Chapter 247: The Bounty Post

Chapter 247: The Bounty Post

With these pinned posts, Zheng Yichen suspected that many witches were now keeping an eye on the Magic Weapon Summoning Book. When it came to secrecy, nothing surpassed the Magic Weapon Summoning Book; any power that came into contact with it would be assimilated.

In fact, the intensity of this assimilation far exceeded Zheng Yichen’s current external mana assimilation strength. The reason was purely that the mana accumulated within the Magic Weapon Summoning Book was too vast. Even though Zheng Yichen’s mana quality had improved greatly recently, causing the mana in the Magic Weapon Summoning Book to decrease slightly due to the quality upgrade.

However, the reduced amount was quickly replenished. Especially with this wave of forum features being unlocked, the gains were explosive! The scale would definitely not diminish in the future but would keep increasing as the number of Magic Weapon Summoners grew. Soon, people would discover other uses of the Summoning Book’s forum, such as regional information transmission…

The Otherworld had no internet. When a major event occurred somewhere, it would take a long time to reach remote areas. After all, no one would waste time and large amounts of mana to cast a long-distance communication magic just to spread news elsewhere. But with the Magic Weapon Summoning Book, there was no such problem.

It was foreseeable that whenever a major event happened in the future, many Magic Weapon Summoners would know about it immediately. By now, Magic Weapon Summoners were already scattered across various regions of the Continent. Once they knew, it meant the news had reached their location.

Taking advantage of this, the Magic Weapon Summoning Book would become increasingly popular. Even if not for the magic weapons, people would try to obtain a Magic Weapon Contract just for the forum features.

After keeping an eye on the Magic Weapon Summoning Book for a while longer, Zheng Yichen put it away. He handled the isolated magical fluctuations so that when the isolation Barrier was removed, the released magical waves wouldn’t appear too sudden. However, as soon as the faint magical waves appeared, they were still noticed by a woman next door.

But this woman was temporarily distracted by a book in her hand. She only slightly sensed the magical fluctuations and, seeing they were just some alchemical-type magic waves, she withdrew her attention. Perhaps someone renting a room here was conducting some experiments while asleep, causing a leak.

Deya stared at a post on the Magic Weapon Summoning Book… the pinned post by the Fate Witch. She had a long-standing Quest while traveling: to find traces of the Fate Witch. The other party had escaped the control of the Sanctuary Church, which was a serious slap in the face. Previously, they could afford to be somewhat ‘lenient’ with Dan Marina because that woman was under the Sanctuary Church’s control and couldn’t cause much trouble.

But Dan Marina was different after breaking free. If she intended revenge, even if the Sanctuary Church wasn’t afraid, her abilities could still cause a lot of annoyance. Just think: high-level personnel, protected by certain powers, wouldn’t be greatly affected unless Dan Marina personally appeared to mess with them.

But the middle and lower-level members of the Sanctuary Church wouldn’t have it so easy. Her abilities could cause chain disasters, and the chain could even target individuals one by one without affecting others.

Then there was the Undying Witch… traces of the Undying Witch had disappeared. In the last encounter, Deya managed to retrieve the pointer Dan Marina made, but even so, it was severely damaged in the fight and lost its original function.

Next was searching for the Little Dragon… This was even more troublesome. The Little Dragon had completely vanished without a trace. Prophecy Magic had no effect on it at all. As for the Alchemical Avatar, there had been no related information for over a month, and the investigation had temporarily hit a bottleneck.

As for recent frequent and notorious activities, there was the Demon Sword Sect. That matter was handled by Achille. Deya knew his abilities well; with him in charge, there basically wouldn’t be any problems. For other events, the large and well-established Sanctuary Church could find suitable people to handle them. Currently, there were no matters involving witches, so Deya had some free time…

Of course, that wasn’t entirely accurate. As a Saintess, her power was unique enough. Therefore, Deya became one of the few exceptions within the Sanctuary Church, one of the small number of high-level members who possessed a Magic Weapon Contract. After all, up to now, the Sanctuary Church still hadn’t discovered any hidden dangers with it. But precisely because of that, they wouldn’t easily allow its widespread circulation and use within the church.

