Murette Continent, Year 5200, Kro City.
As night fell, the lights of Kro City twinkled like stars, adorning this metropolis that blended futuristic technology with magic. Towering magic spires intertwined with mechanical innovations, and on the streets, residents of various races shuttled about, each engrossed in their own lives. However, beneath this prosperous facade lurked countless secrets and crises.
Fa stood on her balcony, gazing at this familiar yet alien city. Her right eye flickered with a faint blue light—this was her innate "Star Eye," a fusion of magic and superpowers in her eye. It allowed her to see through the essence of things and perceive the flow of energy. This was the legacy left by her parents, and also a symbol of her destiny.
Fa's background was anything but ordinary. Her mother was a human adventurer, while her father was a soul entity elder. This mixed heritage had made her an outcast from a young age, enduring isolation and misunderstanding. Yet, her mother's love and her father's teachings had helped her grow strong. Now, her mother had passed away, and her father had gone missing during an adventure twenty years ago, leaving behind the Star Eye and endless mysteries.
At that moment, a faint rustle interrupted Fa's thoughts. She turned and found a letter quietly lying on the table. The envelope bore no sender's name, only an ancient rune—the mark of the "Heart of the Stars."
Fa furrowed her brow and carefully opened the letter. Inside was just one sentence:
"Holder of the Star Eye, the moment of destiny has arrived. Seek the Heart of the Stars and save Murette."
The handwriting was vigorous and powerful, as if imbued with some kind of magic. Fa's heart raced, and her Star Eye flickered involuntarily, as if responding to this mysterious summons.
"The Heart of the Stars..." Fa murmured to herself. The name was no stranger to her; it was a lost magical relic on this planet, said to possess the power to alter the planet's fate. Countless adventurers had tried to find it, but all had failed without exception, and many had even lost their lives in the process.
However, Fa knew she could not refuse the letter's call. The existence of the Star Eye connected her to the Heart of the Stars in some ineffable way. She took a deep breath and decided to accept the challenge.
But she also understood that completing this arduous task alone would be difficult. She needed companions—partners from different races, each with their own expertise. Thus, Fa's adventure began.
Morning light filtered through the crystal prisms suspended from the library's dome, casting fragmented spots of light on the bronze bookshelves like a silent dance of illumination. Fine dust particles floated in the air, sparkling like tiny star fragments in the beams, mingled with the aged scent of ancient parchment and a metallic tang of arcane energy. Fa's fingertips glided over the retrieval console embedded with magical runes, and the holographic screen flickered with entries related to the "Heart of the Stars"—those time-eroded document fragments, even after digitization, still exuded an obscure sense of mystery. Her Star Eye grew slightly warm, and as the blue light from her right eye swept across the stacked bookshelves, it suddenly detected an abnormal magical fluctuation from the top shelf in one section.
"Section Three, Row Seven, 'Star Orbit Prophecy Records: Lost Volume.'" A soft voice came from the left, clear like silver bells yet steady.
Fa turned and saw a silver-haired elf woman standing on a rotating wooden ladder. Her pale green long robe had sleeves embroidered with intricate laurel leaf patterns, and in her hands, she held a thick tome with a cover embedded with star-gem stones. Her pointed ears curled slightly, gleaming like pearls, and her face, similar to a human's, carried the distinctive cool elegance of elves. Those emerald eyes seemed to hold the wisdom and secrets of a thousand-year-old forest.
"You... are also looking for information on the Heart of the Stars?" Fa instinctively pressed her right eye, where the blue light was resonating with the tome in the elf's hands, a strange warmth spreading through her eye socket.
The elf woman gracefully descended the wooden ladder, her skirt hem brushing the steps and stirring up faint sparkles, like scattering stardust along the way. "My name is Elia Moonchant. The library's administrator, Granny Inya, is an old acquaintance of my clan's elder." She gently placed the tome on the oak desk, and the star-gem on the cover suddenly projected a three-dimensional star map, with countless points of light slowly rotating in the air, forming a complex constellation pattern. "Three days ago, the elder asked me to bring this 'Star Orbit Prophecy Records' to find a lady who possesses the Star Eye."
Fa's pupils contracted slightly, and the blue light in her Star Eye suddenly brightened. She saw faint golden magical threads wrapping around Elia, slowly intertwining with the energy field in her own eye, like a predestined bond. This feeling was both strange and familiar, reminding her of the words her father left before disappearing: "When your eye sees the threads of fate, do not fear to follow them."
Suddenly, a crisp crack of wood came from overhead. The bookshelf in the top layer of Section Three was twisting and deforming, with over a dozen ancient tomes detaching from the shelves and floating in the air. The runes on their covers flashed wildly, and the parchment pages whirled like sharp blades. A human scholar stood below, clutching a heavy book, staring in terror at the approaching pages, his glasses askew on his nose, his face drained of color.
"Don't move!" Elia raised her hand and fired three laurel-leaf-shaped light arrows, precisely severing the magical connections of the out-of-control tomes. But more tomes continued to gather, and the bookshelf's distortion grew worse—clearly, some external magic was interfering with the library's magical matrix.
