The lane opened onto a small stone bridge arcing over a narrow canal. Its stones were rounded smooth, the rail polished by years of hands and darkened by creeping moss. Nico recognized the route; he’d collected stamps along it earlier that morning. As they climbed, the sculptures lining the path grew increasingly strange, less ornamental and more abstract. This was about where the trail would be blocked off.
As expected, they reached a sign wrapped in a respectable amount of caution tape, warning people not to proceed. The placard clearly read No Trespassing, marked with the hazard symbol for mana contamination, a lightning bolt, and a skill with crossbones. Zhou lifted it aside, waited for Nico to step through, then set it back in place as neatly as before.
|| Skill Activated|| [ 火 Foxfire Wisps ] [7/7 active | Duration: 45 min | "up to 7 lil guys"]
He sent out the little wisps to illuminate the path. Farther in, a fence ran along the perimeter of the aqueduct trail. Large signs were bolted on at regular intervals, warning of high voltage and no touching. The air carried an acrid edge that told his nose the threat wasn’t a bluff. Normally, this would have been his dipping out point. Yes, the fence was highly suspicious. No, he did not want to find out why. He could handle the fence if he wanted to, but that was the thing— he didn’t. He stood there, hoping the sage would feel the same.
Instead, Nico watched Zhou walk straight up to the fence and grab it without hesitation. A harsh buzz rang out as the contact point sparked. Electricity surged, then sputtered and drained into the ground as whatever powered the fence burned itself out. Zhou had effectively shocked the electric fence.
“How did you do that?”
“I wonder.”
Nico muttered, “You said I had two questions…”
Zhou’s eyes smiled at that. Nico felt childish using this method to get the sage to talk, but his curiosity outweighed his embarrassment. His tail softly swung as he waited.
The sage answered by tearing the fence free with a flare of violet mana. Earth buckled and split as the posts ripped loose, leaving a clear opening. Unlike the sign, he didn’t bother restoring the damage. That felt… concerning. Nico rationalized it was probably so Zhou could leave just as easily if he chose to, and followed him up toward the aqueduct as Zhou finally began to answer.
“It was mana-imbued electricity,” Zhou said. “So I manipulated the mana away from the part I touched.”
”…But then how did the fence burn out?”
“Hmmm.”
“These questions don’t count if you’re not answering them completely.”
Zhou laughed. Nico did his best not to feel embarrassed by the tactic.
“Grabbing the fence let me trace the mana back to its power source,” Zhou said at last. “Then I nullified the inscription powering the fence and the battery alongside it.”
“You can nullify from just touching it?”
“Maybe.”
“…” Nico stopped walking, unsatisfied with the response. He was a quiet walker, as Lycans tended to be, so it was the foxfires lagging behind that finally made the sage turn around.
With a soft laugh, Zhou asked, “Are you pouting?”
“Seems like it.” Nico felt his ears warm. Unfortunately, his pale fur made it obvious when they flushed red, which only furthered the embarrassment.
Zhou tilted his head, studying him, and let them stand in the stretch of silence. Nico’s ears flicked in annoyance. That seemed to delight the sage; his eyes curved into crescents.
“Hm. I see why you do it,” Zhou teased. “It’s cute.”
Nico’s tail swished in time with the bobbing foxfires. He wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about being called cute.
“I traced the mana back to its source with my aether affinity,” Zhou continued, finally relenting. “Once I know the origin, I can nullify any inscriptions tied to it.”
He turned and started walking again. Nico nodded, then hurried to catch up, walking alongside him as the foxfires resumed their cheerful orbit.
“Do you need to know what type of inscription it is?”
“Nope. Just where it’s anchored.”
“Then why nullify the inscription instead of the electricity?”
“Less mana.”
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“You just have to match the activation energy to nullify inscriptions?”
“Throwing guesses into the dark?” Zhou mused.
“Yep,” Nico huffed. He’d already assumed that Zhou didn’t know who he was, but that still felt a little unfair. He was a decent enough alchemist to make a guess in the light.
Perhaps sensing Nico’s saltiness, Zhou added with a laugh, “Revealing too much is dangerous for me.”
Admittedly, Nico had thought Zhou was being difficult for the sake of it. He’d momentarily forgotten that Sages lived under the constant threat of being targeted by other alchemists.
For him and Kai, sharing information about their skills was usually advantageous. Transparency helped sell the skills they developed, and alchemist versus alchemist, PvP, encounters were at most for sport. Alchemists typically only hid skills that were still in research and development, or if they felt like sharing would allow others to outrank them.
Zhou’s earth affinity and the inscription work he layered into it were searchable enough online. Nullification was known by default; just the inner workings of it were obscured. His aether elemental, however, existed entirely in conjecture. It was a hot online conspiracy whether he even had one. An aether affinity existence would all but confirm a Serif heritage, which was its own beast of controversy, rumor, and denial.
“…Sorry,” Nico’s ears lowered a bit.
