"Right. May I?"

"Sure, Helena. The stage is all yours for now."

Helena then, for once more, reached into her crystal-alike pocket and pulled something out.

"This is Stellar."

"And this is Quartz."

Wait—are you saying these are made from both elements?

No. Don’t interrupt.

I said to myself. Her explanation was probably a lot more crucial.

"These aren’t magical elements," she continued, "but Quasar is.

In total, there are nine magical elements that could be put into the mix, but I’ll get into that later."

Selene cleared her throat, like she was prepping for a full theory dump, but Azalea?

She looked unimpressed. Half-bored, half-blank stare.

Had she... heard this before?

Wouldn’t be surprising, honestly. Azalea probably grew up with Helena reciting this stuff at dinner. But now that Selene was involved? Suddenly she cared.

But why?

Wait. Of course.

She only listened when it was Selene talking. Not her sister.

"Okay, probably that’s all. For the theory part... Selene, your turn."

Oh no. Not again.

Azalea, all of a sudden, perked up like a disciple watching her cult leader take the mic.

"Right. Thank you."

And without even warming up, Selene pointed at both elements. No intro. Just—bam. Business.

"I’ll demonstrate how to create a perfect clone using these raw materials to synthesize Quasar as a stable element."

Wait, cloning?

"While Quartz and Stellar may also be elements on their own," she continued,

"they still require fusion with an element sharing a close frequency signature with Quasar—such as Amphoreus."

Now she’s making it complicated again...

Before I could wrap my head around that, Azalea suddenly raised her hand.

"Yes?" Selene acknowledged her like a professor.

"Are you suggesting that Quasar is an independent element? What happens if it’s mixed with an unstable element like Quark?"

Wait—Quark? No one ever taught me that.

She seriously zoned out earlier when Helena was explaining the Door-To-Door Paradox... but of course. She was only listening because it was Selene’s theory. Obviously.

"Incredible question," Selene nodded. Then she turned to Helena.

"Didn’t we agree on this earlier? We classified Quasar as independent, but there was that anomaly, right?"

"Indeed," Helena said, nodding. "I must admit I was surprised seeing it move on its own—but then it stopped. So perhaps... it’s not truly independent unless activated by something else."

"And turns out," She added,

"Quark was the cause of that erratic movement."

Wait... why does this suddenly feel like Chemistry?

"I have no idea what ’Chemistry’ is, Kairi," Selene said without even looking at me.

"But in this world, we call it the Elemental Subject."

Helena simply nodded again, like this was the most natural exchange in the world.

"Anyway. So far, any questions?"

Now this really was turning into a lecture session.

Q&A included.

"What does any of this have to do with cloning?"

"We’ll get into that later," Selene replied calmly.

The next moment?

Honestly? It might’ve been the most sci-fi thing I’d ever seen in my entire life.

Surprising when I’ve seen Selene’s Void Rifter up close before.

Selene had just finished her little theory drop—how Quartz and Stellar could technically be elements on their own but needed some Quasar flavor to make anything cool happen.

I was still stuck on trying to memorize their names when she suddenly linked Helena’s hand with Azalea’s weird, supposedly-magical pocket.

Now, for the record, I was expecting your average alchemist anime scene. You know—sparkles, light, dramatic chanting. The usual. But nope.

Instead, as Helena dropped both Quartz and Stellar inside the pocket, they both came out not as themselves—but as Quasar.

Not one. Both.

Quasar.

Dark purple, glowing like a nightclub rave having a seizure. Little pulses of light blinked across its surface—exactly like the thing inside Selene’s Void Rifter.

My vision kinda blurred for a second just looking at it.

Wait, wait—how?

"Both turned into Quasar?" I asked, blinking.

"You didn’t even do anything. They just... transformed?"

Selene, of course, didn’t look surprised. Not even a little smug. Just calculating.

"Because Quartz and Stellar aren’t independent," she explained, like she was reading from some interdimensional cookbook.

"They can’t move or act on their own. They require a system to identify and rebuild them."

Helena chimed in, practically bouncing.

"And this pocket isn’t exactly ’magical,’ either. It’s a reconstruction device—one that slices materials into spherical components, then rebuilds them into clones based on the ingredient’s properties."

...I needed a moment.

"You’re saying this thing—" I pointed at the shiny, pulsing not-even-rock-anymore

"—clones materials by slicing them up?"

"It doesn’t destroy the core," Selene added, as if that explained everything.

"It retains their identity signatures. The pocket reads both Stellar and Quartz as distinct—yet malleable. Once it reconstructs them, the similarities in their energy patterns align. So rather than revert to their original state, they—"

"—turn into Quasar," I finished, stunned.

Selene nodded.

"But that still doesn’t make sense," I muttered.

"Why did both of them become Quasar? Shouldn’t it have been just one of them? Like, if the system picks one dominant property?"

Helena paused. Then exchanged a look with Selene.

Ah. So they were about to drop another theory-bomb on me.

"It’s the Door-To-Door Paradox," Selene said.

Of course it was.

"The pocket sliced both Stellar and Quartz—but because they were processed within the same instance, and still retained independent core data, the system treated them as two different objects, not one fused object," she continued. "Yet during the reconstruction, they borrowed aspects from each other’s signatures."

"In other words," Helena added, "they copied each other’s homework and both evolved into something new."

"Quasar."

So we’re just casually turning matter into other matter now?

Got it. Reality is optional.

"I hate everything about this," I mumbled.

"Don’t worry," Selene said, flashing a rare smile.

"You’ll get used to it."

I really wouldn’t.

I was still processing how both elements somehow decided to upgrade themselves into a single fancy rave rock, when Selene turned toward me again.

There was that glint in her eye—the one that said she’d been waiting for someone to ask the wrong question just so she could flex her theoretical vocabulary.

"This isn’t an ordinary pocket," she said, tapping the side of Azalea’s coat like she was casually pointing out a black hole sewn into fabric.

"It’s a Space Splitter-Converter."

Right. Of course it is.

"What it does," she continued, as if we were all in Science Engineering 101,

"is split any physical object or elemental material into microscopic particles. But instead of letting them disperse or lose form, it maintains each one’s boundary using the user’s magic energy. Think of it as... suspending matter in stasis, but with a containment shell made entirely out of mana."

I blinked. "So it slices the elements... but then holds their pieces in place using magic?"

"Correct," she said. "The concealment field built from magic energy preserves the identity structure of the element. It doesn’t overwrite it—just holds it together while it’s being reconstructed."

Azalea made a small noise like she’d just understood something too late.

Or too early.

Hard to tell with her.

"So then, anyone can use it?" I asked.

"Anyone with magic, I mean?" 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

"In theory, yes," Selene replied.

"Any magic user—regardless of type or affinity—can activate the Converter because their energy signature naturally wraps around the split materials. That wrapping prevents elemental boundaries from clashing during recombination."

"Which would explain," She added,

"why Quartz and Stellar didn’t cancel each other out. They were stabilized independently while inside the field. Which means..."

"They weren’t forced to merge," Selene concluded.

"They chose to evolve into Quasar based on shared harmonic frequency."

Oh great. Now even rocks had agency.

"So the Space Splitter-Converter doesn’t fuse elements, it just... gives them the opportunity to do it themselves?"

"In essence," she nodded. "It creates the conditions for intelligent reconstruction."

Right. Sure. Just everyday casual magic physics. Not terrifying at all.

Ilooked at the Quasar again—still glowing like a dying star having an identity crisis.

Honestly, the more they explained this, the less I understood.

But I had the sinking feeling I was going to need to understand it very soon.