“Ventus?”

The girl’s soft voice carried a note of surprise, and recognition. Zi-Cheng stiffened, fighting the urge to bolt as he slowly turned his head away.

The last time they met at the Sanctuary, he painted himself as some noble’s sickly, bedridden son. Since then, his life had spiraled completely out of control. After being beaten on the streets, camping out in the wilderness, stealing bread to survive, and being chased as a bread thief, fate had brought her right in front of him again.

With the memory of her pitiful eyes was still fresh in his mind, Zi-Cheng averted his gaze and pretended he didn’t know her.

“That was close... I almost swung this at you,” the girl said, letting out a breath of relief as she lowered the wooden stick in her hands.

Reese glanced sideways at Zi-Cheng, noticing how tightly he was clamping his lips shut, like he was avoiding an awkward ex. “Well, that’s not suspicious at all,” her eyes seemed to say.

(Stay calm. Play it cool. Maybe she’ll just go away….)

“Hi, I’m Elena!” the girl continued, stepping past Zi-Cheng with a bridge smile and bowed to Reese.

(or not….)

“I live in the Sanctuary dormitory next door.” she concluded.

Elena’s friendly demeanor caught Reese completely off guard, especially when Zi-Cheng looked like he’d rather sink into the ground than face her. With a glance at him, clamping his lips shut like a man on trial, Reese rolled her eyes and stepped in.

“Well, someone has to keep this conversation moving,” she said with a practiced smile, slipping into her professional merchant’s tone as she launched into a polished explanation of the red-brick workshop behind them.

“No way, you’re saying this old place belongs to the Golden Clover?”

“Ah, so you have heard of us!” Reese puffed out her chest, looking far too proud for someone standing in front of what essentially seemed like a haunted ruin. “This isn’t just a ‘house.’ This is the Golden Clover’s exclusive blacksmith workshop! A facility so advanced every merchant guild in Hazelton envied us... well, at least they used to....”

“I’ve been living at the dorm for three years, and everyone always thought this was just an abandoned haunted house!” Elena said as she tilted her head, her blue eyes widening in disbelief like a curious child.

And just like that, the pieces clicked into place. Reese glanced at the stick in Elena’s hand and realized the girl wasn’t just holding it for show—she had been trying to stop people from ghost hunting.

For once, Reese was completely at a loss for words.

“There’s nothing supernatural going on here… in fact… you could say that the work they did here was magical in a way.” Reese waved off Elena’s assumptions, completing dodging the question of why is the place abandoned in the first place. Luckily, Elena didn’t seem to mind at all, and before long, the two girls were deep in conversation.

As Reese moved the chains and locks aside, she pushed the creaky door open and the two quickly disappeared into the house, leaving Zi-Cheng alone, standing outside like he had been forgotten.

Zi-Cheng knew what Reese’s pointed glare earlier had meant, she was obviously not happy with him avoiding Elena, and truthfully, he didn’t have any good reasons to keep ignoring her either. But….

He hesitated, his hands clenching unconsciously into fists.

Over the past few weeks, he’d learned to tread carefully. Too carefully if it needed be. The betrayal and disappointments he’d faced had forced him to keep people at arm’s length.

Running into Candice on the street? He didn’t pursue it further. Partnering with Reese? It was all business, a clear give-and-take relationship with nothing more.

But Elena...

She was different. The way she smiled so easily, offered kindness so freely—it threw him off. That kind of warmth was dangerous. He couldn’t explain it, but just standing here, watching her, he felt like bolting, like turning his back and running as far as he could.

But then ––

A sudden scream from within the workshop shattered the silence.

Zi-Cheng froze. His chest tightened.

It was true that Zi-Cheng didn’t want to get too entangled with the people of this world.

But he also couldn’t stand by and do nothing when someone was in trouble.

Like the time he saved Julia by the riverbank, the instinct to take action kicked in almost instantaneously. Without hesitation, he darted toward the workshop, throwing the doors open—only to be hit by a wave of foul, musty air.

The overwhelming stench of decay and dust stopped him in his tracks, forcing him to pull his cloak over his nose and mouth.

Peering through the dim, dust-filled interior, he spotted the source of the scream: Reese and Elena were trapped beneath a partially collapsed shelf, both struggling to keep the rest of it from falling on top of them.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

“Ventus! Get over here already!” Reese shouted between coughs, her face red and streaked with dust as she tried to prop up the precarious shelf.

“Help...us….I can’t hold it—achoo!” Elena’s sneeze sent the shelf tilting dangerously as Reese shrieked, “This is not how I want to go out!”

“[Developer Mode – Remake]!”

Zi-Cheng raised his hands, a warm glow started radiating from his palms. The collapsed shelf twitched, then slowly broke apart into neatly stacked planks of wood. Meanwhile, the swirling dust and floating particles gathered into a fine gray ball, leaving the air around the girls crisp and clear.

“This... this is what you got from the Invocation?” Elena asked, her voice tinged with disbelief. While she had worked at the Sanctuary her whole life, she had never seen anything like it before.

“You got this from the Invocation?” Even Reese, who prided herself on having seen it all at the merchant’s guild, couldn’t stop herself from gaping in astonishment either.

Zi-Cheng, however, simply shrugged, puzzled by their reactions. “It’s not suitable for combat, right? It’s just a useless skill.”