As for the fixed mana consumption for maintenance, there was nothing to say about that. Consuming mana or other special powers was just too common a phenomenon in this world. The tiny bit of mana supplied to the Magic Weapon Summoning Book daily hardly counted as consumption. So initially, attention on this aspect was relatively high, but by now, it had basically become a standard observation case.

Since no drawbacks of the Magic Weapon Summoning Book were discovered, it wouldn’t circulate among the upper echelons of the Sanctuary Church, but they couldn’t completely ignore it either. After all, the Magic Weapon Summoning Book had become sufficiently popularized by now, even giving rise to related Professionals. If the Sanctuary Church insisted on restricting it internally, their research on the Magic Weapon Summoning Book would only fall far behind others.

Therefore, to deal with this situation, the Sanctuary Church selected some special members to use the Magic Weapon Contract and gain access to the Magic Weapon Summoning Book. Deya’s Magic Weapon Contract was granted by the Sanctuary Church after her last confrontation with the Undying Witch. Regarding the Magic Weapon Summoning Book, Deya was quite intrigued.

She had certainly heard of it, but hearing about it was not as good as experiencing it firsthand. As for the magic weapons inside, Deya stated she had seen too many magic weapons. Even though the effects of the weapons in the book were good, and each had its own unique characteristics, the only thing that amazed her was the speed at which those weapons in the book grew stronger—it was incredibly fast!

In fact, it probably wouldn’t be long before those low-level magic weapons could possess power not inferior to intermediate magic weapons. This ‘not inferior’ was based on the premise of lacking the additional effects of intermediate weapons, having only pure attribute effects! Deya even had a bold thought: although this strengthening speed kept decreasing.

But after accumulating for a few decades or centuries, any basic magic weapon inside might possess the power of a high-level magic weapon. Although that required reaching the maximum summoning amplitude, but that was just a basic magic weapon… the white gear among magic weapons, directly possessing the attack power of pink gear!?

It sounded like a tall tale. In the past, Deya wouldn’t have believed it at all. Now she didn’t need to hear about it; the thought popped into her head on its own. She hadn’t had the Magic Weapon Contract for long, so the types of Summoned Magic Weapons she could call were limited. The highest-level magic weapon she could summon was only intermediate, and the summoning stage was just the ordinary summoning, not Advanced Summoning, let alone the hardest-to-achieve Ultimate Summoning!

It was important to know that the Ultimate Summoning stage required using a magic weapon for a long time and having extremely high proficiency to achieve. Among some Advanced Magic Weapon Users, less than half could reach the Ultimate Summoning stage within the intermediate weapon ranks… Such Magic Weapon Summoners were generally called ‘watered-down’ Advanced Magic Weapon Users by those who had reached the Ultimate Summoning stage with intermediate weapons.

Without a solid foundation, they rushed to become Advanced Magic Weapon Users, truly prioritizing leveling up over a solid base. Initially, those watered-down Advanced Magic Weapon Users dismissed such remarks, even angrily scolding those people for having a superiority complex.

But soon, such rebuttals faded away. Because those watered-down Advanced Magic Weapon Users discovered that when summoning magic weapons… the foundation was actually quite important. In terms of the speed of increasing proficiency, those Magic Weapon Summoners who had completed multiple Ultimate Summoning stages improved faster than the watered-down ones.

This wasn’t a matter of Talent; someone specifically made a comparison. The two people compared had similar Talent and the same Magic Weapon Summoner level. The difference was, one hurriedly leveled up their Magic Weapon Summoner rank as soon as they could access higher-level weapons upon reaching Advanced Summoning. The other leveled up only after accumulating each Magic Weapon Summoner rank to the Ultimate Summoning stage.

In the improvement of proficiency with summoning and using high-level magic weapons, the speed of the Magic Weapon Summoner with a solid foundation far surpassed that of the watered-down one. The gap between the two was extremely obvious! Moreover, although the summoned weapons were within the same amplitude, there was still a fluctuating gap in power. The power output of the watered-down magic weapon appeared somewhat unstable, sometimes high, sometimes low. Even though the high-low difference wasn’t severe, the highest level still wasn’t as good as the one with a solid foundation.

