Chapter 678: A Body Cultivation Expert with Time Sense—Terrifying Indeed!
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 678: A Body Cultivation Expert with Time Sense—Terrifying Indeed!
After leaving the testing site, I reappeared within the Witch Academy.
This journey felt as though much had happened, yet also as if I hadn't experienced much at all. One thing was certain, however: my gains were real.
But along with those gains came more questions, particularly regarding Domains.
This trip also taught me one thing: if there’s no need for it, don't force yourself to endure hardship for hardship's sake.
Then again, I didn't want to develop a blind dependency that would make me slack in my self-exploration. My current state was the most suitable.
Bringing my own answers to ask if they were correct was far more acceptable to my inner self than simply opening my mouth and demanding an answer without knowing anything.
However, after returning to the Witch Academy, the first witch I encountered—no, the one who actively sought me out—was actually Teryx, the Luck Alchemist who had found me once before.
"Hi~ Xiao Han. It’s been a while. I heard you took the initiative to find something to do this time?"
"Mm, I did." I nodded. I wasn't surprised by this witch suddenly appearing before me. I estimated she had come so quickly because she thought the item she wanted was about to be completed.
"So... the choice you made was..."
"I'm sorry, Sister Teryx. I am certain that I have let go of my past, but even after making that decision, it hasn't undergone a complete metamorphosis, nor has the final refining ritual been completed." I took out the coin refined from the Luck Seed Phantom and spoke with regret.
"Is that so? Perhaps I was too impatient?" Teryx hesitated as she took the coin I pushed toward her. She examined it closely, but no disappointment flashed in her eyes.
"Mm~ I can tell you definitely made a major choice in your life, Xiao Han. But... it has nothing to do with this coin... What a pity... Its completion is nearly perfect. You should be able to feel the flow of luck inside it, right?" Teryx pushed the coin back to me.
"Yes." I nodded.
Currently, all the shallow luck threads on my body had been transferred to this luck coin.
While this didn't mean I was entirely unaffected by the push of fate, I had detached myself from the influence of those shallow luck threads.
What could still affect me was only the push of some deeper, grand trend of luck, rather than the tugging of individual luck threads.
It was a refreshing and clean feeling.
"But a half-finished product like this isn't perfect. I'm not in a huge rush. Honestly, I came here prepared just to observe the progress, but I didn't expect your efficiency to be so high, Xiao Han. It exceeded my expectations."
"So... is it still missing something?" I asked, picking up the coin.
"Actually, I don't know what's missing either. I can only say let nature take its course. But usually, when it reaches the final step... based on my experience, it should be missing a fulfilled promise or one final choice. After all, I do call it the Choice of Fate~"
"I see..." Reminded by Teryx, I couldn't help but think of Yang Yunhan.
He was the one "hurdle" from my past that I still hadn't cleared. I had also promised that I would go find him on the day the scores were released.
But... it was only to find him, to see if that piece of deadwood could actually be propped up.
I had always been hesitant about the idea of bringing him into the Witch Academy... perhaps that was the hidden meaning of the "choice"?
Maybe when the day of our meeting truly came, if I still didn't have my own answer, I would use this coin to decide.
Flipping a coin... a very convenient way to make a decision for oneself.
I’d heard that in the moment the coin is tossed but hasn't yet landed, the answer you're uncertain of will appear in your heart. I wondered if that was true.
"It seems you have an answer in your heart, Xiao Han. In that case, I won't disturb you any longer~" Teryx said, looking quite satisfied with my reaction.
She liked children like Xiao Han—obedient, sensible, efficient, and possessing extraordinary talent and ability. Such a child was truly likable.
Of course... Teryx knew something else.
Certain special things had nothing to do with one's own strength. The brilliance of some geniuses was dazzling even before they became Transcendent, while a mediocre person remained mediocre even after advancing. Many things were destined from the start; the growth of power was merely a mindless accumulation, but a difference in thinking was what forged a genius.
In her eyes, Xiao Han was exactly that kind of genius who simply hadn't finished his accumulation yet.
"Oh~ I almost forgot..." At that moment, as if remembering something, Teryx suddenly handed over a storage card. "This is the reward I prepared for you in advance. Consider it a milestone payment for the luck coin. Once the coin is fully completed, I'll give you another reward that will definitely satisfy you~"
"Eh? This..."
"Just take it. Consider it a token of my regard," Teryx said to me with a smile.
Inwardly, however, she was thinking of something else... If Mei Lind hadn't suddenly found her to settle accounts, she wouldn't be acting like this now.
