Elonore's hand stopped.
"Draw a second-tier basic defense circuit. Now. A complete one, not a half-finished product. Once you're done, I'll decide whether you can leave."
Violet grew anxious.
"Big Sis! A second-tier circuit takes at least half a year to get the hang of. You're asking her to do it right now—"
"I said so."
Violet fell silent.
Elonore stood up, replaced the plate with a fresh sheet of refined steel, and readjusted the angle of the guiding needle.
She looked neither at Talia nor at Violet.
A second-tier basic defense circuit had forty-three nodes, seventeen main lines, and six auxiliary lines. Every line had to be connected within a quarter of an hour.
In her previous life, she had practiced it countless times with Su Li in the woodshed of Ginkgo Alley.
She closed her eyes, rotated her wrist, and set the guiding needle onto the refined steel plate.
The first node, the second, the third—
Her lines were steady.
Not the steadiness of an apprentice, but that of a seasoned hand.
Violet's palms began to sweat.
"Just perform normally, normally..."
Talia stood by the window without turning around, but her ears were listening. She had heard the sound of a guiding needle scraping across refined steel for three hundred years. She could judge every pause at every node, the smoothness of every line.
The nineteenth node.
The line broke.
The blue glow at the needle's tip flickered. Aether short-circuited at the node, and a hairline crack split the surface of the refined steel plate.
She had failed from being too nervous.
Elonore stared at the broken circuit on the steel plate.
Her fingers were trembling. Not from nerves, but from muscle fatigue brought on by consecutive high-intensity engraving.
She pushed the ruined steel plate aside and picked