Secalia.
A completely unremarkable agricultural town in the northeast of Dazzling Star. You can’t even find it on most maps. Its na cos from Lord Secalia, who reclaid this land a thousand years ago. It was this obscure noble who settled and multiplied here, so that there would be human habitation at all. If one were to trace bloodlines, eighty percent of the residents have that lord’s blood flowing in their veins.
It was only half a year ago that this agricultural town was registered on the latest map of Dazzling Star; before that, even the most detailed military maps only noted that there were continuous fields here, as if fields could produce grain on their own.
Just as dawn was breaking, Martha was already up and had folded her quilt. Perhaps because of her age, she’d been sleeping less and less this past year, sotis lying quietly in bed until daybreak. She went out into the courtyard to draw water from the well to wash up. It wasn’t that there was no tap water, but water from the well was free.
The air carried a faint chill. After Martha mixed the coarse grain and concentrated feed, she took the food basin and the water bowl to feed the chickens. Once their breakfast was arranged, she watered the Windship Vine; sotis she would pick so of its tender leaves to cook with.
Then she drank a glass of lightly salted water, put on a thin jacket and a pair of scrubbed‑clean running shoes, and stepped into the morning mist.
It wasn’t the busy farming season, nor was it ti for the factory shift to start, so there were few people on the road, only the occasional bark of a dog. Although it was called an agricultural town, Secalia was no different from the countryside. Other than two general stores, there were basically no other facilities; for fresh produce you had to go to the market an hour’s journey away.
As Martha jogged past the general store, a middle‑aged man who seed to have been drinking all night shouted so drunken nonsense at her that no one could understand, but his friend imdiately grabbed him, and the two burst out laughing. Martha was long used to this and ignored them, circling the fields at a slow run, which still took the better part of half an hour; only when she reached the highway junction did she turn back.
This highway had only been connected to Secalia six years ago; before that you had to walk half an hour along a dirt track just to reach the nearest paved road. On her way back, the sky not only failed to lighten, it grew darker instead. Martha thought, this is bad, it’s going to rain. Sure enough, as soon as she got ho, a fine drizzle began. She hurried to bring the clothes hanging outside into the inner room, shut the chicken coop so the chicks wouldn’t run out. By the ti she finished busying about she was soaked through and couldn’t help but sneeze.
Martha tensed up at once. She quickly changed into a dry set of clothes and made herself a cup of hot tea. Only after her body ward did she start to prepare breakfast. Two eggs, a carton of milk, three slices of bread, plus chicken breast and a banana. To be honest, Martha didn’t have much appetite; her stomach had always been bad and she usually preferred vegetables. But she still forced herself to finish this breakfast.
In the past, she would already have been on her way to the factory at this hour. Though her daughter had told her many tis to quit, Martha didn’t feel that going to work was tiring at all. She’d done this job for decades and could do it with her eyes closed; what was there to be tired about? Being cooped up at ho all day was what felt pointless—she’d rather chat with her coworkers.
She knew her daughter wanted her to enjoy life, but her own ti wasn’t worth much anyway, so why not use it to earn so money?
Sipping the hot tea to help her digest, Martha watched the Rain Curtain outside. The clouds surged over the sky like a tide. In previous years it would never rain at this ti, but after the sky collapsed the weather had changed. Temperatures no longer shifted once every three months, and sowing dates, crop varieties, harvest seasons and so on had all changed as well... The world Martha had once thought eternal and unchanging, the life she had gone through in the sa way for decades, was completely altered by that collapse of the heavens.
But what the collapse changed was not only the world—it changed her life.
With the rain outside making exercise impossible, Martha could only postpone her morning workout to the afternoon. She put on her glasses and turned on the Miracle Bracelet, and at that mont a ssage popped up.
She squinted at it and couldn’t help a small, knowing smile. It was a photo from Adelle—she had defeated her first opponent in teor Disaster and was so happy she had to share the news with her.
Martha carefully composed a congratulatory ssage and sent it back. Adelle didn’t reply, most likely she’d gone back to sleep. Although her daughter’s classmates would contact her from ti to ti, Martha was most familiar with and fondest of cheerful, lively Adelle. This girl from the city was even more rambunctious than the girls from the countryside, and she made Martha think of her daughter’s mischievous childhood.
She had once thought her daughter was a gentle, well‑behaved child, until other parents ca to complain and she realized those little injuries on her daughter weren’t just scrapes and bruises. She couldn’t believe her daughter would bully anyone, but she wasn’t the kind of capable, tough mother who could stand up for her child. All she could do was shut her daughter in the house and keep her out of the adults’ quarrels, while she herself bowed her head and apologized to the other parents, compensating them and begging their forgiveness... Yet as soon as her back was turned, her daughter would run out, carrying two lunch pails and knocking on doors from one end of the village to the other, shouting, "Sterling, I’m sorry I hit you so hard. You, an eight‑year‑old big kid, please forgive , a five‑year‑old little kid." Everyone laughed as they watched her, and the other parents were quite satisfied; only Sterling was wailing as he chased after her, begging her to stop.
