Travel Scene One: Bandits and Baskets (Hours after leaving village)
By midday on the first day, Fan Hanji had already gotten them into trouble. They had just gotten off the hover bus at the transfer station when her uncle complained that his stomach was eating itself, and he noticed people selling goods nearby.
"They'd lured travelers in with peaches before. Fan Hanji was just the latest to fall for it."
He'd bargained too well for a basket of peaches at a streetside stall, only to realize—after they'd ridden off—that he'd haggled with a group of Hunters acting like river thugs in disguise.
As they strolled back towards the hover bus station, Fan Hanji popped a peach into his mouth, smug. "Too easy. I still got the magic touch."
Fan Yumei narrowed her eyes. "That was too easy. Wait—did you see their hands? Calluses. And those weren't farming knives."
Fan Hanji paused. "Huh. You're right…"
Behind them, muffled shouting began to rise.
"I knew it," Fan Yumei muttered, turning.
Fan Hanji, in a panic, spun on his heel and waved his arms. "Too late now! May your hair abandon you! May your ugliness forsake you! I curse you all to be unmarriageable with temporary baldness!"
A moment of eerie silence passed. Then—
A shriek.
"My scalp's tingling—what the—why is it falling out?!"
"MY HAIR! YOU CURSED ALL OUR HAIR TO FALL OUT!"
Suddenly, the hunters were sprinting after them, clutching their heads as handfuls of hair drifted in the wind.
"Oh no, the bus," Fan Yumei said flatly. "You actually hexed them?!"
"Low-grade glamour hex!" Hanji panted, boots slapping mud. "It'll grow back! Eventually! Probably!"
They ran.
"You're buying me new shoes if mine melt," she grumbled, stepping over a root.
The furious hunters chased them for nearly two miles—just long enough to miss the next hover bus by a single hiss of its departing steam.
Fan Yumei leapt from the stall table eyes sharp, stance steady. Two quick strikes with a branch she'd dried herself, and the thugs acting as bandits dropped their blades in shock. I'm a kid. How weak.
One blade sparked and folded—polyalloy, third-gen. She clocked it in a blink. No time to study.
Hanji peeked from behind the stall.
"Did you see that?" he gasped, running over. "Best niece ever."
"You owe me peaches," she muttered.
"And maybe armor," he added.
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Travel Scene Two: The Goose Incident
"A Grappling Goose farmer—Core E-class, two stars—watched skeptically as Hanji spun a wild tale how he once "rescued a mythical beast egg—the phoenix egg—with nothing but an echo flute and a spoon."
Only to be bitten by a goose.
Yumei nearly fell over laughing while Fan Hanji ran in circles, flapping and shouting, "This beast is possessed!"
"All beings love me! This is a mistake! Help!"
Later, when she wrapped his hand and applied balm from her portable med-thread pack—given to her by her mother last night when she thought she was sleeping—he grumbled, "You're enjoying this too much."
"A little," she admitted. "But mostly I'm just wondering how you survived this long."
"Talent," he said proudly. "And nieces who punch better than I do."
"I'm your only niece though."
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Travel Scene Three: The Standoff at Willow Bridge
On the second day, at the gates of Willow Bridge City, the toll keeper squinted at their permits and sniffed. "These look fake," he said. "Toll's twenty-five Federation coins each."
Fan Hanji blinked. "Twenty-five? The sign says six per person, ten for Awakeners, and free for Awakening candidates."
The keeper shrugged. "Rates changed this morning. Bridge repairs. Union fees. Special directive."
Fan Hanji started to bluster—bargaining, then bluffing, and finally offering to trade his boots.
Fan Yumei stepped forward, calm and sharp-eyed. She unrolled her father's scroll, showed the official seal, the paperwork for Awakening, and held up her hand—her worn travel ring flaring with an old family sigil burned into low-band metal memory.
"Your fear smells like mildew," she said. "Move."
Her aura—honed by years of military service, sharpened by the bloodlust of two wars, and carried over from a last life soaked in battle—pressed against the keeper like a vice, making it hard for him to breathe. Then she pulled it back.
The toll keeper blinked. A long second passed. Then he stepped aside.
Fan Hanji whistled low. "I swear, if the Old Master doesn't take you in, I'll fight him myself."
"You'd lose," she said dryly.
"Yes," he agreed. "But I'd lose with honor."
They crossed into Willow Bridge City with the wind in their hair, laughter between them, and Fan Yumei's heart already leaning toward the road ahead.
⸻
⸻
Travel Scene Four: Shortcuts No Longer
The shortcut, Fan Hanji had said, was "ancient, blessed by wind spirits, and marked by three rocks that looked like smiling turtles."
In truth, it was a goat path that curled up a mist-wrapped mountain, leading them right to the edge of the boundary outside the safe zone—and by nightfall, they were very, very lost.
