Clive holds the porcelain doll in both hands and studies it in silence.
The room is quiet, broken only by distant murmurs from the other rooms of the house, where worried parents sit and whisper prayers they no longer fully believe will be answered. The doll feels cool against his skin, its surface smooth, almost pleasant, which only deepens the unease it inspires.
His mind begins to move.
Not slowly, not cautiously, but sharply, like interlocking gears snapping into place.
He thinks about the case, about the missing children, about the families left behind. He runs through faces, addresses, occupations, habits, neighbourhoods, and routines. Bakers, tailors, merchants, labourers. Narrow streets, open courtyards, upper floors, ground floors. He searches for patterns, for overlap, for anything shared between the victims.
And he notices it then.
His thoughts are faster.
Not subtly faster, not enough to miss, but unmistakably so. Ideas link together more easily. Possibilities branch without effort. Dead ends are discarded almost the moment they form.
Becoming an alchemist apprentice has changed him.
Physically, not much. He can feel it clearly. His muscles are only marginally stronger, his endurance slightly better, nothing that would turn a man into a fighter. Yet he also knows something else. If he draws upon the energy of his spirit life, even briefly, he can double his physical strength.
He does not intend to do that.
He has read the consequences. Consuming the energy of a newly formed spirit life is dangerous, especially at his level. Afterwards, it takes days to fully recover, and during that time, the spirit life remains unstable. He will only use it if his life is in immediate danger.
As he thinks this, he becomes aware of another sensation.
Bleak spiritual energy.
It hangs faintly in the air around him, subtle but present, like a chill that does not touch the skin. Before today, he would never have noticed it. Now, it presses gently against his perception, not hostile, but wrong.
His attention returns to the doll.
For now, this is the only clue.
According to Alchemist Kaelan, the array embedded within the doll absorbs fear and transports it elsewhere. Fear does not vanish. It goes somewhere. And that somewhere, Clive reasons, is almost certainly connected to the culprit.
A workshop.
A hideout.
A ritual space.
If the destination of that fear energy could be traced, then the Doll Maker could be found.
His eyes narrow slightly.
Could the culprit be located through the array itself?
The thought lingers.
If anyone could trace such a thing, it would be Alchemist Kaelan. And yet, last night, Kaelan did not mention any such possibility. He did not hint at it. He did not suggest attempting it.
Which means he cannot do it.
If Kaelan could trace the fear, he would have already done so. He would not wait. He would not allow the children to remain bound.
That realisation settles heavily.
It makes the doll useless.
And yet, as Clive continues to stare at it, a nagging feeling refuses to fade. The kind of feeling he has learned to trust. The kind that whispers that the truth is already in his hands, waiting to be seen.
Slowly, he releases his spirit.
It spreads outward, faint and controlled, extending no more than an inch beyond his hands. He keeps it restrained, careful not to alert anyone sensitive to spiritual fluctuations.
With deliberate gentleness, he begins to caress the surface of the doll.
He does not rush.
His fingers trace the porcelain slowly, feeling texture, temperature, and resistance. The surface is smooth, but not cold in the way normal porcelain is. There is a subtle give beneath the rigidity.
He continues, his spirit brushing lightly against the material, sensing rather than forcing.
Footsteps approach.
Simon stops beside him.
"Did you find anything?" he asks.
Clive does not look up.
"The porcelain is different," he says.
Simon frowns and reaches out, touching the doll himself.
"I don't find anything different."
Bell steps closer, curiosity drawing him in.
"What's different?" he asks.
Simon gestures at the doll.
"Clive says the porcelain is different."
Bell presses his fingers against it thoughtfully.
"Nothing strange," he says after a moment. "It's only slightly harder than normal porcelain. And it has some elasticity."
Clive presses his finger lightly into the doll's arm.
The surface yields.
His fingertip sinks inward slightly, as though pressing into tightly packed cloth rather than solid ceramic. He withdraws his finger, and the small indentation vanishes, the surface smoothing itself out perfectly.
Like a cloth doll.
But not quite.
It has advantages over cloth dolls: difficult to stain, resistant to tearing, and hard for insects or small creatures to damage. At the same time, it retains the rigidity and form of porcelain. If dropped, it might crack, but it would rarely shatter completely.
