The lighting in the medical department was perpetually pale.
When Feng opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the recessed light tubes on the ceiling, arranged too neatly, like the compound eyes of some mechanical insect. He spent three seconds confirming he was alive, and another five realizing he was no longer in that fog-shrouded city.
His memories were fragmented: broken steps, the beam of a flashlight, a few blurred figures, and… golden eyes. His own eyes.
"Heart rate normal, blood pressure normal, brainwave activity still abnormal but stabilizing," a calm female voice came from beside him.
Feng turned his head and saw a doctor in a white coat standing by the bed, holding an electronic medical chart. She was young, looking under thirty, black hair pulled back into a severe bun, her gaze behind gold-rimmed glasses sharp as a scalpel.
"Elizabeth Laurent, Director of the Cassell College Medical Department," she introduced herself, her tone devoid of any warmth. "You've been unconscious for forty-eight hours. How do you feel now?"
Feng opened his mouth, his throat too dry to produce sound.
Dr. Laurent handed him a cup of water. He took it and sipped. The feeling of warm water sliding down his throat confirmed he indeed still had a physical body.
"I…" he finally managed, his voice hoarse and unfamiliar. "Where am I?"
"Cassell College. A special educational institution in Illinois, USA," Dr. Laurent noted something on her chart. "You were discovered during an exploration mission and brought out of the Nibelung by Specialist Lu Mingfei. Preliminary examinations indicate you are a hybrid. Bloodline rank pending. Semblance type… special."
Hybrid. The word triggered something. Feng felt a slight headache.
"My name?" he asked.
"You had no identification on you. According to the discoverers' description, you were sitting on the steps of a convenience store, wearing modern clothing, but the surrounding environment had an abnormal time flow." Dr. Laurent looked up. "Do you remember your name?"
Feng tried to think. Images flashed through his mind: the back of a woman, fluorescent lights of a laboratory, the sound of metal clashing… but no name. Like a book with its cover torn off, the contents remained, but it was unknown to whom they belonged.
"…Feng," he suddenly said.
"Feng?"
"I don't know if it's a name, but… someone called me that." He spoke uncertainly, as if the word had been dredged up from deep water, still clinging with unfamiliar moisture.
Dr. Laurent watched him for a few seconds, then nodded. "Alright, Feng. Until formal identification is obtained, this can serve as your temporary designation."
What followed was a series of examinations: blood draws, brain scans, neural response tests. Doctors attached electrodes to his arms, complex waveforms jumping on the screens. When a particular instrument emitted a specific frequency hum, Feng felt an instinctive aversion, as if his body resisted this probing.
"Dragon bloodlines react to specific sound frequencies," Dr. Laurent explained. "Your reaction is strong, meaning your bloodline purity is not low. But what interests us more is this—"
She pulled up another monitor recording. The screen showed Feng in his unconscious state, his eyes moving rapidly beneath his eyelids—a typical REM sleep stage. But notably, the thermal imaging from the monitor showed periodic temperature increases in certain parts of his body, a pattern that didn't match any known Semblance fluctuations.
"In an unconscious state, you simulated at least three different bio-electric fields," Dr. Laurent said. "This is unusual. Typically, Semblances are actively triggered by consciousness, but you seem to be… passively receiving signals from your surroundings, then automatically adjusting your own frequency to match."
Feng stared at the screen. The fluctuating curves felt both familiar and frightening. Familiar because he recognized the rhythm—as natural as breathing; frightening because he didn't know what it meant.
"So, what is my Semblance?" he asked.
"We're tentatively calling it a variant of 'Mirror's Eye'," a voice came from the door.
Feng looked up and saw an old man.
He wore an immaculate black suit, silver hair meticulously combed, leaning on a simply designed cane. Most striking were his eyes—though currently a normal blue, Feng could sense what they contained: years, power, and a clarity bordering on cruelty.
"Hilbert Jean Anjou, Headmaster of Cassell College," the old man said with a smile, elegant yet carrying a certain sense of distance. "Welcome to our world, Student Feng."
