"Hello, could I get a beef patty, an order of fried noodles, some chicken, and a yogurt?"

When the line finally reached her, Taliyah hurriedly spoke to the kindly smiling woman in front of her.

She had noticed that the woman’s clothes were very plain, but plain didn’t mean ordinary. There was an emblem stitched over the chest, something used to mark identity, clothing that only Zaun staff were allowed to wear.

Smelling the aroma coming off the food, Taliyah swallowed instinctively. On the surface, she stood there respectfully looking at the woman, but in reality, her eyes kept drifting toward the nearby shelves of food.

She couldn’t help it. Taliyah had truly become afraid of hunger. During the time she’d been taken away by the Noxians, she had worked hard all day on the ship just to receive a little food afterward. That tiny amount wasn’t enough to fill her stomach, it barely kept her alive.

On top of that, as a desert girl from Shurima, it had been her first time ever going out to sea. During that first month, she had been so seasick that she could barely take care of herself. Since she never got much to eat, whenever she threw up, all that came out was a little water.

At night she couldn’t sleep either. Every single time, she only managed to pass out once her body had hit its limit, and when she woke up, the cycle started all over again. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

Thinking back on that stretch of her life, then comparing it to the days she’d drifted helplessly across the sea before ending up in Zaun, Taliyah almost wanted to cry.

She knew full well that what she was doing, living off the city for free, wasn’t right. After all, she had basically stowed away here instead of arriving like everyone else with an invitation.

She wasn’t one of Zaun’s invited guests.

But she hadn’t had a choice.

If she had to choose between a little personal morality and surviving, Taliyah had chosen survival.

The lunch lady handing out meals didn’t question her much at all. If anything, she seemed to like Taliyah. Seeing how obedient and polite the girl looked, she chuckled and added an extra beef patty to the tray before handing it over.

Delighted, Taliyah accepted it, bowed, and carried the meal away. A little while later, she returned to her home with an entire box full of food, a house that wasn’t large, but was fully furnished and surprisingly comfortable to live in.

She set the food on the table and decided to wash her hands first before coming back to enjoy it properly.

But after washing up, when she opened the bathroom door and stepped back into the living room, she froze on the spot.

A whole group of people had barged into her house.

At the front stood a black-haired young man. Taliyah thought he looked a little familiar, and he was studying her with curious eyes. Behind him were a bunch of large, fierce-looking men.

Especially a few in the middle, their faces were covered in tattoos. Taliyah didn’t believe in judging people by appearance, but she still had to admit that these guys looked exactly like bad news. They were terrifying.

And once she noticed the uniforms those fierce men were wearing, Taliyah grew even more nervous.

Those were Zaun enforcer uniforms, clothes only Zaun law officers were allowed to wear. And now they were here... Wait, had the fact that she didn’t have an invitation finally been exposed?

"Taliyah, right?" the black-haired young man in front asked. His voice was gentle, and very pleasant to hear.

The moment she heard it, Taliyah blinked and recognized who he was.

This person was Zaun’s ruler, Logan?

The groom from the wedding yesterday...

Wait. No, no, that wasn’t right!

Even if she really had come here without permission, even if she really had been eating a little too much... a little!

Because hunger had scared her that badly, Taliyah always asked for a little extra food each time and secretly saved some for later. But no matter what, Zaun’s ruler wouldn’t personally come arrest her over something like that... right?

The thought that she might be taken into custody, sentenced for breaking Zaun law, and thrown into prison made her even more anxious. Head lowered, body trembling, Taliyah stood there in panic.

Looking at the nervous and uneasy Stoneweaver, Logan was puzzled.

Not to sound full of himself, but after gaining Ahri’s abilities, Logan was, within normal human society, basically an incubus.

So why was the Stoneweaver so afraid of him?

He was curious, though only a little.

Now that his own strength had risen, Logan no longer felt the way he once had, where he’d rush over the second he met a champion and try to get on their good side. The filter was completely gone now. To the current Logan, those so-called champions were just ordinary people too.

Taliyah was indeed a particularly special kind of talent, because her power was strong. If Lux was a T0 mage on Runeterra, then Taliyah was a T1 mage.

