and have only a narrow art, like sword forging.”

  “Then comes the performer,” she added, “People who can share what they feel through their art. Some share their senses, others share their emotions.”

  That made me remember Mosha’s song.

  “But the rarest art? Sometimes, we get so inspired in the waking world, we fall into a trance and create something impossible. We call it the Creation State. One-shot wonders. I’ve only hit it once, when I was making a musical instrument for a friend. I’ve been chasing that high ever since.”

  She fell silent for a minute, trying to remember how it felt.

  I studied her wings again, the fine stripes like painted brushstrokes. A question tugged at me.

  “So… you said people didn’t use to have wings. Where did they come from?”

  Nina’s gaze darkened slightly.

  “After the Great Dream was created, things were amazing at first. People connected, shared ideas. Fell in love with the dream. But over time…” She shook her head. “People stopped waking up.”

  I stilled. “What?”

  “They got addicted,” she said quietly. “Dreaming was easier… Safer. You could feel inspired all the time. So they kept sleeping. Until they… died.”

  A chill crept up my spine. “People starved to death?”

  “It was a dark era,” she nodded. “Then he appeared: The Sleepless Father. The immortal shapeshifter. The counterpart to the Great Dream. A being as old as the dream itself. He was so grounded in reality that he couldn’t ever sleep, not even for a second.”

  I frowned. “So, he is the enemy of the dream?”

  “In balance,” she corrected. “He walked the real world and found us. And he began to bless the unborn children still in the womb. He gave them pieces of the dream, but bound them to the waking world.”

  She touched her chest. “That’s how we, the Valkyren, were born. First children of the Sleepless Father. Our feathers carry a natural sleep spell. If we shake them,” She ruffled her wing gently, a few loose feathers fell, “anyone nearby starts to feel drowsy.”

  I yawned instinctively. “Wow. Okay. That’s real.”

  She grinned.

  “Then he made the Siren. Semi-aquatic with a small affinity for the skies, too. Their voices could bedazzle and sway emotions. Beautiful and dangerous.”

  I thought about Bard's powers on steroids. That made sense; I remembered Mosha had siren blood.

  “He also created the Kitsune: masters of illusion and mimicry. They can shape how others perceive them. Walk through a crowd unseen.”

  “And the Naga. Their dances pull entire dreamscapes into view. Visions from the Dreaming Realms.”

  I whistled softly. “That’s… a lot.”

  “All Dreamers can dabble in those powers,” Nina added, “but the Father’s blessing makes it easier. Like affinity among the Bloodlines. We’re attuned by our physical form, not bound by it.”

  I took a long breath, letting it all settle.

  “So the Dreaming Realm runs on creativity... but needed reality to survive. And the Sleepless Father made sure of that.”

  Nina’s expression grew distant, thoughtful. “Balance is sacred. You can ask the Mythics, and they will tell you the same thing, Alice. A dream without reality is just a fantasy. But a reality without dreams? That’s just survival. What we do is live in the middle.”

  I nodded, smiling. “I think I’m starting to get it.”

  She glanced back at the rainbow prism still gleaming on the windowsill.

  “So did you come here for something specific?” she asked. “I like to be paid in silver or inspiration, and I feel like you already paid me in advance.”

  “I want to build a weapon,” I said. “Something precise. Something that uses both my lightning Soulbook powers and my knowledge of electricity.”

  Nina blinked. “Electricity?”

  “Think of it like... harnessed lightning.”

  Her eyes lit up immediately. “Ooh. Like storm magic?”

  “Sort of,” I said. “But more controlled and directed. I don’t want wild sky bolts, you know, small, deadly jolts delivered exactly where I want them.”

  She tilted her head, thoughtful. “Sounds tricky.”

  “It is. But I think I can do it with the right design.”

  I paused, then asked, “Are you familiar with how bloodline magic behaves outside the body?”

  Nina nodded slowly. “A bit. The farther you send it, the more the world messes with it, right?”

  “Exactly.” I tapped my chest. “Bloodline powers are strongest when they stay internal, when you manipulate your own power within your own body. Once you project it, a lot can interfere. The distance. Your aura strength. Even your enemy’s aura can throw things off.”

  “So... you want a weapon that lets you keep the power inside?” Nina asked. “Something that makes the magic travel from your hand to your enemy without leaving your body. Like... a spear made entirely of metal?”

  “Close,” I said. “But not quite.”

  I leaned against her cluttered table, trying to gather the right words. “Do you understand how lightning actually works?”

  Nina’s wings gave a small twitch. “When the clouds are heavy with sky mana... they explode into Lightning. That’s what I was taught.”

  “Maybe that’s how it happens in the Bloodline Realm,” I said. “A world full of ambient mana might not need more explanation. But in other realms, it’s more complicated.”

  She narrowed her eyes, intrigued. “Go on.”

  “Let me put it like this,” I said. “You know how sandstone is made of sand?”

  She nodded.

  “And sand is made of multiple grains, right?”

  “Yes…”

  “What is a grain of sand made of?” I asked.

  “Humm. Something even smaller than a grain of sand,” she guessed.

  “Exactly,” I shouted at her smart deduction. “Everything’s like that, even air, even clouds, and the sky is made of tiny bits, too small to see, but they’re still there. That’s why wind has weight. That’s why you can feel it push.”

  “Lightning is electricity. Electricity is made when small sky particles move from one place to another. Sometimes, like in storms, clouds rub particles together until they build a charge imbalance. Then the air ionizes, which means it becomes temporarily conductive, and ZAP. Lightning.”

  Nina leaned in, elbows on the table, completely locked in.

  “But we can create that artificially,” I continued. “We generate energy using lightning cores, or bloodline powers when possible. We use conductive materials like metal wires to move it, and insulating materials like wood, rubber, even oil to keep the electricity from going where we don’t want it.”

  She nodded slowly, her wings softly twitching rhythmically with excitement.

  “We call that a taser back home,” I said. “It has a power source and two metal prongs. When it touches someone, it closes a circuit; electricity flows from one prong to another through the target’s flesh, and back again. It hurts. A lot.”

  Nina let out a low, breathy laugh. “That’s brilliant. Brutal, but brilliant.”

  “I want to make something similar,” I said. “A polearm; maybe a bident: a two-pronged spear, Wood shaft, copper wiring inside, and two metal rings at the handle, one positively charged, one negatively charged. And no current flows unless the tips hit something conductive. Like flesh, that means the two prongs need to be separated by wood.”

  Nina was nearly bouncing now, a wide grin pulling at her cheeks, her wings flaring slightly with excitement. “A taser spear tuned to your bloodline? That’s genius. You’d channel the current through your hands, bypassing any aura restriction, right?”

  “Yup. Minimal external projection. All internal power. Clean, efficient, and it won’t drain me dry in the middle of a fight.”

  “Sleepless Father, help me!” she muttered. “You’re not just my Muse. You’re my goddess.”

  I laughed. “So... Can you build it?”

  “I could, if you wouldn’t mind going over those concepts in more detail,” she said. Then hesitated, her tone shifting slightly. “Or… we could do something more drastic. I could invite you to my Dream Sanctuary.”

  I blinked.

  Who could say no to that?