The Headmaster walked to the bedside. Dr. Laurent gave a slight nod and stepped aside. Anjou examined Feng carefully. The gaze wasn't that of someone looking at a person, but more like appraising a newly unearthed artifact, assessing its age, value, and danger.
"Finding a living person inside a Nibelung—there are fewer than ten such cases in the Secret Party's records," Anjou said slowly. "And the last record of a hybrid with a copying-type Semblance was in the late 19th century. You are special, child."
"I don't want to be special," Feng whispered. "I just want to know who I am."
"That is precisely what we intend to help you uncover," Anjou's cane tapped lightly on the floor. "But before that, you need to learn to control your gift. 'Mirror's Eye'—that's the temporary name we've given your ability. It allows you to reflect others' Semblances, like a mirror reflects light. But this mirror is currently too sensitive. It reflects everything around it, including things you might not want to see."
Feng remembered those fragmented memory-images. They weren't just memories; there were emotions too—when he copied the red-haired woman's ability, what flooded in for an instant was a complex mix of alertness, curiosity, and a certain gentle protectiveness. They weren't his emotions, yet they burned in his chest.
"It brings… others' memories," he said.
Anjou's expression grew serious. "Yes, that is the most dangerous part. Semblances are extensions of the soul. Copying a Semblance means touching fragments of another's soul. Without a solid sense of self, you could be overwhelmed by these fragments, ultimately forgetting which parts are you."
Silence filled the room for a moment.
"So," Feng finally asked, "what should I do?"
"Learn," Anjou said. "Learn how to build dams in your mind. Learn how to reflect selectively. Learn how to survive in this world that is both alien and familiar to you. We have arranged a temporary student status for you, starting in the preparatory class. Specialist Lu Mingfei will act as your guardian, helping you adjust."
Lu Mingfei. The man who carried him out of the mist.
"Why him?" Feng asked.
Anjou smiled, this time with a touch of something real. "Because Student Lu Mingfei understands best the taste of searching for oneself in an unfamiliar world. Moreover, he possesses a peculiar ability—to let those around him find their place while remaining true to themselves."
The medical department door opened again. This time, it was Lu Mingfei himself. He wore the Cassell College uniform, the collar of his white shirt slightly askew, as if he'd been dragged over right after waking up. Seeing Feng sitting up, he visibly relaxed.
"Hey, awake?" Lu Mingfei scratched his head. "How do you feel? Any discomfort? Dizzy? Nauseous? Seeing double?"
A barrage of questions. Feng was a bit stunned.
"I'm… alright."
"Good, good," Lu Mingfei walked to the bedside, pulling something from his pocket. "Here, a meeting gift."
It was a chocolate bar, the wrapper already a bit crumpled, as if it had been in his pocket for a long time. Feng hesitantly took it, the plastic wrapper making faint crinkling sounds under his fingertips.
"This is…" he didn't know what to say.
"For energy," Lu Mingfei said. "I used to… well, after going through some things, eating chocolate made me feel better. Though you might not need it, having it can't hurt."
Feng looked at the chocolate in his hand, then at Lu Mingfei. This young man didn't look much older than him, but there was something heavy in his eyes, as if he'd experienced too many things one shouldn't at that age. Yet, at the same time, he was trying hard to appear relaxed, as if playing the role of a "normal person."
Contradiction. That was Feng's first impression of Lu Mingfei.
"Alright, time for catching up is over," Anjou said. "Student Feng, from today onward, you are officially a student of Cassell College's Preparatory Class. Dr. Laurent will arrange follow-up examinations, then Lu Mingfei will take you to the dormitory. Classes start next Monday. Your task this week is to adjust to the environment, and—"
He paused, his cane tapping the floor again.
"—remember, there are many eyes watching you in this college. Some are curious, some wary, some may harbor hostility. Your ability is a rare gift, but also a dangerous signal. Until you learn to control it, avoid using it if possible. Understood?"
