Chapter 291: Why Not?

Chapter 291: Why Not?

“How long do they want results?”

“At most three months, about the same gap as between your two new magic potions.”

“Three months… Alright, no problem.” Zheng Yichen waved his hand dismissively. Three months was nothing significant. If he focused, he could get results in just one month. He suddenly smacked his palm: “Dang it! Forgot one thing!”

He’d been busy making his Alchemical Avatar these past few days, which affected some planned tasks, like the ad space on the Magic Weapon Forum. Only remembering now, Zheng Yichen quickly found Qin. After discussing with her, he directly slapped the Fixation Potion ad onto the Magic Weapon Forum. The small ID “Ba Yi” also officially entered the Magic Weapon Forum.

Delayed, it was delayed. But the delay had its perks. Irene’s production was almost done. Perfect to link the ad space with the product pickup. Zheng Yichen was now pondering what to name the pickup function when it launched. Shunfeng? Or Dongfeng?

Then Dongfeng it was…

Having decided on the name, Zheng Yichen realized he truly had nothing urgent on his plate now. The Magic Weapon Evil God problem? Let someone else worry first. He’d deal with it later. He was holding what they valued most. The avatars had limited combat power; what could they do? Show his true form? More likely, the Sanctuary Church or the Dragon Clan would find him first.

Thinking it over, Zheng Yichen couldn’t suppress his curiosity and ran to Irene’s place. Her bedroom had been altered. The whole room was vastly enlarged. Irene and Loris were here, and even Annie was as well…

“Didn’t you go back?” Zheng Yichen asked the short girl with black-and-white hair, his mouth twitching slightly. She’d always held the ‘deal with him’ attitude, to prevent betrayal. Having a witch watching him daily, ready to act, made Zheng Yichen uneasy.

“I thought about it, staying isn’t bad either.” Annie stared at Zheng Yichen for a while, looking dissatisfied. “You, clearly possessing quite decent talent in the Life Domain, why distract yourself studying those magic potions? You’re even dabbling in Engineering and Alchemy?”

“Uh, these subjects can be linked together. It’s fine to study them all, right?”

“Being a dragon is fine! But you actually put the most important Life Domain last!?”

Zheng Yichen involuntarily opened his mouth. Was this girl dissatisfied about that? Life Domain… what was that? The most relevant things he’d done were probably cultivating the Bionic Alchemical Avatar and that Magic Eye he messed around with by chance earlier. As for since then? He hadn’t researched that… Wait, no, actually he had another one: Dan Marina’s current avatar!

He wondered how that goddess was doing now.

He rarely researched this area, though. Could that really cause such a big reaction?

“She’s just curious.” Loris glanced back at Annie, who looked a little indignant, and said to Zheng Yichen. “She’s been like this since learning from Dan Marina how miraculous your abilities are.”

Zheng Yichen immediately nodded in understanding. Ah, that was it… This expression was just like when Irene found out his level of spellcasting – that feeling of disappointment but hoping for better. Because his foundation in these areas was weak, despite his miraculous abilities, he couldn’t produce anything truly inspiring or worthy of deep discussion with them.

Irene was obsessed with magic research. Annie, it seemed, was the same about… life research. One could imagine how maddening it felt to encounter an opportunity that could expand her research field but be unable to grasp it. Zheng Yichen remembered feeling that same frustration when researching things and missing a flash of insight.

“Since you plan to stay here, your identity… is it under control?” Zheng Yichen scratched his cheek, trying his best to ignore Annie’s glare. He involuntarily glanced at her hair and gestured slightly with his hand. “For example, after you live here for a few days, the wooden furniture at home won’t sprout, will it?”

“I am the perfect witch!” Annie glared at him. “My power doesn’t leak at all! My abilities won’t lose control!”

“No power leakage indeed. But abilities won’t lose control? Is that true?” Irene suddenly interjected. Annie’s face stiffened slightly, and she pouted: “That’s different from you two anyway.”

Irene shook her head slightly. The so-called perfect witch was only relative. To them, Annie was indeed perfect: strong power, precise control, and no deep environmental impact. Or rather, she had a sufficiently subtle way of circumventing it… after all, her abilities were Life Domain-type.

The effects might be an occasional forest where all the trees suddenly grew or thickened by a centimeter, or wasteland sprouting grass. She had her own unique way of masking these obvious effects. Ultimately, it was just that her kind of power allowed for such manipulation.

But they couldn’t do that. Loris’s power was destructive; any traces left were very noticeable. Irene, if she deliberately controlled and restrained her power, wouldn’t cause much impact. However, the moment she used her mana to cast spells, it affected the surrounding environment, turning it into a high-mana terrain favorable to her. Frankly, the residual traces of such an influence were more persistent than Loris’s.

Dan Marina… that woman seemed casual, but she also had a way of circumventing restrictions. And it was simple: just don’t talk recklessly. Like frequently saying things like ‘drop dead’ or ‘idiot’. Because if she said it often, the person hearing it really had a high chance of suffering accidents, or head injuries turning them stupid. Of course, she mostly used this influence strategically, turning it to her advantage.

“Why did you come?” Irene asked.

“Uh, to see if there was somewhere I could help.” Zheng Yichen’s voice grew weaker as he spoke. Thinking about it, he was a novice compared to the witches. Among the top players, he probably couldn’t even get a word in edgewise. Help? Serving tea and water counted as help too, right?

“Not for now.” As expected, Irene’s answer mirrored Zheng Yichen’s deduction.

“They don’t, but I do.” Annie seemed to have been waiting for this line. She grabbed Zheng Yichen and dragged him out of Irene’s room.

“Not going to follow and take a look?” Irene put down the thing in her hand and asked Loris.

