After Michael left the academy grounds and returned to the surface world, he did not rush straight home.
He missed his family. That much was true. After being away for so long, the desire to see them was real. But that was exactly why he couldn't return empty-handed.
At the very least, he had to bring gifts.
This city was very different from the one where his family lived. It was richer, more advanced, and far more exposed to the larger currents of the world. Even before the Federation had decided to become more open about the supernatural, some cities had never truly been in the dark. This was one of them.
Michael took his time.
For his aunt, he chose foreign spices.
Aunt Mia was not a chef only because it paid the bills. She genuinely loved cooking. Michael still remembered the way her face would light up whenever she made a new dish, though at the learning stage most of them had ended up as something that could generously be described as inedible. This city happened to have entire sections of the market devoted to imported ingredients from other states and beyond. It was impossible not to think of her the moment he saw them.
He bought more than he initially intended.
For Lily he was less certain. He eventually settled on what he believed a sixteen-year-old girl might appreciate, with a reasonable degree of uncertainty. A few accessories. Some sweets that were slightly fancier than what was usually sold back home. A pair of soft wristbands that shifted color based on pulse rate. He was not fully convinced by the choice, but they looked harmless, and more importantly they looked like something a younger girl might actually enjoy.
Everything went neatly into his storage space.
Michael was about to leave when something caught his eye.
A pet shop.
At first glance it looked ordinary enough, but this was not a normal pet shop. It sold mechanical pets.
Michael stood still for a moment, looking through the glass. Inside, sleek metallic creatures moved with an eerie smoothness. A silver cat with gemlike eyes leapt onto a perch and curled up as if it were flesh and blood.
"...Mechanical pets?"
He had heard of them before. He had even seen one on his first day in this city and several more on the academy grounds.
There were generally two major types.
The first kind was closer to extremely advanced artificial intelligence. Machines built with such intricate behavioral patterns and sensory responses that they could pass for normal animals. They were trained extensively, given additional functions, and designed to imitate real creatures with frightening precision. Only their extra features and chosen appearance would expose them.
The second kind went beyond that. Those were not simply machines mixed with programs. They were machines mixed with magic. Their intelligence was not merely code but something closer to a bound soul structure, carefully written and refined until it behaved like a genuine creature while retaining capabilities beyond what ordinary animals could offer. Real in a meaningful sense, because they had something resembling a soul.
Because of their existence, classes had formed around them. Just like how someone could eventually gain a Dragon Tamer class after fulfilling specific conditions with dragons, the same could happen with mechanical beasts.
"Three days ago it was like this too."
"I didn't record it last time. This time I'm not missing it."
"Wait, zoom in. Zoom in!"
Excitement. Curiosity. A faint thread of unease beneath both. But not panic.
Michael remained still, looking up.
Something about the scene felt familiar. Very familiar.
A memory surfaced. Woodstone City. The same strange atmosphere. The same crowd reaction. People stopping, pointing, recording, not understanding what they were looking at. Not until it was too late. Michael's expression shifted slightly. Then he shook his head once.
This wasn't Woodstone City. This was a core city. A place under direct academy oversight, filled with high-ranking supernaturals and layered defenses both visible and hidden. Demonic supernaturals would have to be insane to launch an attack here.
Right?
His eyes stayed on the sky. The darkness spread a little further. Too
fast. Too deliberate. The air itself seemed to grow heavier, as if something unseen was pressing down on the city from above.
Around him the mood had not fully shifted yet. People were still recording. Still talking. Still treating it as something interesting.
But a few had gone quiet.
Michael's instincts stirred. His hand lowered slightly to his side,
fingers twitching faintly.
"...Something's wrong."