Cyber Mage

Chapter 18 - Cyber Mage

The next morning, before dawn, Ivette was woken up by someone. She groggily opened her eyes and saw her student sitting on the carpet in her room, upper body propped on the edge of the bed, staring at her with panda eyes, like a cute blonde ghost.

"Good morning, Teacher." Rosaline said.

"...When did you start lying here?"

"I think it was a little past four."

"So why so early?"

"...Couldn't sleep."

"Well, remember not to lie by my bed in the future."

"...Okay." Realizing she might be disliked, Rosaline let out a sound like a wronged puppy.

But no matter how tired her body was, thinking about exploring the magnificent "Ancient Divine Kingdom" next, Rosaline's mood instantly became joyful.

She diligently brought Ivette her dried clothes, only to hear the doorbell ring at the door.

When she opened the door, Rosaline's breath caught in her throat the next second—a life-sized doll stood silently in the narrow corridor. Her porcelain-white skin emitted a cold luster, and the spherical joints made faint clicking sounds as she bowed. She held two boxes in her hands.

"Welcome to 'Sky Express.' This is your package. We have taken a photo for confirmation of receipt. We wish you a pleasant day. Goodbye." After saying this and handing over the items, the doll left, leaving Rosaline, who was greatly shocked, standing still.

"Te-te-teacher!!" Rosaline stammered in shock, "There was a hum-human-humanoid doll just now!! It gave me something! How can that doll talk?"

"That's the clothes I ordered online. I told you about it last night. The doll is a 'Mechanical Puppet,' a type of magical mechanical creation. It looks like a person, but it has no soul; it's an imitation of a dead human."

"It's so magical, it's like something out of a fairy tale..."

Having received her teacher's explanation, Rosaline clicked her tongue in amazement, closed the door, and opened the boxes. Inside were the outfits she had chosen the night before—one in her teacher's simple black and white style, and one in her own blue and white girlish style.

"Let's go." Ivette said after changing.

"Okay!"

Soon, under Ivette's guidance, Rosaline arrived outside the hotel and took a deep breath. In reality, the streets here were not clean. The ground was sticky with chewing gum and strange advertisement cards, and the walls on both sides were covered in exaggerated graffiti and suspicious stains accompanied by foul odors.

However, she felt nothing of this. She had seen dirtier streets in the Count's territory, so this little bit of dirt was nothing.

At this moment, her eyes were filled only with the novelty of the unknown world, and even the aroma of fried food wafting from the roadside breakfast stalls seemed particularly tempting.

"Teacher, where are we going next?" Rosaline asked excitedly, completely in tourist mode, after breakfast.

"We'll visit a few places here first to find ways to make money. If you feel sleepy, you can go back to your room and sleep... We'll go to the city center in the evening, the area where our 'home' is." Ivette said.

As an experienced person, Ivette's current understanding of the Dream Mist was "stay low-key." That is, do nothing, as long as you don't die accidentally, the dream will collapse on its own when the time comes. To stay low-key, the immediate priority was to get money. Once she had money, she would naturally find a way to exchange for a safer identity ID card and shake off the suspicion of murder and illegal entry into the police system—although all of that was true.

So last night, besides shopping online, Ivette had scoured various relevant online forums in Ish City to find gray areas. In the end, she spent a small amount of money in a few small anonymous channels to obtain the exact locations of several "underground trading markets" in the Black Water District, planning to check them out today to see if there was any work she could do.

Once the money issue was settled, taking her disciple to the city center for a good time would be no problem. She could even buy some items she needed and try to bring them into reality when the dream ended.

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

Ivette glanced at the dark circles under her eyes that had not yet faded and hummed in response.

The street where Ivette and Rosaline were staying was called "Pixel Street." The name sounded interesting, but in reality, it was because of the unique understanding of "macroeconomics of extra income distribution" by the local street office, which resulted in the holographic advertisements here always being blurrier than elsewhere, hence the name.

About five kilometers down this street, there was an underground exchange called the "Junkyard Black Market." It was built underground at a garbage station and converted from an air-raid shelter. Many shady transactions circulated here, making it very intolerant of outsiders, and without a trusted introducer, one would not even be allowed in.

As outsiders who had just arrived, Ivette certainly couldn't find any locals willing to vouch for them, but she still intended to try.

Soon, after getting off a bus that smelled strange, they were at the edge of the Black Water District. Barren land began to appear by the roadside, visible from a distance. One area, fenced off, was piled high with garbage like a mountain—this was their destination.

The two guards at the Junkyard were big men, one with short hair and the other bald. Both were nearly two meters tall, and their arms had undergone cybernetic modifications, making them imposing.

The bald strongman saw Ivette and Rosaline approaching and immediately walked over, sternly shouting, "Kid, this isn't a place for you! Go home!"

Clearly, Ivette and Rosaline's beautiful faces, clean new clothes, and their age, which appeared to be that of junior or senior high school students, made the two guards mistake them for little tourists who had come to the wrong place.

Ivette remained silent. She looked up expressionlessly at the bald strongman. When his impatience reached its peak, she snapped her fingers crisply.

The next second, four large red rune circles appeared around Ivette. A ferocious fire dragon emerged from each rune circle and coiled above the girl's head, making her instantly appear like an angel of fire descending from the heavens, majestic and awe-inspiring.

"Cyber Mage?!" This unexpected move made the bald man sober up instantly, and he took several steps back. The short-haired strongman beside him also changed his expression.

This was the most dangerous group in all the gray areas of the Origin Civilization, and at the same time, they often had another name: "Rune Hacker"!

"What do you want?" the bald strongman asked vigilantly, after forcing himself to calm down, keeping a distance of more than ten meters.

His cybernetic arm implants looked intimidating, but they were actually the lowest grade models. Besides having more strength, they had no additional functions. He didn't want to clash with a Cyber Mage.

"We want to do some business here, um, without a guarantor." Ivette said expressionlessly after dispelling the magic.

The two guards looked at each other, surprised by this answer—their gray market only offered small businesses, and those who traded here were all locals from the lower strata. Why would a Cyber Mage, of all people, look down on the profits from such a place?

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

Ivette hummed and tilted her chin slightly, signaling them to hurry.