Er Mu - Release that Witch

“More than one, there seems to be a lot more.”

“Good gracious, these are bugs? None of them look the same at all!”

“This looks more like a transparent crab…”

Lily’s heart suddenly suspended, not the small balls, but bugs? His Royal Highness had indeed lied! However… that there are insects is also very strange, ah, just look at the water, there is clearly nothing in it! When it was her turn, the little girl could no longer pretend to be indifferent, she headed toward the microscope and impatiently narrowed her eyes to take a look for herself.

And then, she saw an incredible scenery.

Just in the narrow illuminated area, she saw many bizarre objects recklessly moving about; some had a square shapes, while others whole bodies were covered with hairs, some looked like a mixed species of bugs and crabs, and others looked somewhat similar to the base of a grain of wheat. No matter which kind of strange shape they had, they were all mostly transparent, as if they had no skin or shell around them, in general, allowing to see the internal body structure clearly. Of course, these insects stomach was almost just as empty as their surroundings.

“Your Royal Highness, are theses really insects?” Scroll asked.

“What you are seeing should be some primitive organism or single-celled algae, calling them insects is not really appropriate, they should be assigned to the class of microorganisms.” The Prince explained.

“Microorganism?”

“Yeah, they’re also an independent life form, but their shape is much smaller, apart from the two you are seeing, there are also even smaller bacteria and viruses. At present the magnification of the microscope is not enough to permit you to see those two microorganism. They are also the reason for food spoilage and a variety of other illnesses.”

The more His Highness Roland explained, the more spirited he became, ” These infinitesimally small life forms are everywhere, and there are many different kinds. Fortunately, the majority of them is vulnerable to high temperature, and that is the reason why we boil the water before drinking, cook the fish before we eat it and do not reuse our bathwater.”

Although it was difficult for her to imagine that there were even smaller creatures, when she thought about that with drinking she will also swallow a lot of insects into her belly, Lily felt goosebumps all over her body.

Hasn’t his Royal Highness said that these humble little things are the culprits of food spoilage?

If I can keep the bread and meat porridge fresh, that water… should also be possible.

Thinking until here, she couldn’t help herself as she released her magic, covering the droplets under the microscope.

Causing unexpected changes to be born.

She saw how the “insects” began to tremble, then began to quickly change their appearance. Their skin was no longer transparent, but seemed as if they had put on a purple armor. Then long tentacles began to grow on their whole body, and soon after, they started to swallow the insects in their surrounding which have not changed. No that wasn’t right… instead of swallowing, Lily saw that they were assimilating each other at an alarming rate. Like a sharp sword, the tentacles stabbed into the body of other microorganisms which then assumed the same appearance as them.

Not knowing whether it was an illusion or not, she still felt that these transformed organism were still changing the invisible creatures, and it didn’t take long until a little purple spot appeared within the water. After a few breaths, more and more of these purple spots appeared, gradually fusing into one piece, as if her field of vision was slowly being covered with a lavender-colored carpet. One by one the tentacle insects arranged themselves into rows, like a neatly organized army. As if they could feel her attention, they all raised their tentacles up, as if in salute.

This was the first time; that she saw the true face of her ability.

Within her world of fog, Nightingale waited for the witches’ magic power to change.

Within this black and white world, she rarely had the opportunity to see so many brilliant colors. Compared to the memory of the time when they were in the search for the Holy Mountain, the magic power within them had increased a lot. The unceasing practice each day, not only allowed them to better control their ability it also increased their magical reservoir. But, Nightingale was most deeply moved by the expressions on their faces.

With the Witch Cooperation Association, although Wendy was always gently encouraging them and Cara would always remain steadfast, but even with that, during the days they were in hiding, no one would get a restful sleep. Any wind that moved the grass was enough to rouse the sisters from their dreams. Under the constant chase of the Church and the suspicion of the masses, they were never able to breathe easy. Even after entering the Impassable Mountain Range, this stress hadn’t been reduced by much. No one among them knew if they could really reach the Holy Mountain and obtaining their longed-for place to call home. Back then, the atmosphere within the camp was often very gloomy and most of the sisters had shown vacant and apathetic expression.

But now, no longer needing to starve and no longer having to worry about the Church’s witch hunt, all of their faces had become filled with an unprecedented spirit. Seeing that everyone was relaxed and smiling naturally, Nightingale heart also felt happy at the thought of their comfort. In the end, the Holy Mountain was not in the wilderness, but in this small border town.

At that time, she felt a thread of magic shaking.

A cloud out of a purple mist began to rotate, unceasingly surrounding and being drawn to a magical source, like a miniature-storm. This shocking scene could only be seen by Nightingale, after recovering from her initial shock, she stared with wide open eyes and held her breath not wanting to miss any details like the time with Anna and Soraya. Today would be her first time to seeing the condensation of magic with her own eyes.

At the center of this storm, Lily was standing.

