The porcelain fountain was the first thing Victoria saw when Mountain Risen's private safe area loaded around her.
Water trickled over the fountain's white tiers. The same bench stood beneath the dark pines, and the same paths curved toward the academy's upper shelves. Victoria had stood there after Just Die lost Cascade Valley, reading the guild-channel aftermath and deciding what use she could still make of Raze Dawg's defeat.
Rias's recording floated at the edge of her vision, showing the route from the public alchemy quarter through a concealed staff corridor and into the laboratory beneath the stores carrying Crucible Concord's crest.
The report beside it displayed Formula Fragment 17 and the sponsor entry Victoria had once assumed would never matter again. Her name still linked the order that began the project to everything the laboratory had produced since.