“Useless!?” Reese shot him an incredulous look. “Sir, this is something straight out of a fairy tale!” She shook her head, trying to process how this man had completely misunderstood the value of his ability.

Zi-Cheng frowned, still unable to wrap his head around their reactions. He had never tried to hide his [Developer Mode] ability, mostly because everyone seemed to dismiss non-combat skills as worthless—and, to some extent, he believed it himself. But from Reese and Elena’s astonished expressions, he started to feel like he was missing something.

(Hold on... could this be why Crimson Plume let me go?)

He smacked his forehead lightly, a wave of realization dawning on him.

“Your skill might not win you a fight in the arena, but it’s so convenient!” Elena’s cheerful voice chimed as she threw open a window to let in fresh air. Meanwhile, Reese took the opportunity to shove Zi-Cheng toward the dustier parts of the room, gesturing at every neglected corner.

“Hey, stop pushing me around like a vacuum cleaner!” Zi-Cheng protested, stumbling forward as Reese’s hand stayed firmly planted on his back.

Reese raised an eyebrow. “What’s a vacuum cleaner?”

Elena burst out laughing.

“Ventus’s family kept him indoors with nothing but books since he was a kid, so he ended up learning all kinds of weird stuff!”

Reese shot a skeptical glare at Zi-Cheng, clearly not buying a single word of Elena’s story. Zi-Cheng, for his part, tried to keep his composure, but Reese’s gaze made him feel like he was standing trial, accused of feeding innocent girls made-up sob stories. There was no way someone who had hauled two cartloads of Egg Peaches back to the guild could pass as a “sickly little boy growing up.”

“That’s why being friends with Ventus is so much fun!” Elena declared confidently.

(…Friends?)

That word caught Zi-Cheng off guard. It felt oddly familiar, yet painfully distant.

There was a time when “friendship” wasn’t such an abstract concept. Back then, Zi-Cheng was so sure of its meaning. Day after day, he sat at the same table with his team, sharing meals and stories, laughing about things that had nothing to do with work.

Shi Ming-Wei, his business partner, was always brooding over where to buy his first house, weighing pros and cons like it was the most important decision in the world. Leung Pa-Tu, their lead programmer and die-hard anime fan, would go off on tangents about the latest show he binged, inevitably sparking heated debates about the best waifu.

And then there was Lam Kai-Wen, a fresh art school graduate who was always polite and cheerful. She had a habit of teasing the others, calling them “damn otakus,” before flashing an embarrassed smile whenever her designs were praised—or blushing furiously when everyone teased her for being a “walking Wikipedia of the best lunch spots.”

Finally, there was Chan Sze-Ki, the eldest on the team and the pragmatic glue holding them all together. He was the one constantly reminding them about looming deadlines or how little money they had left unless they could land another project.

Those days had been tough, but they felt... comfortable. Safe, even. Everyone had a sense of purpose, bound together by a shared dream. The laughter, the frustrations, the way they cheered each other on when a project came together—it had felt so natural, so certain.

How did it all fall apart?

Zi-Cheng didn’t know. He didn’t want to dwell on it anymore.

When Chris extended his hand to help him, Zi-Cheng had thought it was a fresh start. Instead, it became another scar he couldn’t forget. Now, as Elena smiled at him with such warmth, something inside him twisted uncomfortably. Could he really trust her? Could he let himself believe that this time would be different?

However, Elena didn’t seem fazed by Zi-Cheng’s cold attitude in the slightest. The moment she heard he was planning to move into the workshop, she ran back to the dorm and returned with an armful of cleaning tools. Not stopping there, she fetched several buckets of water herself and started cleaning the dusty old space with unwavering enthusiasm.

(Why is she doing all this?)

(We barely spoke back at the Sanctuary. Is this really necessary?)

Zi-Cheng tried to keep his replies short and neutral, hoping Elena would get the hint and back off. Yet, she crouched beside him, her cheerful grin practically glowing as she leaned over the bucket of water, her big, curious eyes sparkling like she’d just discovered a treasure.

“Wait, wait, wait!” Elena suddenly blurted, pointing excitedly at the water. “Do you even realize how crazy this is? You just stick your hand in, and all the dirt’s gone! The water’s so clear it’s like magic!”

“Well, it’s not magic if that’s what you’re wondering,” Zi-Cheng muttered with a sigh, holding up a lump of rock he ‘extracted’ from the water. “I just activated my skill, pictured some clean water, and the dirt clumps together – end of story.”

Just as he was about to brush Elena off again, Reese practically charged into the scene, clutching the towel Zi-Cheng had [Remade] like it was the holy grail. “Not magic huh? Explain this!” she exclaimed, waving the towel right in his face so much so he had to lean back. “I dunked it in water, scrubbed it once, and it’s clean as new! Not only that, this thing dries in seconds! You have any idea how quick this would fly off the shelves?!”

“That’s the only one I managed to make, the rest either crumbled to dust or turned into spaghetti threads so….”

“I don’t care!” Reese cut him off, hugging the soft fabric at her face, her eyes sparkled as if she was staring at a cart of gold. “If you make more, I’ll buy all of them. Every. Last. One. No questions asked!”

Zi-Cheng blinked, glancing awkwardly at the two as they marveled at his handiwork. To him, these were just ordinary things anyone would find lying around in any house. Still, if something this simple could help him make a living in the city, then that was all that mattered for now.

(Well, at least until I can remember what our little deal over the phone was all about….)