Chapter 271: ‘Deceiving’ a Senior

Chapter 271: ‘Deceiving’ a Senior

Regarding Annie’s characteristics, she could be said to be the youngest witch, though… though her actual age, if scrutinized, was even a bit older than Loris, but her youthful mindset was undeniable. Dan Marina herself admitted she couldn’t compare.

So Annie’s initially stern expression, in Dan Marina’s view, was definitely an act. With a little provocation, her true colors immediately showed.

“Well, let me say this first. It’s not that you can’t want to know about him, but you must give up some of your little schemes after meeting him.”

Arms crossed, Annie snorted lightly. “I’m not like you. Where would I have so many schemes?”

“Heh! That’s not necessarily true. You’ll know when the time comes.” Dan Marina chuckled softly. If he were human, she wouldn’t have said this, but Zheng Yichen was a dragon, and moreover, the most perfect ‘Cursed Dragon’ from ancient times to the present. While Annie might not have much interest in beings she had thoroughly studied before, upon seeing Zheng Yichen, the first thought that would probably pop into her mind was dissecting this dragon.

She would want to dig out his soul to see what was so special about it that it could become such a perfectly special Cursed Dragon, not to mention Zheng Yichen’s unique ability traits. According to Dan Marina’s speculation, any object that could bear Zheng Yichen’s power would produce some magical effects during certain crafting or refining processes, effects that wouldn’t be present using other methods under the same conditions.

“Beating around the bush!” Annie rolled her eyes at Dan Marina.

“This is a necessary process.”

“…” Annie looked at Dan Marina seriously. Any being that Dan Marina was so ‘concerned’ about, even to the point of speaking in a roundabout way, definitely wasn’t simply about not wanting conflict. Take the Sanctuary Church, for example. Many witches now didn’t plan to conflict with them. But not wanting conflict was one thing; if she could cause trouble, Dan Marina would definitely do so without hesitation.

So, there was definitely something fishy going on here!

“Heh, heh heh heh heh!”

“That laugh is really disgusting.” Stared at by Annie’s eerie grin, combined with her stark black-and-white yin-yang hair—if the atmosphere were a bit darker, she could practically pass for an evil spirit—Dan Marina felt this expression was just nauseating. She suddenly understood why Zheng Yichen had said her expression was somewhat disgusting back then… Now, seeing Annie’s previous expression, she knew!

“I never imagined that a witch like you would also fall into such a situation… Aren’t you afraid of something going wrong?”

“Do you think I would do something I’m not sure about?” Dan Marina curled her lips slightly and said very calmly. She had long known that Zheng Yichen could ignore some of the witches’ Curse characteristics, so did she need to worry? Obviously not. She felt it was Loris who should worry, not about some Curse characteristics of the witches.

Annie stared blankly at Dan Marina. After hearing Dan Marina’s response, she even overlooked the meaning in her words. This woman actually hadn’t denied what she just said. What did that mean… She truly was facing the last thing any witch wanted to encounter!

“Sure about it? How many witches have said such things?” Annie frowned slightly and straightened her posture. Even though their relationship wasn’t great, as fellow witches, and since she wasn’t an evil, chaotic being, seeing her kind about to become a fallen comrade, as a relatively senior witch, she felt it necessary to lend a hand. “You know the results very well, right!”

“Ah~ I probably know best about that.” Dan Marina crossed her arms. After all, she had been controlled by the Sanctuary Church for a long time. Over the years, she had seen many witches perish because of this ‘Curse,’ and she had witnessed the entire process firsthand. “But so what?”

“So what!?” Annie’s brows furrowed tightly. She thought Dan Marina would say something like ‘I’m different,’ but… the witches she knew in the past had said that too, and she had been infected by their confidence back then. And the result? She lost a witch friend. As for the person that witch cared about? Annie had a hundred ways to make him neither alive nor dead, forever regretting what he did! That it was destined? She didn’t care; she was just taking her anger out on him!

“You will definitely regret it when you are about to die!”

“Sigh~ The problem is I’ve seen many executed witches, and not many of them regretted it.” Dan Marina sighed softly. Once a witch Awakened, she gained enviable power and long life, but the passive Curse seemed like the absolute price for obtaining all this. If it didn’t erupt, it was fine; once it erupted, it was like a moth flying into the flame.

This kind of thing was hard to prevent. Who knows, one day you might go out, see someone, and unwittingly fall for them.

“Here, take this. Tell me his information!” Annie directly placed a bottle of Water of Life in front of Dan Marina and took away the bottle containing the main Magic Eye that was in front of Dan Marina. She thought (or convinced herself) that Dan Marina stole the Water of Life from her back then for the being she cared about. Although the Water of Life’s effect was far less powerful than Life Essence, it was still excellent for repairing the body. As for the soul, it was simple—just practice Magic.

Even if one couldn’t become extremely skilled, just getting started and reaching a certain level could strengthen one’s soul, unlike ordinary people whose souls, even if their bodies remained young, would completely age and ‘die’ after two or three hundred years without being enhanced by Mana or other special powers.

With the resources Dan Marina had, producing a Ranked Practitioner would be effortless. And a Ranked Practitioner, if the soul wasn’t damaged, could last five or six hundred years. Generally, the ‘lifespan’ of a soul was at least two to three times that of the body’s lifespan, under normal conditions where the body’s lifespan wasn’t artificially extended by external forces. If external forces were involved, situations where the soul’s lifespan couldn’t match the body’s lifespan could occur.

“Wait a month, then we’ll talk.” Dan Marina smiled lightly. She had no intention of taking Annie to Zheng Yichen now. Zheng Yichen seemed to be dealing with some problem; disturbing him wouldn’t be good. Moreover, he had things to do with the Magic Arms; about a month should be enough. If not, she had other ways to handle it. After all, the ‘senior’ before her was quite easy to talk to.