She was completely immersed in the microscopic world beneath the microscope, never noticing that the magic within her body had underwent a drastically change.

The cloud of mist became more and more vigorous, steadily accelerating its rotational speed, appearing to become an entity on it’s own. But at the same time, this silhouette also began to fluctuate, no longer appearing in its original vortex shape. Finally, the magic was drawn inwards, condensing into a ball, and then gradually came to a stop.

Her newborn magic power neither resembled Anna’s solid and smooth cube, nor was it like Soraya’s soft silk. It was only the size of a fist, its main body was round, but on top of it there existed eight pairs of wriggling tentacles, four pairs at the bottom, four at the top. At first glance it looked like an… insect.

…

Roland never expected that he would receive such immediate results with the first Fundamental Biology lesson, and even less that the first witch to evolve her magic would be Lily.

Because her ability was to preserve the freshness of food, in addition to the daily practice, Roland hadn’t given her any other tasks, her understanding of her ability also wasn’t deep. After listening to Nightingales full report, Roland remained calm and collected and just nodded. Waiting until the end of the lesson, so that he could ask Lily to stay behind.

“What, you said that my ability has evolved?” Lily was also utterly astonished, “I didn’t see those balls you had mentioned.”

“Of course not,” Roland laughingly shook his head. “Those balls are thousands of times smaller than the microbes, even granted that we bring the optical microscope to its limit, you will still be unable to see the balls which form all of matter.

“Is that so? I thought that by understanding the ball theory it becomes possible to evolve our ability,” Lily muttered. “I do not believe that everything in the world is formed out of small balls, something as hard as rocks and steel, if they were really made out of a lot of piled up balls, they would have collapsed into a puddle of sand.”

So that’s the reason, he thought; it seems that comprehending the microparticle theory is not the only way to promote the evolution of their ability. “In that case, what did you see?”

“Um…” Lily thought to herself. “Just several purple insects, I believe, that they were summoned by my magic, and it could turn all of the organisms you spoke of into something with the same appearance.”

“Insects?” He slightly stunned for a moment, “And they were as big as a micro-organism?”

“Almost,” she said, nodding. “Anyway, afterward I once again used only my eye to look at the water drop, and it was still as transparent and colorless as before.”

“Then… next we should come to the real test.”

…

Because Lily’s ability was not directly visible to the naked eye, unlike Anna’s and Soraya’s, it was also much harder to test.

When seeing the neatly arranged microbes under the microscope for the first time Roland became started. It seemed as if they all had a collective consciousness, showing an incredible amount of synergy and consistency.

Next were the sub-experiments, including its impact on the duration time of the magic and which influence the God’s Stone of Retaliation had.

The testing continued for three days, although the little girl was fond of bickering under normal circumstances, she still meticulously carried out Roland’s instructions, regardless of her complaints.

Through a large number of sample comparison, as well as discussion with Anna, he roughly figured out how Lili’s new ability worked.

Her purple variation was clearly divided into two major categories: mother and replica.

After releasing her magic, the microorganism who changed on their own were the mothers.

The characteristic of the mother organism was similar to Anna’s black flame, as long as they were supplied with magic, they would continue to exist. Furthermore, the caster also wasn’t allowed to distance themselves further than five meters. Otherwise, they would disappear on their own. Just like any other summon, they were also affected by the God’s Stone of Retaliation, within the suppressing area of the stone, the mothers would instantly disperse.

When the mother was in existence, the surrounding microorganisms would be assimilated into replicas in a short time. What made Roland feel incredible was that the replicas which were the “results” of Lily’s ability, were just like Soraya’s coating, no longer vulnerable to the suppression of the God’s Stone of Retaliation. In simple terms, the creations that were transformed by Lily’s mother organisms had become an entirely new life form, and this life form existed in reality.

The replicated organism were assimilated by the mothers, and would take the initiative to transform other organism on their own, yet some of the results made Roland feel very confused, it seemed that the assimilation process didn’t go on endlessly. In some of the samples, into all of them were the equal number of replicas added, all of the microorganisms got transformed, while in some other samples, he could see the replicas and the non-variation of micro-organisms live in peaceful coexistence.

Due to the lack of more sophisticated observation instruments, this part apparently could only be guessed at.

After discussing it with Anna, Roland got the tentative idea that the number of assimilation a replica could perform was related to its size.

Lily’s ability clearly did not distinguish between the different types of microorganisms. Thus a large number of replica produced by the mothers were created out of the too small to see viruses and bacteria, and also the with the microscope visible protist and single-celled algae. The former body of these replicas determined its assimilation ability. The larger the previous organism was, the more assimilation the replica could perform.

However, a replica of a replica was unable to continue to live by further assimilate others. When the number of assimilation was exhausted, the last batch of replicas was only able to survive a day or so. Boiling the water would also kill most of the replica, in this regard they were no different than another microorganism.