Her upper limit might not reach demigod level, but her lower limit was extraordinarily high. A mage like Taliyah, someone who could manipulate earth however she pleased, was almost impossible to find anywhere else on Runeterra.

But to the current Logan, Taliyah’s combat strength honestly wasn’t worth mentioning. There were simply too many powerful people in his circle now.

Master Yi and Jax, whom he’d only recently gotten to know well, were both far stronger than Taliyah in a fight. But there was one thing Taliyah had that even those two couldn’t come close to matching.

Her magic was perfectly suited to the Twin Cities as they existed now, and even in the future, her abilities could end up playing a crucial role.

After all, Taliyah alone was worth an entire thousand-man construction crew. With a casual wave of her hand, she could turn mountains, stone, and sand. She was the best construction worker in all of Runeterra.

At that thought, an image suddenly appeared in Logan’s mind, Taliyah wearing a hard hat and standing at a construction site. The idea made him want to laugh.

He spoke gently. "Don’t be so nervous, Taliyah. My name is Logan, I’m the mayor of Zaun, and I came here this time, "

"I’m sorry! I apologize!"

It was as if Taliyah had finally made up her mind. She bowed deeply and blurted everything out at lightning speed. "I shouldn’t have snuck into Zaun, and I definitely shouldn’t have eaten so much food. I, I, I still have some food saved, I’ll give it back to you, and for what I already ate, I’ll work to pay it back. Please don’t arrest me."

"I’m sorry!"

"???"

Logan stared at Taliyah’s rapid-fire triple apology, thoroughly confused.

What was she even talking about?

Taliyah timidly raised her head. Logan finally pieced it together and shook his head.

"The Twin Cities sent invitations to the whole world. Anyone who comes is a guest. And besides, not having an invitation doesn’t automatically mean you stowed away here. You seem to have misunderstood. As for the food you’ve eaten, what kind of host invites guests and then complains that the guests ate too much?"

"We’re not that petty."

Now Logan understood where all her nervousness was coming from.

Still, was the Stoneweaver really this kind of person?

Logan knew Azir’s story, and once you knew Azir’s story, there was no way around Taliyah as a character. In Shurima, she played an extremely important role.

On that land, there were many figures of immense importance, the emperor Azir, the arcane being Xerath, Sivir, who might be Setaka’s heir, Kai’Sa, who fought back against the Void, and Taliyah, who journeyed all the way to Ionia in order to save her homeland.

In the eyes of Azir, that supreme Ascended being, Taliyah was the leader opposing his rule over Shurima.

Azir even had lines directed specifically at her, the rough meaning being that a little sparrow dared try to defeat an eagle, to give freedom to the people of Shurima and end tyranny, blind arrogance, a stubborn stone.

So the Stoneweaver should have been gentle and kind, yet also unwavering, brave, and fearless...

But the one standing in front of Logan, aside from matching his expectations in appearance, didn’t feel much like the Taliyah he had imagined at all.

She really did seem very timid.

"Really?" Hearing Logan say that, Taliyah immediately let out a breath of relief.

"Really." Logan nodded, then asked, "I have a question for you, Taliyah. Have you ever been to Ionia?"

The moment he asked that, her expression clearly turned unnatural for an instant. After hesitating a while, she answered honestly.

"I haven’t been to Ionia, but I wanted to go there, because I can’t control my powers. If I stayed in my homeland, I would only bring danger and trouble to everyone around me, so I’ve always been searching for a way to control my abilities.

"Then I trusted a Noxian by mistake. He told me Noxus had mages, that if I went there, I could learn how to control my power. But after I went with him, I was deceived by a Noxian officer and taken onto a ship, where I was kept for a long time. He wanted me to use my abilities to dig pits and bury corpses, but I didn’t want to take part in a war of invasion. So he forced me to work, made me do other kinds of hard labor, locked me up, and only gave me a little food and fresh water every day.

"After that, the war Noxus launched ended in failure. That officer rebelled against Noxus’s Grand General, and he was killed by the officer sent to capture him. That officer told me Noxus had changed now, but I’ve been to Noxus. I know what that place is really like. So I refused to go back with him. I jumped off the warship right in front of him and escaped. I drifted at sea for a while, and then somehow I ended up here."