Even if that Magic Weapon Summoner later raised the summoning proficiency of basic, low-level, and intermediate magic weapons to the Ultimate stage, the gap with the one with a solid foundation still couldn’t be closed.

Building a solid foundation seemed like wasting extra time at first. After rigorous calculation, it was only initially a bit of a waste of time, but it was extremely beneficial for the future. Just like normal magic cultivation, the more solid one’s foundation, the smoother and wider their future path.

So that batch of watered-down Advanced Magic Weapon Users stopped bickering and hurriedly worked to make up for their previous deficiencies. Of course, even so, there were differences among Magic Weapon Summoners of the same level. For conventionally summoned magic weapons, the floating value was the largest, and reaching the highest value was also the easiest. After all, upon reaching the stage where one could enter Advanced Summoning, the floating value of that stage quickly decreased. Reaching the highest value naturally meant Ultimate Summoning…

And the floating value for Ultimate Summoning was the lowest, but improving it was the hardest!

Some people, just after crossing this hurdle, found it difficult to make further improvements. The cost of improvement was too high, the time wasted too much. Unable to improve, they had no choice but to rush to the next weapon level. But some could, at this stage, approach the peak of the Ultimate Summoning floating value. This was true for Basic Magic Weapons, true for Low-level Magic Weapons, and even more so for Intermediate Magic Weapons. Added together and carried over to high-level weapons, this was enough to create a rather significant gap.

Not to mention that even higher-level magic weapons might appear in the future!

As for Deya, she was already powerful enough herself, with plenty of strength and energy to spare. She didn’t need to, like ordinary Magic Weapon Summoners, choose only one weapon path for advancement. She tried out all the weapons she felt comfortable using. At her level of power, combat didn’t need to be overly restricted to any specific weapon. Not just swords, but weapons like sabers could be used skillfully.

Forget techniques… weapons for her were merely an extension to better channel her power. What took others a long time to charge and release—a high-level sword skill that could slice off a mountaintop—she could accomplish just by relying on her way of using power, channeling it through a weapon to blast a mountaintop flat. Only when facing truly formidable and troublesome enemies would she employ techniques.

“What name should I think of?” Deya pondered, resting her chin on her hand. The updated Magic Weapon Summoning Book forum prohibited commenting and only allowed viewing posts until a certain level of personal information was filled out in the profile.

“…Saintess Deya? Wouldn’t that be a bit too deliberate?” Deya thought for a moment and dismissed the name from her mind. Dan Marina could directly use the ID ‘Fate Witch’ because that title was well-known enough. Using her own name plus ‘Saintess’ felt a bit forced. After thinking, she simply used her real name. After all, her identity and name weren’t secrets; using her real name had no impact whatsoever.

Moreover, as the Saintess of The Church, of course, she should be open and aboveboard. What was the point of hiding behind an unknown ID? Like that top pinned post by the ‘Seven Luminaries Magus’.

What did that even mean? Although her replies indeed demonstrated exceptional magical knowledge and quickly attracted a large number of Spellcasters to engage in heated discussion in that post based on her profound magical knowledge.

And the topics of discussion were quite proper at first, but later they strayed off track, even touching upon dark magic. Regarding such magical topics, some Spellcasters who previously studied normal magic and whose replies revealed sufficient experience actually participated. Although many expressed curiosity, this revealed a peculiar attraction of the forum!

Because identities could be kept secret, as long as it didn’t violate forum communication rules, anything could be discussed. This naturally made some topics become unrestricted, especially forbidden types of magic… It was surprising to see so many people participating in the discussion, even if mostly out of curiosity.

“This is really… what long-term effects will this so-called ‘Forum’ bring?” Deya rubbed her forehead and said somewhat helplessly. She couldn’t stop this. Who the Creator of the Magic Weapon Summoning Book was remained completely unknown. She had the intention but not the power.

After some thought, having filled out her personal information, Deya also posted a pinned post on the Magic Weapon Summoning Book — Bounty: Traces of the Undying Witch.

The pinned post was listed in the fourth position. As for the top three, she had no intention of competing; as long as it was visible enough. This post was just an attempt on her part. Not long after posting, Deya saw a bunch of comments asking, many inquiring about the reward…