“… You were the same when you discovered his abilities.”

Irene immediately said nothing more. Would Loris be this accommodating? Probably not! That Dan Marina woman must have said something to her! Pulling the topic back: “When adding your power, remember to alter its manifestation.”

“I know.” Their abilities were all very distinctive. If they displayed the Witch’s Power directly, then if someone triggered the protection mechanism of the ‘Pick-up Zone’ and didn’t die, it was easy to guess insider information about the Magic Weapon Summoning Book. Like the identity of its master!

Whether guessed to be Zheng Yichen or one of them, it wasn’t good news. The Magic Weapon Summoning Book was developing rapidly now, but its foundation remained too shallow. Even though Zheng Yichen kept adding new features, making people more and more reliant on it, even non-combatants sought Magic Weapon Contracts – not for summoning magic weapons, but just to use the Magic Weapon Forum.

This was a further step toward becoming deeply rooted in daily life. Once the Magic Weapon Summoning Book became truly indispensable to everyone’s hearts, like mobile phones today, then Zheng Yichen’s identity as the Creator wouldn’t matter if exposed. Ban it? How? Confiscate everyone’s mobile phones worldwide? Were those trying that not afraid of being torn apart?

“Are you all this good at space expansion magic?” Zheng Yichen asked, looking around Annie’s equally large room.

“Pretty much. Magic like this is very convenient. Like with your true form, if you couldn’t use such magic, you wouldn’t fit through normal-sized doors.”

“…Tch!” Zheng Yichen clicked his tongue. The Magical Grimoire did contain such magic, but its difficulty was unusually high. It required not just enormous mana but also spatial perception. That kind of perception wasn’t something you just had; it needed slow cultivation, understanding, and time to accumulate. Basically, learning it demanded serious time investment.

Because of this, ordinary spellcasters generally couldn’t learn it. Those who could were usually spellcasters born with significant innate spatial perception talent, and such individuals were few. The witches? Forget innate talent; their vast mana reserves and ample time allowed them to easily meet the requirements. Thinking this way, them all being skilled at space expansion magic didn’t seem too strange?

Maybe in eighty or a hundred years, he’d look back on this thought and find it a bit silly. Something so simple now seemed impossibly difficult back then?

It was probably the feeling of reviewing first-grade single-digit multiplication after graduating college – damn! Problems where the answer is instantly obvious now seemed to require ages of thought and vertical calculation then!

That was pretty much it.

“Other dragons… do they all know space expansion magic?”

“Most adult dragons know a little bit.” Annie didn’t hold back. “Maybe not super powerful, but enough to affect the space around them. They’re mostly lazy anyway. Reaching that level to squeeze through slightly smaller holes satisfies them. Not many delve deeper. After all, this magic doesn’t get easier the more you learn.”

Hmm… Earlier he used math equations? Space expansion magic was more like studying mathematics… Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division were just the start. Linear equations were small steps up. Then came the progressively more headache-inducing stuff later on!

Not like language, where just knowing enough words and their meanings thoroughly made everything else simple… Memorization sufficed.

“Forget this. Last time you got away fast. Now I can finally get a good look.” Annie rubbed her hands together. Her gray eyes, clear and free of any haze, fixed tightly on Zheng Yichen. One small hand grasped his arm. Zheng Yichen helplessly realized this petite girl was incredibly strong!!!

This Alchemical Avatar had bionic muscles, but inside was still an Alchemical structure – metal! Its strength shouldn’t be low!

But at this moment, Annie held him like a steel pillar welded into bedrock. No matter how much force his Alchemical Puppet body exerted, she didn’t budge. Logically, given the connection between strength and body size, with Annie’s stature possessing such power, her weight must be mind-boggling!

Zheng Yichen didn’t struggle harder to pull his arm free. He tried lifting it slightly. No movement.

“Con…confirm what? Gender?”

Annie rolled her eyes instantly. “Dragons wear no clothes. I could tell at a glance.”

Oh, crap? Could she actually do that? Did that mean he needed to specially research and develop clothing for dragons when he got back? Imagine a dragon wearing a black suit… Not bad actually. Maybe try it later!

“Is it true you’re a Cursed Dragon? Strange though. Cursed Dragons don’t have this kind of Soul-body connection. Soul transformation?” Annie clucked her tongue, analyzing: “How about I go to your place now? Let me observe properly?”

“What if I say no?”

“Ah~ I don’t like using force… But trying it occasionally might feel pretty good.”

“Ugh! What about your principles?”

“Principles are meant to be broken. They’re not absolute things.”

“… Unsurprisingly Chaotic Good.”

“Chaotic good? What’s that?”

“Uh, a system I made for categorizing moral alignments. Interested?” Seeing her attention captured, Zheng Yichen pushed the topic.

“A little.”

Zheng Yichen reached into his Personal Space and fished out a drawing depicting the nine-part moral alignment grid. Annie examined the chart with great interest. With one glance, she found what Zheng Yichen called Chaotic Good. She carefully read its explanation, then glanced over the others, nodding slightly: “Surprisingly accurate. But you didn’t think of this, did you? I’ve flipped through some Dragon Clan Inherited Memories. They had no such concept. Could it be… you really are a Cursed Dragon?”

Zheng Yichen felt an urge to curse. How come every witch seemed to see through him? This Annie seemed easy to fool at first glance. Dan Marina seemed convinced with just a few words. Why couldn’t he manage it? Was it age suppression?

No, no! His mind raced and quickly spotted the flaw. The problem was this whole alignment chart discussion! Mentioning it other times might be fine, but it gave things away now. What else had she said?

‘Flipped through dragon Inherited Memories’… Ugh! Had this woman slain a dragon before?!