Feng nodded. He understood, though he didn't know why he understood. But he grasped the meaning in Anjou's words: to be different is a sin, and his difference was too conspicuous.
The examinations continued for another hour. By the time they ended, it was already evening. Lu Mingfei led Feng out of the medical building. The setting sun gilded the edges of the Gothic architecture on campus. Bells rang in the distance. A group of uniformed students walked past along a tree-lined path, their laughter and conversation floating over, painting a picture of a normal campus scene.
If one ignored the faint outlines of weapons at their waists.
"That's the main teaching building over there, the library is that way, and past that is the training ground," Lu Mingfei explained as they walked, his tone a bit like reciting a tour guide script. "The cafeteria is in the northwest corner, open twenty-four hours. The cooking is hit or miss; I'd advise avoiding Tuesday's stew. The dormitory area is over there. You and I are in the same building. I'm on the third floor, you're on the first. You can come find me anytime if you need—though I might not be much help."
"Why did you agree to be my guardian?" Feng suddenly asked.
Lu Mingfei stopped walking and looked at him sideways. The setting sun cast long shadows on his face, blurring his expression slightly.
"Because…" he thought for a moment. "Because no one should face all this alone. Back then… someone helped me. So now it's my turn. That's all."
He said it simply, but Feng heard the unspoken stories hidden behind that simplicity.
The dormitory was an old-style stone building, much more modern inside than it appeared. Feng's room was at the end of the first-floor corridor. Not large, but clean and tidy, with a private bathroom. Outside the window was a small patch of lawn, and beyond that, the forest.
"Daily necessities are all prepared. The uniform is in the wardrobe. The class schedule is on the desk," Lu Mingfei said. "Rest well tonight. Tomorrow I'll show you around campus. Oh, and—"
He reached the door, then turned back.
"If you have nightmares tonight, or… if something feels off, you can call me anytime. The number's on a note stuck next to the phone." He paused. "I mean it. Anytime."
Feng nodded. "Thank you."
Lu Mingfei waved a hand and closed the door.
The room fell quiet. Feng walked to the window, watching the night gradually fall outside. The forest turned into dark silhouettes in the twilight, occasional flocks of birds flying past, calling as they returned to their nests.
He looked down at his hands. Under the medical department's lights, these hands looked ordinary, skin slightly pale, knuckles defined. But these were the hands that had caused metal to tremble in the Nibelung, that had copied an ability not his own.
A mirror.
That's what Anjou said. A mirror that reflects others' light.
But a mirror itself has no light. It only reflects, only mirrors. When the light source vanishes, the mirror is just darkness.
Feng clenched his fist, then slowly relaxed.
His face was reflected in the window glass. In the deepening night, the reflection grew clearer, and more like a stranger. And in the reflection's eyes, for a fleeting moment, there seemed to flash an extremely faint, almost imperceptible hint of gold.
He quickly looked away.
On the bedside table lay the chocolate Lu Mingfei had given him. Feng walked over, tore open the wrapper, broke off a small piece, and put it in his mouth. Sweetness spread on his tongue, mixed with the characteristic slight bitterness of cocoa.
The taste was familiar.
Like some forgotten afternoon, someone had once given him the same thing.
Memory fragments flickered again, but this time Feng didn't resist. He closed his eyes, letting the images flow: a woman's hand, a piece of chocolate lying in her palm; the white light of a laboratory; someone's laughter; and…
And a pair of eyes.
Enormous, non-human, watching him from the deep sea.
Feng's eyes snapped open. Cold sweat already soaked his back. Outside the window, the lights of Cassell College lit up one after another, like islands floating in the night. And somewhere on these islands, he knew, people were observing him, assessing him, waiting for him to prove his worth or his threat.
He picked up the class schedule from the desk. *Dragon Genealogy*, *Semblance Theory*, *Fundamentals of Alchemy*, *Combat Techniques*… unfamiliar subjects, an unfamiliar world.
But at least now, he had a mirror.
And what he had to do was, in this mirror, find his own face.
Even if that face was one even he himself might not recognize.