"Question."

"Yes?"

"I can kind of understand wanting to see this trick of mine for yourself, but why are you holding what appears to be a visual recording aether treasure?" Zhen Liu asked in a mildly self-conscious manner. "Where did you even get that?"

"I made it myself," Alicia answered with no small amount of pride, no less. "But just ignore it for now. I want to see whatever it is you're going to be doing."

"Aish…"

A little after regrouping with everybody, Zhen Liu had opened the door to the [Library of Nowhere] in order to prepare his false identity. He had planned to do this by his lonesome and surprise everyone with the trick… but some members of his party had other plans in mind.

To be more precise, after the group had reunited at the workshop, Jinju Ren and Rianna had informed Bellona, Lyona, Alicia, and Alice about how Zhen Liu knew a technique that allowed him to rotate his gender symbol from being an angle to being a straight line pointing down.

This was initially dismissed as being a novelty due to the fact that there were at least several aether medicines and a select few techniques that could do the same thing, but their interest was piqued once Jinju Ren pointed out something rather interesting about the trick being employed: it was being done with [Chaos].

It was known amongst Zhen Liu's friends and family that [Chaos], at least when Zhen Liu seemed to use it, had the ability to rewrite reality in ways that were unpredictable to even the most experienced diviners in history.

Combine that with the fact that most gender-changing aether rituals and abilities were fairly straightforward, and the girls couldn't help but be curious about how thorough such a trick can be in comparison.

That…and the girls really wanted to see whether or not this transformed Zhen Liu could actually pull off a dress.

In one of the many inner chambers of the [Library of Nowhere], Zhen Liu was mentally preparing himself while the girls and kaijin were standing by and watching with anticipation. On the plus side, none of the friends Zhen Liu had made while going through the Dozing Salamander continent had decided to come along and watch.

"Alright, fuck it," Zhen Liu sighed as Logos and Pathos finished downloading the necessary information into his head. "Not sure what you guys get out of this, but let's do this thing."

"Woo."

Zhen Liu closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he allowed his [Chaos] to circulate around his body and through newly established channels that were connected to more…sensitive parts of his body.

Namely his chest, groin, face, and buttocks.

"Well now, that's…new." Alice commented as she watched the circulating [Chaos] cause Zhen Liu's body to glow with a light that seemed purposefully blinding. "Alicia, I think your recording treasure just got rendered useless because of all of this light."

"I can see that," Alicia grumbled as she deactivated the treasure. "Pity, I figured I could use this footage as reference."

"For what?" Rianna asked.

"Personal things, don't worry about it," Alicia dismissed while pocketing a certain idea for later. "Let's just see how comely Zhen Liu's new form is going to look."

"Right on."

The transformation sequence didn't take that long, a couple seconds at most, but the results were way beyond the expectations of the girls.

They were honestly expecting just a simple softening of the features and the changing of certain physical traits. Instead, they got a bonafide transformation from top to bottom.

"Ooof! That felt, like, really weird," a high-pitched feminine voice echoed out throughout the chamber. "Whoa! I sound like I just went from a bass to a soprano in an instant."

"That's not the only thing that changed…" Lyona commented while eyeing Zhen Liu's new form up and down. "I didn't even know [Chaos] could get this…thorough."

Zhen Liu, by default, was half Stampeding Bisoner and half Roaring Tider. To make a quick comparison to a certain blue planet, this meant that he looked essentially half Caucasian and half Asian.

He had black hair, green eyes, and a relatively muscular build that could best be described as fit.

After using [Chaos] to transform himself into a woman, though, he was now blonde, had striking red eyes, and was now more or less chubby in all the right places. In other words, Zhen Liu went from a surprisingly muscular twink to a voluptuous young woman. Surprisingly, he didn't seem to resemble his mother though.

"Okay, I seem to have breasts, a butt, no little soldier, and a…surprisingly soft belly. Huh." the newly feminized Zhen Liu commented as she felt up her body to see what had changed. "I wonder if I can use [Chaos] to flatten that—oh. There we go. Wait a minute, why am I blonde?"

"I… I honestly can't tell if I'm jealous of Xiao Liu right now…or whether or not I want to…try some things," Bellona commented as she couldn't take her eyes off of Zhen Liu's newly minted assets. "Wait, Alicia, didn't you want to see if that dress you got could…"

"Right, thank you for reminding me," Alicia said as she grabbed a dress she had been modifying in her spare time and brought it over to Zhen Liu for her to try on. "I think I'll have to make some quick adjustments around the—wait, were all these choices made consciously?"

"Honestly, I was just letting the [Chaos] do what it felt was right," Zhen Liu answered as she had a zako hold up a mirror for her to look at. "I had initially thought about using features from all six of you to make a brand new face, but chickened out at the last second."

"That would explain why your hair looks like mine," Alicia commented as she compared her locks to Zhen Liu's newly minted ones. "But enough talking, try on this dress."

"Huh?"

"It's both," Jinju Ren answered Bellona after Alicia had gone up to Zhen Liu. "Take it from someone who has seen their father swing both ways so hard that he's actually the mother to some of my half-siblings."

"Excuse me?" Lyona exclaimed in shock as soon as she heard this statement.

"Oh right, remind me to give you the rundown on how the Pearl Scale Empire functions later," Jinju Ren assured her new friend. "Consider it the first of your many lessons in learning about how the world works."

"I…okay, sure."

A little after his conversation had ended, Alicia's voice grabbed everyone's attention.

"Damn, I just…damn."

"Okay, I still don't see the appeal of these things. Even if I'm currently a woman on the outside. Inside is debatable."

The transformed Zhen Liu filled out Alicia's dress quite nicely and looked every bit like a southern belle or a noble lady from the nicer parts of Stampeding Bison.

"Wow…" Lyona, Bellona, Jinju Ren, Rianna, and Alice all agreed.

That stated, this wasn't exactly the right outfit for what Zhen Liu and Jinju Ren had in mind for this evening's affairs.

"Wait, isn't this a little too fancy for the role of a lady-in-waiting? Especially since I'm supposed to be from Roaring Tide?," Zhen Liu pointed out as she pulled on the ruffles of the dress. "These also feel entirely unnecessary."

"That's because you're not currently hiding someone under there," Alicia retorted as she allowed her mind to wander to salacious fantasies.

"What was that?"

"I mean… I modified that dress using [Chaos]. I figured it would be useful for quick outfit changes if the need called for it. Try it out."

"Okay…sure."

Circulating her [Chaos] throughout her body and the dress, Zhen Liu could feel how the clothes would react if she just manipulated her energy in a specific way.

All it took was a quick infusion, and the southern belle dress transformed into a traditional Roaring Tide outfit.

"Whoa!"

Granted, the transformation was a bit more visually stimulating than necessary.

"Why did it almost choke me?!"

"Because you got a lot more around your chest than you did about five minutes ago," Bellona joked to help ease the tension. "Now that we've reached this point, have you thought of a fake name to use for this little dalliance of yours? Because I don't know many women from Roaring Tide with a name like Zhen Liu."

"I can concur," Jinju Ren followed up. "there are no women in Roaring Tide who go by that moniker."

"Right, fuck, fake name, uh..."

Zhen Liu was silent for a moment as she mulled over the fake names she could use in her head before settling on possibly the laziest answer possible.

"Uh...I guess I can go with Mei Yue?" Zhen Liu asked aloud. "That could work, right?"

"Mei as in 'beautiful' and Yue as in 'moon'? Isn't that a little on the nose?" Jinju Ren pointed out.

"Maybe, but I am hoping this identity never has to be used again after this night."

"Fair enough."

"Great...now, lets go catfight a knock-off angel."