The young receptionist assumed Aya Tone was displeased by their president’s absence.
She quickly tried to placate her, saying, “Miss Aya Tone, if you don’t mind, you can wait in the lounge.
We have a full suite of entertainment and training facilities available here.
I’m sure you’ll find something you like.”
“Hmm…”
‘Wait here?’
Aya Tone pondered the suggestion.
‘It seems… that’s not a bad idea.’
“Alright, then.”
****
Time flew by.
“Fan Ying, is the child you mentioned inside?”
A profound weariness laced Bai Xiao’s words.
The space within the Imperial Capital was growing increasingly unstable under the influence of tidal energy fluctuations.
More and more dungeon portals were materializing on the city streets.
If they weren’t dealt with promptly, these smaller dungeons could absorb the tidal energy and evolve into higher-level ones.
The monsters within would also grow progressively stronger.
The Imperial Capital was her home.
As the inheritor of the White Tiger ability, one of the Four Symbols who guarded the nation of Z, how could she not take up her arms?
She had been rushing between B-rank dungeons and above for days; even a person of iron would break under the strain.
Yet even so, her eyes remained sharp, their glint as keen as a drawn blade.
It was a gaze few dared to meet.
“Yes, the Witch has been in the lounge the entire time.” Fan Ying, the receptionist, now walked beside Bai Xiao, guiding the way.
*Click.*
The lounge door swung inward.
“Aaaah!”
“No! Not my Rice Shower!”
“Rice Shower isn’t a villain, she’s a hero!”
“I want to be Rice Shower’s dog! Woof woof~ ฅ՞•ﻌ•՞ฅ”
*Slam!*
Fan Ying’s face darkened as she silently shut the door.
She offered an awkward smile. “President, perhaps we have the wrong room.”
‘Did I just see an adorable, silver-haired loli losing her mind over an anime on the projection?’
‘It must have been my imagination.’
‘Yes, that must be it!’
Fan Ying tried to hypnotize herself into believing her own eyes had deceived her.
“A very cute child, isn’t she?” The corner of Bai Xiao’s mouth twitched as she reached out and pushed the door open again.
She had seen the child’s face before.
Fire Finch was constantly showing her off.
‘A bit unhinged, perhaps, but it was definitely her.’
By the time the door opened again, the projection on the wall had vanished without a trace.
Inside the room, a lovely silver-haired loli was leaning against the sofa, slowly flipping through a book in her hands.
She appeared utterly engrossed.
Fan Ying peered past Bai Xiao, her eyes widening.
What in the world?!
Where was the anime projection? Where was the crazed silver-haired loli?
They were gone?
It was as if the entire scene had been a hallucination.
What in the—?!
Fan Ying felt like her brain’s CPU was about to explode; she simply couldn’t process the illusion she was facing.
Bai Xiao paid her no mind, walking straight toward Aya Tone.
Smiling, she slowly sat down beside her.
“Child, you’re holding the book upside down.”
Aya Tone: “???”
She instinctively glanced down at the text.
‘Hmm… it doesn’t look wrong to me.’
‘Is this old lady trying to bait me?’ she thought, her mind racing with complaints.
‘Damn it, I was really getting into that show, right at the good part, and I let my guard down.’
‘Someone saw me in that state…’
‘But it’s fine. I checked every corner of this lounge carefully.’
‘No surveillance!’
‘As long as I don’t admit it, no one will ever know!’
‘That’s right!’
‘This old lady must be dangling bait, trying to lure me in.’
‘Mhm.’
Convinced she had seen through the ruse, Aya Tone’s confidence surged.
‘You think a little trick like that is enough to catch me? You’re twenty thousand years too early! o(*≧▽≦)ツ’
Seeing Aya Tone continue to play dumb, Bai Xiao pursed her lips.
‘This child really is just as Fire Finch described… adorably dense.’
‘No wonder Fire Finch was so reluctant to let her go. If it weren’t for the S-rank dungeon, she probably wouldn’t have allowed her to come to the Imperial Capital.’
“Little Aya Tone, why don’t you turn the book over and look at the cover?”
‘The cover?’
A question mark slowly materialized over Aya Tone’s head.
Though a hundred thousand doubts still screamed in her mind, the other party had been so specific that it would be rude not to comply.
With a suspicious look, she closed the book.
“Er…”
The silence that followed was deafening.
Though she couldn’t read the words on the cover, the upside-down illustration said it all.
Awkward…
Aya Tone felt so mortified she could have dug a three-bedroom apartment with her toes.
She had just grabbed this book at random and didn’t understand the text anyway…
So basically…
Whether she held it right side up or upside down, the characters all looked the same to her.
She hadn’t given it a second thought, but who knew…
‘Aaaah, I could die of embarrassment.’
“Hello, President Bai.”
Aya Tone tossed the book back to its original spot.
She thought viciously, ‘If Bai Xiao weren’t here, I’d burn this nonsensical book to ashes with my Samadhi Steam Fire!’ â”—|ï½€O′|â”› Roar~~
“What’s this? Decided to finally acknowledge me?” Bai Xiao asked, her eyes narrowing playfully.
“No, no!”
Aya Tone shook her head vehemently, her little head whipping back and forth like a helicopter rotor.
Seeing that Bai Xiao wasn’t so easily fooled, she stiffly changed the subject.
“Let’s not talk about that, President Bai.”
“That dungeon, when is it expected to open?” She couldn’t forget her purpose here.
At the mention of official business, Bai Xiao’s expression immediately turned serious.
The whole reason she had borrowed this little cutie from Fire Finch was for the impending S-rank dungeon.
“According to observation reports, the tidal energy will peak within the next two days. At that point…
That will likely be when the dungeon opens. The location has already been sealed off and isolated, but…”
Bai Xiao’s tone shifted as she continued, “Before we can tackle the S-rank dungeon, we must first stabilize the space in the Imperial Capital. Otherwise, the spatial fluctuations generated when the S-rank dungeon opens will cause that entire region of space to collapse.”
“…”
Aya Tone naturally understood why Bai Xiao was telling her this.
A spatial collapse created a no-go zone for humans.
Without the ability to manipulate space, humans couldn’t even walk through a collapsed area, let alone survive in one.
Once space began to collapse, the surrounding equilibrium would be shattered in an instant.
Every point in space would be in constant flux, with forces of tension and compression coexisting within the smallest of distances.
If a person so much as touched it…
*Boom.*
If you were lucky, you’d be instantly reduced to a puddle of blood.
If you were truly unlucky, then congratulations, you’d get to witness your own body twist into something monstrous.
And then—die in despair.
An S-rank powerhouse might be able to withstand the spatial pressure, but only for a time…
Eventually, they too would perish, their existence erased.
Only when the space was stable could the S-rank portal open normally.
And the method to restabilize the Imperial Capital’s fragile space was quite simple.
Just as spatial instability caused a surge in dungeon appearances, the reverse was also true.
The space in the Imperial Capital had been weakened by the influence of the tidal energy.
Conversely!
When a dungeon’s core was shattered, its portal would collapse.
But the collapsed space wouldn’t simply vanish; it would transform into pure spatial energy and feed back into Blue Star.
This would reinforce Blue Star’s spatial barrier, thereby returning the space to a stable state.
Therefore, by systematically clearing out the new dungeons that had appeared across the Imperial Capital, the space weakened by the tide would naturally recover.
It might even become more stable than before!
It felt as if all this was preparation for some kind of advent.