Zhou seemed amused by that as well and dismissed it with a chuckle. With that, Nico finally felt satisfied with the answer and concluded the pursuit of his first question.
They climbed onto the stone aqueduct trailing up the mountainside. What had once carried water down to the valleys now lay dry, its arches only supporting a narrow path that felt more like a bridge or an elevated rail line. Parts of the aqueduct had crumbled away, other parts looked charred and blighted from mana pollution. With the steep drop, it was evident why the broken trail would be blocked off.
Still, the villages at the base of the mountain were clearly visible from here. Their festivities glowed warmly in the night, scattered points of light like lanterns meant to guide anyone back. Which made it all the stranger that people were getting lost up here.
They continued until the stone broke away, the aqueduct ending in a sudden drop. Nico’s attention drifted across the gap. A natural shelf jutted from the mountainside, half-lost in shadow, its outline hard to read from this distance. From this height, the moon appeared larger than it had in the village, its shimmer sharper and more pronounced. It was easy to understand why people sent their wishes toward it.
Zhou moved ahead and sat at the fractured edge where the aqueduct had fully collapsed. The break severed the path cleanly, but opened an unobstructed view of the shelf beyond. A shallow pool rested there, gathered in a natural depression, its surface lit by moonlight but angled just enough that the reflection slid past instead of settling.
As Nico walked up, he nudged a loose fragment of stone off the aqueduct’s edge and listened as it fell into a distant splash below. The position on the edge looked more precarious than he liked, but Nico decided to trust the Sage’s earth affinity. His ears tipped forward to look below; he could see the wide basin of the river that fed into the village. The moon's reflection shone boldly on the water's surface.
Zhou leaned back, bracing his weight on his hands as he gazed at the moon, then followed its light down to its reflection on the basin's surface. Nico tried not to stare... but still noticed the way the linen fell in a clean angle from Zhou’s shoulders. With the mask hiding his mouth, it struck him how much the sage relied on his eyes to carry expression.
Nico joined him at the edge, leaving a careful span of space between them. He leaned into the romantic interpretation of the moment, because the alternative would absolutely fill him with resentment. His legs dangled over the side; he gauged the drop to the water to be at least two stories down.
“Kinda hard to get a lantern down from here,” he said.
Zhou shrugged. “Hey. It’s empty for a reason.” He reached into his inventory and pulled out both lanterns.
Nico checked the fit of the paper against the bamboo frame, then cupped his hand and drew heat into his palm. He fed the mana into the lantern until it glowed with a gentle gold. Zhou reached over and stole a trace of the flame, his mana catching it and shifting the light into a soft lavender before he guided it into his own lantern.
The two lanterns were especially beautiful when lit in the dark. One glowed with a golden heart. The other carried a violet core.
|| Skill Activated || [? Wind Thread (C) | "gentle lift"]
The wind gathered around his fingers, spinning into soft nests of air. He set the lanterns onto them and released them to float down toward the river’s water. The lanterns landed without a splash. Ripples spread from where the wind dispersed, nudging them toward the moon’s reflection, and they drifted quite slowly.
“…The lore says the wish only comes true if the lantern floats into the moon’s reflection.” Zhou said with what sounded like an unimpressed tone, but was still one of the more tactful deliveries Nico had heard from him.
“It’s a long way to float,” Nico replied, because it was. He added, “Isn’t that the point, though?” He had aimed the lanterns en route to the reflection without placing them directly inside it. It felt like the spirit of the tradition was to let them drift there naturally, carried by the water and the wind. Not every lantern would make it. That was why the ones that did would have their wishes granted.
“Just push it all the way there,” Zhou said, now thoroughly unimpressed.
“That feels like cheating,” Nico pouted.
“Cheat with mine,” Zhou said, still looking at the water. “I want it to come true.”
Nico nodded, accepting the reasoning as sound.
|| Skill Activated || [? Wind Thread (C) | "gentle lift"]
He gathered air into his palm, gave it a spin, and sent it skimming across the surface. Zhou’s lantern shot forward, gliding over the water like a remote-controlled toy.
“Do I get a cut if it does?” Nico asked.
“You’ll have to find out for yourself.”
Nico nodded again and sent a smaller gust after his own lantern. Watching the lanterns haul ass across the water tickled him. “Will they really come true like this?”
“It’s fine,” Zhou said. “Our wishes weren’t about honesty.”
Nico laughed, eyes still on the lake. The lanterns sailed toward the mirrored moon, ripples trailing behind them in threads of light. Halfway there, the wind dispersed, careful not to push them past their mark. Both flames held steady along their journey. They watched with baited breath as the lantern rich with Zhou’s violet mana reached the reflection.
The instant its flame touched the silver disc, it flickered—too quick for anyone not already staring to notice. The lantern on the water still burned violet, but in the reflection it flared a startling gold.
Nico’s eyes widened. He immediately turned toward Zhou.
The Sage was already watching him.
Leaning forward now, hands braced at his sides against the edge they sat on, Zhou’s amethyst eyes curved into crescents again.
“You get one more question about me.”