As Taliyah rambled on about her past, Logan gradually understood why she had turned out like this.

Because the current Taliyah still hadn’t grown yet.

In the original background, because she couldn’t control her own powers, Taliyah chose the path of a wandering mage. She traveled to many places across Runeterra, Mount Targon, Noxus, Ionia, the Freljord, and more. Only after hearing news of Azir’s return did she resolutely go back to her homeland and choose to lead the people against the return of a tyrant.

That journey, everything she saw, the people she met, and the things that happened to her, those were what helped Taliyah grow.

But the Taliyah standing before Logan now was just a young girl who had only barely stepped out of Shurima, been deceived almost immediately, and nearly died at sea.

Even so, kindness was still in her bones. She would rather endure suffering and risk death than betray her own principles. She had crossed mountains and deserts and left Shurima to seek a way to control her magic, not to take part in a war that killed other people.

The little sparrow really was timid, but deep down, she also had her own pride.

"Do you remember the woman who sat with you yesterday?"

"You mean Jinx?" Taliyah blinked. Of course she remembered. It was the first time she had ever seen someone so pale and so beautiful. How could she possibly forget?

Logan smiled. "Yeah, Jinx."

"The reason I came to find you is also because of Jinx. Taliyah, I’m about to go to Shurima to take care of some things. For that, I need a guide who understands the Shuriman language and knows Shurima well, and Jinx thinks you’d be perfect for the job."

"So I’m here to offer you work. I’d like to know whether you’d be willing to take it."

"But... there are lots of Shurimans here. They’re older than me and know more than I do. Why me?" Taliyah asked hesitantly.

There was one thing her homeland had given her as part of her growth, and Taliyah didn’t know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, a tendency to trust too easily, and a heart that was too tolerant.

But after being tricked by Noxians once, she now had at least some guard up, even if not much.

"Because Jinx likes you a lot," Logan said after thinking about it.

She hesitated even more, but after thinking it over for a while, she made her decision. Gathering her courage, she looked up at Logan and said, "Ok... then, can I ask one thing of you?"

"Go ahead." Logan nodded.

Looking at Taliyah, Logan could practically see a line of text floating above her head, Head of Zaun Construction!

"Can you teach me how to control my powers?" Taliyah asked carefully. In a small voice, she added, "That’s my only request. I don’t need to be paid for the guide work..."

"Of course. That won’t be a problem at all."

Logan agreed immediately, though the whole thing felt a little strange.

Taliyah was supposed to have been taught by Yasuo, which was how she learned to control the elements.

But now, that teacher’s seat was going to be his?

I... became Taliyah’s teacher?

Logan’s expression turned odd.

"Then... I accept. I’ll go to Shurima with you and be your guide." Taliyah sounded genuinely happy now, and the pleasure in her voice slipped out on its own.

"Then come with me, Taliyah. We leave in a few days. Today, you’ll move from the new district to Black Lane. Someone there will take care of your daily needs."

"And if you’re closer to me, it’ll be easier for me to teach you."

"All right..." Taliyah hesitated before finally saying the next word. "Teacher."

"..."

At the same time, on a street in the new district, a travel-worn man dressed like a wandering swordsman stood at the roadside and suddenly frowned, feeling a strange unease in his chest, as if he had lost something important.

Then he lifted his head and looked into the distance, beyond the mountains, toward Black Lane in Zaun.

He had come to track down the culprit who killed Elder Souma.

But on his very first day in Zaun, he had been beaten up by a mysterious purple block-headed man. The swordsmanship he had always been proud of, along with his wind powers, had looked like children’s toys in the other man’s eyes.

The experience had hit him hard.

He was an arrogant man, even blindly confident at times, but after getting thoroughly thrashed that day, he had developed a bit of a psychological shadow.

Even more irritating was the fact that that mysterious purple block-headed man seemed to be working with the criminal he was chasing.

"Tch."

He spat the stem of grass out of his mouth, lowered his eyes, and then walked away.

He needed a plan, a plan to get close to Zaun’s ruler.

And for that, he would have to stay in Zaun a while longer.

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