A cold wind howled through the trees, and rain began to fall in thin, biting sheets. They made camp beneath a rocky overhang. Fan Hanji muttered a few incantations and drew shaky runes in the mud—spells for wind shielding, moisture repelling, and maybe even a minor warmth glyph. The tent shimmered into shape with a puff of static. Then he tried a fire spell.
There was a low hum… a pop… and a fireball that blasted sideways into a mossy log, which exploded into sparks.
"Okay, no fire spells," Hanji coughed, waving smoke from his singed eyebrows. "You handle that part if you want me to live a few more years."
Fan Yumei, teeth chattering, rolled her eyes and crouched near the damp sticks. She pulled out her mother's med-thread flint and a sliver of ember wax. Within minutes, flames licked steady and warm between the stones.
Then came the sound—a massive, bone-rattling CRACK that rolled through the mountain like thunder splitting stone.
Fan Hanji's head snapped up. "Did you hear that?!"
"I'm pretty sure the mountain just sneezed."
"No, no—that was treasure!" He clutched her shoulder. "It's always a crash. A loud crash. Followed by fortune. Stay here—I'm going to check it out."
"You are not going alone."
"Yuyu—"
"You're limping and have half a goose bite on your hand. I'm coming."
The two crept through the dark, following the scent of scorched earth and the strange shimmer in the air. The path led to a pit the size of a village square—smoking, rimmed with steaming moss and cracked stone. At the center lay a huge mystical beast egg, taller than Yumei, its shell glinting white with swirling golden cloud patterns that shifted with the rain.
A single large crack ran across the top, faintly glowing.
Fan Hanji gasped. "Sweet Moon of Fortune… It's a mystical beast egg."
"I've never seen one," Fan Yumei whispered, stepping closer.
"Neither have I!" he said, nearly vibrating. "And cracked already! Damn it—we missed it!"
Her heart raced. "We can't leave it here."
Fan Hanji's eyes sparkled—then dimmed. "Yuyu… I hate to say this, but if the shell's damaged—it's hopeless. I've never heard of a cracked mystical or magical beast egg hatching. Not properly. The energy leaks. The beast inside… usually doesn't make it. And if it does, it's wild. Sickly. Or worse."
Yumei stared at the glowing fracture. A soft hum radiated from the egg, pulsing in sync with her own heartbeat. No—deeper than that. It knew her. Or she had known it.
Fan Hanji added more gently, "We also… could eat it."
She turned, aghast. "Eat it?!"
"I'm just saying," he said, throwing up his hands. "If it's not going to hatch—why let it rot? It's still full of Qi essence. You and I could live to three ninety-five. With shiny hair."
She whacked him on the head with a wet stick.
"Hey!" he yelped, ducking. "I'm trying to be practical!"
But she wasn't listening anymore.
In her heart, something stirred—an old memory, half-buried and blinking.
Another egg. Another storm. A creature named Maximus, born with one wing crushed, its shell spiderwebbed with cracks. No one believed it would survive.
But she had saved him. In that life, she had been a healer. A vet. And even now—without the right tools, without knowing what sort of creature this would become—she still remembered how to care. How to hope.
"It's not food, Uncle," she murmured, already pulling off her cloak to wrap the egg. "I'm keeping it."
He sighed dramatically. "Fine. But listen—if you're going to keep it, you need to wait. When we reach the Old Master, and your core awakens—or if it turns out you don't—then maybe this is fate. If not…"
He scratched his head. "Well, you could raise it free-range, I guess. But without a bond, you'll have to feed it manually. That means buying cultivation resources. Costly stuff. Bonded beasts can share your Qi—cuts upkeep in half. Without a link? It's Federation-coin expensive. That's why bonded beasts are rare in the countryside—only families with real coin can manage."
He rubbed the back of his neck. "And mythical ones? They don't follow contracts. Your father can write a dozen scrolls—it won't work. You have to bond naturally. And even then, they don't always listen to commands like 'don't destroy the house.'"
Yumei pressed her palm to the warm, humming shell. "Even if I don't awaken… I still want to try."
"Fine," Hanji groaned. "But if you're keeping it, just know you'll need a temp license, and probably argue with some Federation clerk who thinks you're a smuggler."
Kk
Though I still prefer to eat this thing he said
Yumei raised an eyebrow. "You're one to talk. Dad has his owl beast."
"I can raise mine myself."
Hanji made a face. "Yes. A magical beast. Different from that. And look at him now—brooding in his study. Bonded to something that gives me migraines. You know it watches me sleep, right? Just sits there. Judging."
He shuddered.
"Your father wanted that kind of responsibility. He knew the risks. Me?" Fan Hanji waggled his bandaged fingers. "I prefer my fingers bite-free and my spirit intact. I don't need a mystical or magical beast to complete me. I've got charisma. And a niece who makes up for both our bad ideas."
Yumei smirked. "You're dodging."
"I'm warning. Big difference."
"Ridiculous."
"Ridiculously wise." He winked. "Now help me carry this giant breakfast-to-be—I mean miracle."
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