“You should know that even if you don’t tell me, I can find him through traces of the Water of Life.”

“Oh, how long would that take you? Three months? Or five months?”

“Fine, let’s sign a Contract.” Annie couldn’t help but show Dan Marina a conflicted expression of anger at her lack of ambition. “Let me say this harshly upfront: you’d better hide him well! Don’t worry, I won’t kill him. I’ll just help you modify him so he won’t have problems, okay?”

“Well~ You’ll know when the time comes.” Dan Marina shrugged, watching Annie take out a piece of parchment. Contracts didn’t necessarily require parchment; any Magical Beast skin or paper that could bear Mana would do. The carrier used for the Contract would disappear after use, so the requirements for the carrier weren’t strict; better or worse only mattered in how long it could be preserved.

After glancing at the contents of this Contract, Dan Marina decisively signed her True Name on it. The parchment instantly turned to ashes and vanished without a trace. “Hehe, thank you for your ‘concern,’ senior. In the future, if you encounter any important matters needing discussion, be sure to find me.”

Seeing her swift and decisive action, Annie felt somewhat stunned. Why did she feel like she had been tricked!?

“Are you… fooling me?” Annie’s face flushed slightly—not from shyness, but from anger!

“No, no, I guarantee I haven’t deceived you in any way. Everything I said before is true.” Dan Marina replied with a very sincere expression, her hands moving swiftly as she tucked the bottle of Water of Life into her Personal Space.

“Hmph, I’ll wait a month!” Annie snorted, pulled up her hood again, stood up, and left the bar directly. She planned to stay in Kaja for a while; after all, she hadn’t been out for a long time. Since she was out, she might as well look around… Hmm, right, it seemed there was something quite popular recently (within the last three years). What was it called? The Magic Weapon Summoning Book, right? It seemed when this thing first appeared, not many paid attention, but now it had become something ten thousand gold couldn’t buy… Hmm? Wait, no, what was ten thousand gold couldn’t buy seemed to be the first-generation Magic Weapon Contract. The first generation… seemed to be those originally scattered Magic Weapon Summoning Books, right?

Annie thought for a moment, hooked her finger inside her cloak, and pulled out a Magic Weapon Summoning Book from her Personal Space. This Magic Weapon Summoning Book was one of the scattered first-edition versions!

The source? It seemed some unlucky fellow had trespassed into her territory, was accidentally swallowed by some carnivorous plants she had set up there, and left behind. Actually, at first, she was quite puzzled why her little darlings had indigestion. Those little darlings had super strong digestive abilities; they could digest even Magic Artifacts. But this clearly Projection Magic Weapon Summoning Book actually withstood those Mana-digesting carnivorous plants, even making that little darling lose its appetite for a while until she took out this thing and it recovered.

As for why she didn’t use it back then, it was simple—she didn’t need it. And with a daily Mana consumption of one percent, did they think a witch’s Mana was free? Feeling it wasn’t worth it in various ways, she naturally ignored this thing. Moreover, it wasn’t a living being but an inanimate object. If not for the fact that this thing was quite special, as a Projection being so ‘hard’ to this extent—which she found quite novel—it would have been thrown into some garbage dump back then.

After that came a long period of solitary research, so she didn’t pay much attention to the Magic Weapon Summoning Book. And time, what was that to a witch? To her, immersing herself in a major research project could take months or even longer, and that amount of time was just a few days in her sense of time back then.

So after coming out this time, when she inadvertently heard about the recent ‘huge popularity’ of the Magic Weapon Summoning Book, she belatedly remembered she had one tossed like garbage in her Personal Space.

“Huh? Is it really that popular?” Annie adjusted her hood. The moment she took out this first-edition Magic Weapon Summoning Book, though briefly—she only glanced at it before putting it back—in that short time, she sensed dozens of gazes on herself. More than half were weaklings; the rest, varying in strength, could be considered strong. As for the strongest one… probably could last one move against her.

After a moment’s thought, she directly ignored these gazes. She had been in seclusion for a while; it seemed many had forgotten about her. Her clothes even had a hidden emblem. Weaklings wouldn’t notice, but those with sufficient strength definitely could see it. Even then, they dared to provoke her? Disregarding her ‘goodwill’ would come at a cost.

“So, you deceived her and can still laugh so contentedly?” Qin’s right eyebrow twitched slightly as she gently swirled the glass she had been holding for half an hour, looking at Dan Marina’s extremely ‘rippling’ smile.

“Wow! You were eavesdropping!”

“Eavesdropping? Do I need to? Just looking at your faces, I could tell what you were saying.” Qin glanced slightly at Dan Marina. She admitted her curiosity had been piqued earlier, especially seeing Dan Marina and Annie seemed to be conducting some ‘unmentionable’ transaction, even using a Contract, so she ‘slightly’ paid attention. The result was watching a ‘junior’ tease and deceive a naive ‘senior.’

Not to mention those who didn’t know Annie, anyone who understood her could generally notice she was quite ‘kind-hearted’—in quotes, but this attribute was ‘rare’ among witches.

“Don’t talk nonsense, okay? How did I deceive her? Every single sentence was true.” Dan Marina took out that bottle of Water of Life and gently shook it. From her expression, Qin could easily tell this woman was in an explosively good mood now.

“Even if it was all true, once it came out of your mouth, true could become false.” Qin knew Dan Marina’s tactics very well. The truth? Yes, she spoke the truth, but by slightly changing the timing and order of what was said, coupled with some suggestive behavior, she made the listener fill in the blanks themselves and lead to the next part… Deception? That method was too weak!