Clive looks up.
"Does other porcelain have such properties?" he asks.
He does not explain further.
Bell and Simon exchanged glances, their brows furrowing as they thought. Bell speaks first.
"We need to find what clay is used to make the doll," he says.
Simon's expression brightens, excitement flashing across his face. At last, a tangible lead.
"Let's go then," Simon says.
Bell nods, then turns to Simon.
"You go with Clive and question the doll maker factories."
Simon blinks.
"You?"
Bell exhales.
"I have to give testimony at court today for the Dulce brothers' robbery case."
Simon grimaces.
"So today is the court day."
Bell nods and looks toward Clive, who has gone quiet again, his gaze fixed on the doll as thoughts spiral inward.
"Clive," Bell asks carefully, "will it be alright?"
Clive startles slightly.
"Huh?"
He straightens, pulling himself out of his reverie.
"It will be perfect," he says. "I'll accompany Simon."
Bell claps both of them lightly on the arms.
"Good luck," he says, already turning away to return to the anxious parents.
Simon and Clive step out of the house together.
The door closes behind them.
The porcelain doll remains in Clive's hands.
And somewhere in the city, fear continues to flow.
Deep beneath the Sand Market, Kaelan's pen slows, then stops.
The fifth Life Alchemy Array lies incomplete on the stone desk, its structure barely outlined, less than one per cent finished. The runes glow faintly, unstable in their incompleteness, and Kaelan calmly reaches out and seals them, dispersing the formation before it can distort.
Even as a demigod, he cannot create a half–third-stage array within a few hours.
This is Life Alchemy.
It is not only complex but unfamiliar. Worse, it is unfinished as a system. Theoretical gaps remain, connections still undefined. Before he can construct a true Silver Star Life Alchemy Array, he must first derive new Life Alchemy runes.
Life Alchemy focuses on vitality and physique.
The runes he already possesses are insufficient.
Alchemy is not universal. Each path requires its own language, its own symbolic logic. Fire Alchemy, Spirit Alchemy, Steam Alchemy, Life Alchemy—each demands a different foundation. Reusing runes from another path produces imbalance at best, collapse at worst.
Kaelan leans back slightly and exhales.
Cultivation pauses.
His thoughts drift, inevitably, to the Doll Maker.
For him, capturing the Doll Maker would be trivial.
The array embedded within the doll is unmistakable. It originates from one of his own Spirit Alchemy items. Someone has acquired his work. One of his old creations is now being used in the outside world.
His gaze darkens briefly.
While learning Spirit Alchemy, he refined many experimental items. Some failed. Some succeeded too well. The scalpel Charlie once wielded had been one of them. That was why Kaelan had intervened then. He had not known who was using his creations, nor for what purpose.
Now, the situation is different.
He knows who is behind the usage.
But he does not know why.
Kaelan shakes his head slowly.
He will not interfere.
Not yet.
The Doll Maker's actions are generating data. Fear, intent, desperation—emotions refined and transferred through his own spirit arrays. That information flows back subtly, feeding his comprehension of the Law of Emotion.
That is valuable.
He helped before because his tools had escaped his control unknowingly. Now, he is aware. He is observing. Until he understands the purpose behind the usage of his creations, he will not stop it.
In the meantime, he cultivates Life Alchemy.
And he investigates how his items were obtained.
Those toys were refined using materials from the Blood Abyss Tunnel, back when he had been investigating whether the tunnel was connected to the Ruin Abyss. He had found no such connection, but the discovery of Spirit Alchemy itself had come from that exploration.
Afterwards, he had discarded the experimental items.
Not destroyed.
Stored.
They had been placed in a hidden base within his inner world, positioned near the junction of the Blood Abyss Tunnel. A location layered with concealment, isolated even from most spatial probing methods.
His fingers tap lightly against the desk.
How was that base found?
Before he can follow the thought further, the air vibrates sharply.
An alarm rings.
Not from the antiquity store.
Not from the underground levels.
From above.
From the door of his home.
Kaelan's eyes lift.
The runes along the wall flicker in response, redirecting surveillance upward.
Someone has arrived.