Hot Spring

Early the next morning, the bus finally left the last stretch of winding mountain road.

The Hot Spring Resort had arrived.

Everyone dragged their luggage off the bus. The moment they looked up, they all let out a collective "Wow."

Three towering stone statues stood before the resort's main entrance.

Three girls with different postures stood back-to-back—the one in the middle held a longsword, its tip planted on the ground as she gazed into the distance; the girl on the left held both hands together before her, as if cradling an invisible ball of light; the one on the right tilted her head slightly upward, pointing toward the sky with one hand.

A line of words was carved into the statues' base:

[Three Primordial Statues]

"So these are the three..."

Li Qi tilted her head back, a trace of reverence barely audible in her voice.

"Mm-hmm." Shen Qingyin stood beside her with her arms folded. "The first three Magical Girls to awaken in history. Decades ago, when Fallen Beasts first appeared, they were the ones who stepped forward."

"There was no Association, no predecessors, no tactics—nothing."

"What they faced back then were completely unknown monsters. Even the term 'Magical Girl' was coined for them by people later on."

"Because their appearance was like magic, bringing a miracle to this world."

Xu Youyou stared upward for a long while before suddenly raising her hand.

"Then why is the one on the right pointing at the sky?"

"Legend has it that she was summoning a meteorite."

Zhou Xingxing pushed up her glasses.

"...Huh?"

"I was kidding." Seeing that Xu Youyou had fallen for it, Zhou Xingxing smiled with satisfaction. "You'll have to ask the designer of the statues back then about that."

Once they passed through the main entrance, the entire