So... her plan to get something for nothing had fallen through.
"Thank you, Sister Teryx." Seeing her "no-refusal" expression, I eventually expressed my gratitude. After all, I remembered what Dean Mei had told me—that she would help me claim some rewards.
After seeing Teryx off, I began to ponder my next plan.
Should I go to Dean Mei or find other channels to learn about Domains?
If I went to Sister Bai, she would surely tell me all of her understandings and insights. If she was unwilling to speak, she would definitely give a very convincing reason.
Or should I go to Dean Mei?
Sister Mei was the type who basically answered every question. She definitely knew much more than Sister Bai, and she was also the type who... uh... couldn't keep a secret?
Forget it, I shouldn't talk about Sister Mei like that behind her back.
Besides, Sister Mei should be quite busy lately. Although I didn't know what she was busy with, the fact that even setting up the totem Secret Realm for me had to be postponed until the break after the semester was enough proof that she really had no time.
So... I should go exchange some feelings with Sister Bai instead~
But before that, I planned to see what good things Sister Teryx had given me. It felt like I had been receiving gifts constantly lately, though I suppose this was a reflection of my own value...
Thinking back to when I became famous in the exchange competition, the mailbox of my old dormitory had been stuffed with congratulations and invitations from many clubs and teams in the academy. But now... I rarely seemed to receive their congratulations.
Perhaps in their eyes, I had become someone who could no longer be recruited.
And as for befriending me... that wasn't something that could be acknowledged just by writing a letter or sending a small gift.
Of course, it was also possible they didn't know where to send the mail. Whether it was the mailbox of my original dormitory villa or the one at my current independent villa, I hadn't organized them in a long time. Moreover, I usually didn't write letters at all, so I often ignored these trivial matters.
Tossing those thoughts aside, I checked the storage card Teryx had given me. It contained many things, the most eye-catching of which were the Mana Sources. After a quick count, there were about a thousand. Adding these thousand, my current count of Mana Sources, if counted precisely, had reached 16,728.
Just this number alone, I felt, was already the limit for a non-Transcendent in the academy. This number would scare many people if spoken aloud; after all, for those who hadn't severed their Ley Line Shackles, their upper limit was only ten thousand. But I had already transcended that restriction.
Setting aside the Mana Sources, I also found some spellbooks in the storage card, which were better than nothing. I threw all of them into my Spellbook Shelf Spellbook for storage. As for the remaining precious materials, I placed them all into my own storage equipment.
Then I stacked this storage card with another pile of cards. I had to admit, I was now someone who didn't lack storage cards. Seeing that these cards were all the same size, differing only in their covers, they likely all came from the same type of manufacturing technique.
However, while pouring out those materials, I found something that pleasantly surprised me: a data storage card for the academy network's Ley Line Operating System!
After a quick identification with the Ley Line Identification Art, I confirmed that the data inside was related to Runology!
"As expected..."
Seeing the information on the storage card, I felt a bit emotional. I hadn't expected my interest in Runology to have spread so far.
Just as I was thinking this, I suddenly felt a pang of heart palpitations...
A peculiar perception seemed to explode in the distance, making me stand up abruptly.
I looked at the students passing by me; none of them showed any expression of shock, nor did they notice anything unusual. It was as if nothing had happened, yet I had perceived it clearly!
It was a special power capable of resonating with my Heart Sense. I looked toward the direction the palpitation came from. There was no obvious commotion there—perhaps just some minor disturbances—but something had definitely happened.
"Let's go take a look... maybe some witch's experiment failed?" With that thought, I took out my flying broom and took to the sky. Only once I was high up did I realize that this direction... seemed to be Sister Bai's residence?
Usually, wherever I went, I used direct teleportation for convenience. But now, after flying high and seeing the full layout, I realized that was indeed where Sister Bai's villa was located.
"Is it really that close to Sister Bai's place? Or... is it Sister Bai herself?" I muttered to myself as I flew over. Since I was planning to find her anyway, I might as well go see the excitement.
But I had an intuition telling me... it was likely Sister Bai. Because... I felt a familiar sensation.
It was somewhat similar to my Time Sense, yet had distinct differences. My Time Sense was currently only a prototype, but the disturbance coming from there gave me a sense of pressure strong enough to affect me.
As I rushed over, many other witches also sensed the anomaly and came out to see what was going on.
However, this incident seemed to only attract a portion of the Transcendent Witches. All the regular students seemed not to have noticed that anything had happened at all.