After that, no one ever ca to Martha to complain again. She never knew whether her daughter had learned to behave, or whether the other kids were simply too embarrassed to admit they were being bullied by a girl a few years younger.
Martha tapped the "Basic Education" tab on the Light Screen, took out pen and paper, and continued yesterday’s lesson. This Miracle Bracelet had once belonged to her daughter, and naturally this set of courses was the sa curriculum her daughter had taken. Martha had only studied the simplest general education as a child; any knowledge that wasn’t needed for grocery shopping she had never been exposed to. So working through the basic courses was quite a struggle for her: an hour‑long class took her two hours to roughly grasp.
And that was only because she didn’t have to take exams. If there were exams she would also have to choose the "advanced courses" in the program. After her daughter turned seven, whenever there was no farm work to be done, she would spend entire days buried in her studies except for watching a drama or two, just to master these courses.
Martha hadn’t wanted her daughter to live so hard a life... Born into a family in such a remote region, as her daughter, there would be no shortage of hardship in her future.
She had hoped her daughter would at least have a happy childhood.
But as her daughter grew older, Martha understood less and less what was going on in her mind, and her daughter’s temper grew worse. Once, when she disturbed her daughter’s studying, the girl suddenly exploded, knocking over her water cup, shouting why do you always have to bother , and complaining that it was already hard enough being born into this family. Martha wiped the floor in silence, head down, only daring to secretly wipe away her tears.
Martha also felt she didn’t deserve such a good child. No matter how hard she tried, she could not provide good conditions. If only her daughter had been born into a better family. So no matter how her daughter scolded her, Martha felt she had it coming. But the next day, her daughter followed her to the fields without a word. It was then that Martha silently made up her mind that she absolutely must not be a burden on her daughter.
So now she had quit her job, was working hard to exercise, changing her diet, and studying the basic courses all over again.
Other people all thought she’d gone crazy from the blow, but Martha’s goal was very clear and very simple—exactly the sa as when her daughter was a child: she wanted to beco a Mage.
Because only Mages could pass through Sky Gates to other realms.
Martha didn’t know whether she could leave Secalia, nor did she know what other conditions there might be for going to other realms. But whatever the case, she had to first beco a Mage. Only once she achieved that step would she have any chance of leaving the land she had lived on for decades, to go to a foreign land in search of her daughter.
She couldn’t just keep wiping her tears, couldn’t keep being a burden.
The wind and rain outside grew fiercer, raindrops drumming loudly against the window glass. Martha took off her glasses and rubbed her sore, stinging eyes, then went back to her lesson. Just then, the wind suddenly howled outside. She grew a little worried that the chicken coop might be leaking, and had just stood up when she heard a knock at the door.
Who could that be? A reporter?
Half a year ago, for a while, many unfamiliar reporters had co to interview her, but that was soon called off. Still, only strangers would knock on the door; neighbors would just call her na.
But in this howling wind and pouring rain, who would co at a ti like this? While Martha hesitated, the knocking grew more urgent. She called out, "Coming," and walked to the door. As her hand closed around the doorknob, a strange, inexplicable tremor rose in her chest.
When Martha opened the door, the uninvited guest stepped into the house at once, together with the sound of wind and rain. He wore a trench coat with the hood up, half his face hidden in shadow, sneaky enough to look like no good person. But his clothes were strangely dry, not bringing in a single drop of water.
Yet the stranger’s appearance failed to draw even the slightest sliver of Martha’s attention. From the mont he crossed the threshold, her gaze was fixed, stunned, on the girl on his back. The girl also wore a hood; red hair spilled out on either side. She lay quietly draped over the stranger’s back, like a little girl worn out from play.
Martha reached out a hand, but before her finger could touch the girl’s cheek she snatched it back as if shocked by electricity, as though afraid of puncturing a dream as fragile as a bubble.
The stranger closed the front door and, considerately, lifted back the girl’s hood, revealing a sleeping face of breathtaking beauty.
But in a mother’s eyes, no matter how grown or how beautiful a child becos, when they are asleep they always turn back into the innocent, adorable baby they once were. Martha softly stroked her burning‑hot cheek. The girl’s nose twitched ever so slightly, and her expression was exactly the sa as when she was little.
"Where’s her room?" Ash asked.
Martha gave him a long, complicated look, then turned and said, "Follow ."
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