The meeting room beneath the temple smelled faintly of incense and old parchment, the air warm and dry despite the sandstone walls pressing in around them.

  Dahlia sat stiffly on one of the low, sunken sofas, her fingers curled against her lap, shifting every few seconds to keep her legs from brushing against Wisnu’s. It wasn’t that she disliked Wisnu. She just didn’t know what to do with herself in close spaces like this.

  Across from her on another sofa, Otto was silent, his gaze locked on the rifle resting on his lap. Muyang sat next to him, arms crossed, his back against his giant beetle helm. Emilia sprawled across her entire sofa with the easy confidence of someone who owned the room, kicking back with her legs crossed and her arms folded under her head. Blaire, meanwhile, took the sofa furthest away from all of them in the corner of the room, but she was sitting strangely prim and proper compared to the rest of them.

  ‘The rest of them’ including the Fool, of course.

  The Fool sat upside down on the ceiling at the front of the room, right before the large honeycomb-patterned glass wall. He hadn’t said a word yet, only adjusting the cuffs of his slightly wrinkled coat while looking at them all with sharp, expectant eyes.

  Dahlia shifted again uncomfortably

  Just start talking already.

  Finally, the Fool clapped his hands together. “Alright. Second stage. Let’s get into it.”

  The glass wall behind him flickered, golden lines crawling across its surface like veins in amber. Then, with a smooth hum, the glass brightened, revealing an image of the City of Feasts from above—a messy web of streets and buildings sprawled across the desert like an oasis of stone and chitin.

  Dahlia’s breath caught. She’d never seen the city from this perspective before.

  Kari murmured, tilting her head toward the image. [Satellite moths. They’re tiny bioarcanic constructs developed by a far eastern academy. They hover in the sky and snap images from above, then transmit the information back down to those honeycomb glasses, giving the Hasharana strategic views of wherever they’re about to operate.]

  Are they common?

  [Not at all. They’re pretty difficult to come by, but this is the Hasharana Entrance Exam, after all.] Kari shrugged. [Stands to reason they have a few hundred satellite moths monitoring the city at all times to make sure nothing gets in the Hasharana’s way.]

  The Fool smirked at all of their intrigued expressions, then swiped his hand across the honeycomb wall. The image shifted—zooming in, the buildings peeling away, sinking lower and lower—until they were no longer looking at the city directly, but at something surrounding it.

  A giant leg.

  Dahlia stiffened. It wasn’t just any leg. It was the remains of a spider—a monstrous, grotesque titan—that lay buried beneath the city’s foundation, its curled legs stretching inwards at the borders of the city like petrified ribs.

  “The new City of Feasts,” the Fool said, leaning left and right as he gestured aimlessly at the giant legs, “was built atop the carcass of an Insect God. She was one of the Seven Spider Brood, and she met her end here decades ago thanks to the efforts of the Magician and the Star. Due to special circumstances, her body was extremely difficult to remove from the desert, so after all was said and done, the locals just ended up rebuilding this city on top of her. Following so far?”

  Dahlia swallowed. She’d heard the names before. The Magician—ranked two of the Arcana Hasharana and Emilia's dad—and the Star, who she swore she’d heard Otto talking about some time ago. The Star was some sort of researcher or professor of Swarmsteel and biometallic constructs in the far east, which was why Otto seemed to admire her so much whenever he talked about her.

  “But here’s the part they don’t teach in history books,” the Fool continued. “Most people think her body is just dry husk and bone. You’ve all seen her shrivelled legs sticking out of the sand with your own eyes, right? But the truth is, the lower half of her body beneath the desert is still fresh, and that’s where things get interesting.”

  The image shifted again, the top-down view of the city dropping and dropping until it suddenly sank through the ground, tunneling deeper. Darkness for a second. It was like the satellite moths were phasing through solid sand and stone until a new image formed suddenly—an eerily detailed underground chamber with pulsating, faintly glowing reddish-blue walls.

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  “This is the heart chamber,” the Fool said, rapping the glass behind him with a knuckle. “Despite being dead for decades, the Spider God’s heart is still warm. And not just warm, really—it’s still circulating blood throughout the entire lower half of her body.”

  “Wait,” Otto cut in, his brows furrowing. “You mean to say this thing’s still alive?”

  The Fool snorted. “No. It’s dead. Completely, unequivocally, dead. Trust me, if it weren’t, we wouldn’t be sitting in this cozy meeting room right now, but there’s no doubt that its heart is still functioning. No nervous system, no consciousness—just a big, meaty biological engine that keeps pumping and producing blood.”

