The Growth-Type Stardust Artifact

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

He had probed the Loach Pendant with Mental Intent before — gotten nothing. Dead still, like stagnant water. So why had it suddenly become a warm spring nourishing his spirit today of all days?

And why had the school's Stardust Artifact — the one that was *supposed* to work — just gone completely inert?

*Holy — could the Loach Pendant have drained the energy out of the school's Stardust Artifact?!*

Mo Fan immediately concentrated his Mental Intent again, this time reaching between both artifacts at once.

Sure enough.

He could feel it now — deep within the school's Stardust Artifact, a last thin thread of energy still clung on. But that thread was moving. Transferring.

To be precise: the damned Loach Pendant was drinking the school's artifact dry like a juice box through an invisible straw. If he hadn't caught it this early, there wouldn't have been a single trace of evidence left.

"You little—" Mo Fan snatched up the Loach Pendant and let loose a torrent of curses. "So you had this ability all along? Sneaky little thing. You've been hiding all this time and now you finally show your true colors, huh?"

*You shameless little loach! You useless little loach!*

*Give me back the energy you stole — how am I supposed to cultivate if you've sucked it all up—*

Wait. Actually, no. The pendant had just released energy to nourish him. So the energy itself wasn't really the problem. The real problem was how he was going to return an empty, dead Stardust Artifact shell to the school.

And another thing... this pendant he had been cursing nonstop for as long as he could remember...

It seemed like... it seemed like — *holy hell* — it actually *was* a Stardust Artifact this whole time!!!

Mo Fan felt his brain short-circuit.

This was too much to process at once.

*Calm down. Calm down. I need to calm down.*

He kept investigating. The Loach Pendant did seem to have genuinely acquired Stardust Artifact functionality. He tried willing it to return the energy to the school's artifact — the pendant didn't react in the slightest.

Mo Fan didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

The incredible news: the Loach Pendant was apparently some kind of jaw-droppingly powerful Stardust Artifact. He had been sitting on a mountain of gold his entire life, going door to door begging like a fool.

The catastrophic news: the school's Stardust Artifact was finished. Not a single unit of energy remaining — just a smooth, useless river pebble.

He had ten days with the school's artifact, and they expected it back in the same condition. He couldn't exactly walk up to Xue Musheng and tell him that he'd accidentally had it remodeled into a loach pendant. He didn't even want to picture the expression on Xue Musheng's face.

*Teacher Tang Yue has seen everything. Maybe she'll know what's going on.*

Mo Fan knew there was no point agonizing alone. He needed help, and Tang Yue was his first choice.

She had been the one to see through Mu He and Mu Bai's scheme during his assessment — and in doing so, forged a certain deep and, well... *profound*... teacher-student bond between them.

"Teacher Tang Yue, are you awake?" Mo Fan dialed.

"I just changed into my pajamas and was about to lie down. Go ahead." A low, silky voice drifted through the phone — and before Mo Fan could stop himself, his imagination was already running, conjuring up Tang Yue in a semi-transparent nightgown, her figure tantalizingly half-visible in the dark—

He pulled himself back.

"My Stardust Artifact seems to have hit a small problem. I have no idea what to do, so you were the first person I thought to call."

"Where are you?" The moment he mentioned the Stardust Artifact, her tone sharpened.

A Stardust Artifact was a prized possession of the school. Any problem with one was a serious matter.

"Rooftop of Teaching Building Three, by the water tank."

"Give me three minutes." She hung up.

Mo Fan stared at his phone.

*Three minutes? How is she getting here from the faculty apartments in three minutes? Even Zhang Xiaohou running Wind Trail at full speed would need five. And there's no way she's walking out of her room without changing — is there?*

He was still turning this over when it happened.

A faint ripple moved through the darkness of the rooftop.

It was barely there — the kind of thing you'd blink past if you weren't paying close attention. It wasn't the movement of air. It wasn't the fluctuation of elemental energy. It was something else entirely, something that sent a quiet, creeping unease across his skin.

"Mo Fan?"

A soft, melodic voice floated toward him.

"Teacher Tang Yue?" He nearly jumped out of his skin. He spun around, scanning the entire open rooftop.

Moonlight fell across the tangle of old pipes and water tanks. But half the roof lay in cloud shadow — a sharp line of light and dark cutting the space cleanly in two.

What he saw first was a blurred silhouette materializing at that boundary. Then, as his eyes adjusted, he made out Tang Yue — draped in a long women's knit coat — stepping out from the shadow side into the moonlight, as though she had come through a door that simply didn't exist.

The effect was staggering. Like she had walked out of another world entirely.

"What kind of ability was that?" Mo Fan's breath caught.

He hadn't heard a single footstep on the staircase. She hadn't come through any door. She had stepped directly out of the shadow itself.

Tang Yue hopped lightly up onto the rim of the water tank. Moonlight caught the lines of her silhouette, and Mo Fan's thoughts scattered briefly before he hauled them back.

"What happened to your Stardust Artifact?"

"I don't really know either. I followed exactly what Teacher Xue Musheng said to do, but the energy in the artifact just... disappeared. And then..."

"And then what?"

Mo Fan hesitated.

He still didn't know this world well enough. If he didn't tell her the full truth, Tang Yue might not believe him at all — and there was no way to explain this to the school without telling the full story.

The school had turned a blind eye to him publicly insulting Mu Zhuoyun. But damaging a Stardust Artifact was different. That would give Mu He all the ammunition he needed to have Mo Fan expelled from Tianlan Magic High School.

"Then the energy transferred into this pendant of mine." He pulled out the Loach Pendant.

"You're saying..." Tang Yue's bright eyes went wide. "The energy from the school's Stardust Artifact... transferred into that pendant?"

"Yes."

"Where did you get it?"

Her expression had shifted — visibly, unmistakably.

"It's a family heirloom. Been in the family for generations."

Tang Yue went quiet. She looked at Mo Fan, then at the pendant in his hand, her gaze measured and unreadable.

"Have you told anyone else about this?" she asked. Her tone was careful. Grave.

Mo Fan's stomach dropped.

*That's the line,* he thought. *That's the exact line from every crime drama right before someone goes over the railing. Look at this setup — dark rooftop, dead of night, wind in the air...*

A student who couldn't handle the pressure of magic studies, found at the base of Teaching Building Three. It would fit the script disturbingly well.