The closer I got, the more witches I saw heading that way.
When I arrived at the scene and saw the figure standing in the air, my gaze wavered. It really was Sister Bai!
"Eh? Is that Xiao Han? Are you here to join the fun too?" At this moment, the witch sisters who had arrived like me noticed a "little witch" like me mixed among the crowd of Transcendent Witches and couldn't help but be curious.
"Yes. Hello, Sister."
"It's fine~ I didn't expect you to feel this fluctuation too, Xiao Han... Oh, I almost forgot, you're her girlfriend, aren't you~"
"Yes." I nodded repeatedly. I didn't feel this was something I couldn't admit.
"I'm so envious~ Her name is Bai Yu, right? I didn't expect that so soon after becoming a Transcendent Witch, she would already master a Body Cultivation Domain and even touch upon Time Sense."
"Eh? Are you a Body Cultivator too, Sister?" I asked curiously. If she wasn't, she probably wouldn't know much about things like Time Sense.
"I only minor in Body Cultivation. My domain isn't a Body Cultivation Domain, but a Spell Domain. However, as they are both domains, I can feel the disturbance unique to a domain's metamorphosis."
"Time Sense..." Looking at Sister Bai now, I couldn't help but feel shocked, but along with the shock came a surge of joy!
Sister Bai had actually mastered Time Sense too!
But at this moment, Sister Bai just stood there, looking like an ordinary person. Her eyes were closed as if she were still gaining enlightenment, or perhaps savoring the insight. An invisible power shrouded the surroundings—that was Sister Bai's Body Cultivation Domain.
I could feel that the manifestation of this domain was fundamentally different from my own.
This comparison made me even more certain that my own domain lacked the intervention of energy, and even more so, the domination of energy!
At this moment, I also noticed the villa beneath Sister Bai... it was currently shattered. The destruction had even affected the surrounding villa buildings. She probably hadn't controlled her power well just now, so after sensing the damage her power caused to the buildings, she chose to fly into the air to continue her meditation.
The "minor disturbance" I felt earlier was likely the sound of the villa breaking, but since it wasn't an explosion, the noise hadn't been very loud.
Before long, Sister Bai slowly opened her eyes, a trace of joy in her gaze that she couldn't hide.
This display also signaled her success to all the witches. The witches standing nearby spontaneously offered their most sincere congratulations to their sister, Bai Yu!
Amidst this warm encouragement, Sister Bai did not lose herself in the congratulations. She instinctively glanced at the buildings below that had been affected by her out-of-control power, and then, in the vast crowd of witches, she spotted me with a single glance.
She gave me a small smile, then reached out her hand as if specifically demonstrating something. Her posture seemed to pluck at time itself—this movement was very similar to the way I had plucked at the Ley Line timeline...
In the next instant, the damaged buildings seemed to move in reverse. Whether it was the broken walls, the fallen stones, or even the dissipating dust, everything returned to its original state as if a rewind button had been pressed.
Until the house and everything inside—whether broken, destroyed, or displaced—returned to how they were before, without a single trace of a seam!
This casual display of skill instantly stunned the witches watching the show!
"Wow... A Body Cultivation expert with Time Sense! Terrifying indeed!" At this moment, a certain witch in the back row sucked in a breath of cold air and let out an exclamation of self-admitted ignorance.
"Is it too late for me to switch to Body Cultivation?"
"Hmm... feels like it could rival my Time-type Spell Domain~"
"Ah? Even a big shot studying Time-type Spells is paying attention to this?"
One must know that in the Transcendent realm, the concept of time was an unprovable objective existence. The definition of time was always only "this moment"; so-called time travel was impossible.
But precisely because of this, a "Time-type Spell" that "defined" the concept of time had appeared among spells. Witches who could walk this path were inevitably those with extremely high talent and thinking that differed from ordinary people; they were basically big shots you couldn't afford to provoke.
Because when they acted, they used methods that all non-Time-type spell researchers could not understand. Not understanding meant being unable to guard against them, and unable to counter them.
By the same logic, a Body Cultivation expert who mastered Time Sense... was now also an existence that ordinary experts couldn't afford to provoke!
And this newly ascended Transcendent Witch, with her incredibly rapid rise, had reached the height of "unprovokable" in the hearts of many witches!
At the same time, they silently noted the name "Bai Yu."
Some witches even vaguely remembered that this witch, Bai Yu... seemed to have a little witch for a girlfriend?