Cyber Mage

Early the next morning, before dawn had broken, Ivette was awakened. She groggily opened her eyes and saw her student sitting on the room's carpet, upper body draped over the bedside, staring at her with panda eyes like a cute blonde ghost.

"Good morning, Teacher," Rosaline said.

"...What time did you start lying there?"

"Probably... a little after four."

"You got up that early?"

"...I couldn't sleep."

"Mm. Remember, you're not allowed to lie by my bed again."

"...Okay." Realizing that she might have been disliked, Rosaline made a sound like a wronged puppy.

But no matter how exhausted she felt, the thought of soon exploring this magnificent "ancient divine realm" instantly lifted Rosaline's spirits.

She eagerly brought her teacher the clothes that had already been dried, only to hear the doorbell ring.

When she opened the door, Rosaline's breath caught for a moment—the narrow hallway held a life-sized doll standing silently there. Its porcelain-white skin gleamed with a cold light, its ball joints making faint clicking sounds as it bowed, and it carried two boxes in its hands.

"Thank you for using Sky Express. This is your delivery. Receipt has been confirmed by photograph. Have a pleasant day. Goodbye." After saying that and handing over the items, the doll left, leaving Rosaline rooted where she stood in utter shock.

"Te-te-teacher...!!" Rosaline cried out stammeringly. "There was a p-p-person doll just now!! It gave me something! How could that doll talk?"

"That's the clothes I ordered online. I told you about it last night. That doll was a Mechanical Puppet, a type of magic-powered mechanical creation. It looks human, but it has no soul. It's an inanimate object modeled after humans."

"That's incredible. It was like something straight out of a fairy tale..."

Having received her teacher's explanation, Rosaline clicked her tongue in wonder as she shut the door and opened the boxes. Inside were the outfits they had picked out the night before: a simple black-and-white set for her teacher, and a blue-and-white girlish set for herself.

"Let's go," Ivette said after they had changed.

"Okay!"

Soon, led by Ivette, Rosaline arrived outside the hotel and took a deep breath. The streets here actually weren't clean. Chewing gum and strange advertisement cards stuck to the ground, while the walls on both sides were covered in exaggerated graffiti and suspicious stains that came with foul odors.

But she felt nothing about it. She had seen much dirtier streets in the count's territory. This little bit of grime was nothing.

At that moment, her eyes held only curiosity toward this unknown world. Even the scent of fried food drifting from the breakfast stalls by the roadside seemed especially enticing.

"Teacher, where are we going next?" Rosaline asked expectantly after breakfast, entirely in the mood of a tourist.

"First, we'll look around a few places here and find a way to make money. If you feel sleepy, you can go back and sleep... Tonight, I'll take you to the city center, the area that counts as our 'home,' for a walk," Ivette said.

As someone experienced, Ivette's greatest understanding of Dream Mist at present was to "lie low"—in other words, do nothing. As long as she did not die unexpectedly, she only had to wait until the time came for the dream to collapse on its own. And to lie low properly, the most urgent task was making money. Once she had money, she would naturally have channels to trade for a safer identity card and shake off suspicion for aggravated murder and illegally hacking into the police system—though both accusations were true.

So, aside from buying clothes online last night, Ivette had also combed through all sorts of local online forums related to Ish City in search of gray-market opportunities. In the end, she spent a little money in several small anonymous channels to purchase the exact locations of several "underground trading markets" in Blackwater District. She planned to check them out today and see whether there was any work she could do.

Once the money problem was settled, taking her student to the city center to spend lavishly would be no problem. She could even buy some items she needed and try to bring them back into reality when the dream ended.

"No, Teacher. I'm really not sleepy at all," Rosaline immediately said.

Ivette glanced at the dark circles that still had not faded from beneath her eyes and gave a quiet hum.

The street where Ivette and Rosaline were staying was called Pixel Street. The name sounded interesting, but it was actually because the local street office had a unique understanding of "the macroeconomics of supplementary income distribution," resulting in the holographic advertisements here always being blurrier than elsewhere. That was how it got its name.

About five kilometers from this street stood an underground exchange called the Junkyard Black Market. Built beneath a garbage station and converted from an air-raid shelter, it hosted many transactions that could not see the light of day. It was therefore extremely hostile toward outsiders. Without a trusted introducer, one was not even allowed inside.

As newcomers from elsewhere, Ivette naturally could not find a local willing to vouch for them, but she still intended to give it a try.

Soon, after getting off a bus with a bizarre smell, they reached the outskirts of Blackwater District. Open wasteland began appearing along the roadside. One fenced-off area was piled with garbage as high as mountains. That was their destination.

Two burly men guarded the junkyard, one with short hair and the other bald. Both were nearly two meters tall, and both had undergone cybernetic modifications to their arms, making them look imposing.

When the bald brute saw Ivette and Rosaline approach, he immediately walked over and barked coldly, "Brats, this isn't somewhere you should be! Go home!"

Clearly, Ivette and Rosaline's pretty faces, clean new clothes, and middle-school-aged appearances had made the two guards mistake them for young tourists who had wandered into the wrong place.

Ivette said nothing. Expressionless, she raised her head and looked at the bald brute. Just as his impatience reached its peak, she suddenly snapped her fingers crisply.

The next second, four enormous crimson rune rings appeared around Ivette. A ferocious fire dragon emerged from each ring, weaving and circling above the girl's head, making her seem in that instant like an angel of flame descended from the heavens—majestic and awe-inspiring.

"A Cyber Mage?!" The unexpected move instantly sobered the bald man, who staggered several steps back. The short-haired brute beside him also underwent a drastic change in expression.

They were the most dangerous group in every gray area of Origin Civilization, and at the same time, they often had another name: Rune Hackers!

"What do you want?" Having forcibly calmed himself down, the bald brute immediately put more than ten meters between them and asked warily.

The mechanical prosthetics on his arms looked intimidating, but they were actually the lowest-grade models. Apart from being a little stronger, they had no additional functions. He had no desire to clash with a Cyber Mage.

"We want to do some business here. Mm, we don't have a guarantor," Ivette said expressionlessly after dismissing the magic.

The two guards looked at each other, not expecting that answer—this gray market only dealt in small-scale business, and those who traded here were all lower-class people from nearby. Why would a dignified Cyber Mage care about the profits from a place like this?

"Um... esteemed Mage, please wait a moment. We can't make this decision. We need to notify our boss first..."

Ivette gave a hum and slightly raised her chin, signaling for them to hurry.