Amia's tall figure moved steadily through the dim, enclosed passage. Her steps were even and unhurried, but a closer look would have revealed that they were precise as a robot's. Even her footsteps carried the faintest whisper of friction, like machinery in motion.
This was a maintenance tunnel beneath Mingxi City, a space city. The passage was narrow and cramped, the air damp and cold. Her searchlight reached into the darkness, illuminating little more than a wan patch of light.
Needless to say, this was the sort of place where ghost stories belonged.
But to Amia, a psychic who had taken part in the God of War Festival and nearly died once, an environment like this could never unsettle her.
She was now a third-year student at the Palace of Wisdom University, double-majoring in philosophy and engineering. She had already explored the labyrinth of partially enclosed ventilation shafts and mechanical corridors inside the space city many times.
She could no longer be a powerful psychic, but she could still become a sociologist and an engineer and contribute to the world that way. Gumeya women were strong women, full of ambition and drive. Amia was clearly one of them.
It was only natural for an outstanding engineering student like her to spend plenty of time crawling through ventilation ducts.
These passages were far too narrow for a tall Gumeya, but she had long since gotten used to them. Perhaps because her body was full of nanomachines and prosthetic bones, she found herself strangely fond of this environment.
Yes, Mingxi City was one of the space cities located in the "Second Ring" of the Heavenly Domain capital, in orbit around the empire's homeworld, Rui. It was also one of the most important space cities in the entire Heavenly Domain.
The Galactic Empire's