  Emilia frowned. “Why?”

  “Because the bioarcane is weird. The Swarm is weird. You can throw all the logic you want at Insect Gods, and sometimes, they’ll still do things that make no sense. This one? Her body refuses to rot properly. And that’s useful to us.”

  Dahlia frowned slightly. “Useful how?”

  The Fool grinned. “Because the blood from its heart is one of the more valuable resources the Hasharana trade and export for wealth. Engineers and tailors and general workers at the Genesis Glade drink it regularly as part of their strengthening regimen. Soldiers across the Six Swarmsteel Fronts get it in their supply chains as a supplement drink. It’s been helping sustain humanity’s war efforts for decades, because apart from eating bug meat to gain points, you can drink bug blood as well. It’s on-the-move points for people who don’t have time to sit down and eat bug meat properly, which makes it an important asset for sustaining the functions of the organization.”

  As the Fool kept talking, gesturing to various parts of the glowing honeycomb glass wall, Kari murmured in her head.

  [Spider blood’s a bit different from regular insect blood. Most insects have gold-green hemolymph because they don’t use their blood for oxygen transport. But spiders? Their blood is blue]

  Dahlia blinked. Blue?

  [Yeah. Their blood contains ‘hemocyanin’, which binds with oxygen. It works like ‘hemoglobin’ in human blood, but instead of iron, it uses copper. That’s what makes it blue. It also means their circulatory system functions differently from most insects—spiders don’t just rely on tracheal respiration like bugs do, in which oxygen diffuses into their organs across their entire body. They need blood and blood vessels to carry oxygen to their organs, especially since spiders tend to be bigger than most insects.]

  I didn’t… know that.

  [But here’s the real kicker,] Kari continued. [Spiders also use their blood for hydraulics. They increase their blood pressure whenever they want to extend their legs, which is why they curl up when they die. There’s no more pressure keeping them stretched out. Now, these two traits combined—the high-pressure blue oxygenated blood—is the reason why spider blood is highly coveted in the brewing and manufacturing of a special drink called ‘Thoraxwine’.]

  [The blue blood means it’s packed more oxygen than usual insect blood, which means more points, and since it’s naturally high-pressure when it’s harvested, it absorbs faster in a human body, making it an ideal point resource for the battlefield.]

  Then the Fool clapped his hands, dragging everyone’s attention back to him.

  “... So. We only harvest spider blood from this carcass in particular when stock runs low in the Genesis Glade, and that’s usually once a year. Normally, the Worm God just sends an Arcana Hasharana or two down there to do a harvesting run, but this year?” A sharp grin. “We’re making it your exam.”

  A beat of silence.

  Emilia exhaled. “Lemme guess. We’re going to clear out whatever’s infested the blood vessel tunnels?”

  “Exactly.” The Fool beamed at her. “Every year, new bugs show up, burrowing in, nesting, feasting. They’re usually not too much trouble for the Arcana Hasharaana, but this year, all of you are going to—

  Before she could dwell on it, movement near the doorway caught her eye.

  Two figures kicked in the front door, trailing dust and streaks of ash. One donned black chitin armour gleaming even through the grime. The other was wrapped in a vibrant red moth-patterned cloak, her pale hair a wild mess, a grin stretched across her face.

  The Sun and Alice.

  “Hi!” Alice waved at all of them. “What’s up? What’s the second stage of the exam like? Jiayin won’t tell me, so—”

  The Sun pinched her ear and dragged her to the front of the room, directly under the Fool, and Dahlia couldn’t help but raise a brow as her eyes met with Alice’s for a brief moment.

  “Where were you?” Dahlia asked. “You just… upped and left for twenty days. Where did you—”

  “Just a bit of hunting.” Alice waved her concerns away. “Now listen. William’s speaking—”

  “I am speaking, so be quiet,” the Fool mumbled, clapping again. “The passing condition is simple: you have one month to reach the heart chamber and bring back a vial of spider blood.”

  Dahlia’s fingers twitched.

  That’s it?

  Emilia tilted her head. “And the details?”

  “Up to you. The closest entrance to the blood vessels of the giant carcass is north, at the city’s edge. Prepare, gather supplies, or kick back and relax for a few days. It doesn’t matter to me what you do. As long as you get the vial back here before the deadline, you’ll pass the second stage of the exam.”

  “... And the surprises?” Wisnu asked.

  The Fool smirked. “It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you. Now hurry on. I don’t care if you go at it alone or in a team. Hell, all six of you can team up and jump any bug you encounter on the way to the heart chamber for all I care. The one month time limit starts now.”

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