Fa's Star Eye instantly enveloped itself in fine streams of data; she "saw" a dark purple energy rift slowly expanding within the wall behind the bookshelf. "It's a magical rift!" She grabbed Elia's wrist and pulled her toward the human scholar. "The tomes are contaminated by the rift's magic; we must stabilize the rift first!"
Elia's fingertips traced complex incantations in the air, and a pale golden magical array unfolded in front of the rift. But the purple energy writhed like a living thing, constantly eroding the array's boundaries. Fa took a deep breath, and the blue light from her right eye turned into tangible data streams injecting into the ground. The Star Eye's time-fragment ability allowed her to briefly "see" the rift's energy flow trajectory.
"In three seconds, the rift will shift northwest!" She shouted a reminder. "We need to use your magic to bind them! I can help you locate!"
Surprise flashed in Elia's eyes, but she hesitated not at all and immediately fired wooden-attribute bow arrows. When the rift shifted as Fa had predicted, five green vines shot out from the magical array, precisely piercing the energy nodes at the rift's edges. At the same time, Fa flung out her short blade she carried with her; the technological runes on the blade resonated with magical chains, forcibly anchoring the collapsing rift in place. This series of coordinated actions flowed smoothly, as if the two had fought side by side for years.
The library's alarm finally sounded, and the purification devices suspended from the ceiling began spraying silver light. Fa looked at Elia's weary yet still calm profile and suddenly realized that from start to finish, the other had not questioned her commands—this level of trust was rare in Kro City, where racial barriers were severe. Here, suspicion between elves and humans had built an invisible wall separating the two races for decades.
"The ability of the Star Eye... is indeed as the prophecy foretold." Elia wiped the cold sweat from her forehead, her fingertips lightly brushing the cover of the 'Star Orbit Prophecy Records,' and the pages automatically flipped to a yellowed section. "This records the location of the Heart of the Stars, but it requires the power of the Star Eye to decipher. The elder said that the one with the Star Eye will be the key to ending Murette's conflicts."
Fa stared at the star map gradually forming on the page, the points of light pulsing along the veins of her right eye, as if conversing with her soul. When her fingertips touched the twin star mark at the center of the star map, Elia suddenly placed her hand gently over Fa's, and the elf's warm magic flowed into her body through the contact point, instantly soothing the stinging pain in her right eye from using her ability.
"In the ancient prophecies of the elf clan, the resonance between the Star Eye holder and the Heart of the Stars requires guidance from ancient magic." Elia's voice was clear and refreshing like morning dew. "I once listened to the whispers of the stars beneath the World Tree. Perhaps... we can unravel these mysteries together?"
The library's mechanical doors suddenly opened. "What happened?" Granny Inya rushed in, her mechanical prosthetic eye flashing red light, followed by dozens of city guards in gear armor. But Fa's gaze remained fixed on Elia's eyes—there was no racial rejection there, only a shared determination toward fate.
"I need companions I can trust." Fa suddenly smiled, the first relaxed expression she'd shown since her father's disappearance. "And you seem to have been ready to join this adventure all along."
Elia returned a gentle smile, her fingertip tracing a small star mark on the back of their touching hands. "The elder said that when the Star Eye and Moonchant's magic resonate, it is the moment the gears of fate begin to turn. Now... where should we start?"
The points of light on the star map suddenly converged into an arrow, pointing toward Mick Forest northwest of Kro City. Fa stood up, her Star Orbit short blade humming softly at her waist, while Elia had already stored the 'Star Orbit Prophecy Records' into a magical scroll emblazoned with the World Tree pattern.
"Wait," Fa suddenly remembered something and took out a small metal device from her waist. "This is a magic stabilizer; it can temporarily seal small magical rifts. If we'd set this up earlier in that situation, it wouldn't have been so dangerous." She lightly touched the device's surface, and a blue holographic interface projected out, displaying readings of the surrounding space's stability.
Elia leaned in curiously to observe. "The elf clan relies more on pure magic to stabilize space; your human technological creations always amaze me." She extended her slender fingers and lightly tapped the device's surface, injecting a strand of magical energy, causing the blue interface to suddenly flash with golden patterns. "Look, combining magic and technology yields even better results."
Fa looked at the improved readings in surprise. "I never thought of doing it this way..." She lifted her head to gaze at Elia, excitement shining in her eyes. "Your magical talent combined with my technological knowledge might truly create unexpected solutions."
The two women from different races stood side by side, the sunlight outside the window piercing through the floating magic towers, casting overlapping shadows at their feet—the starting point of their adventure, and the beginning of their bond. Behind them, Granny Inya was soothing the frightened scholar, and the city guards were busy inspecting the damaged area, but all of this seemed irrelevant to them now.
"Let's head to my place first to prepare," Fa suggested softly. "I have some equipment that might need your magical enhancement."
Elia nodded in agreement, her long robe shimmering faintly with her movements. "I also need to prepare some magical materials for travel; Kro City's market should have the basic ingredients."
They walked out of the library side by side, heading toward Kro City's market, the sunlight bathing them as if blessing this newly formed pair of companions. Ahead of them, an unknown journey unfolded, with the dangerous and miraculous Mick Forest awaiting their arrival.