novelraw Chapter 242: Patrol on Behalf of Heaven’s Way
Chapter 242: Patrol on Behalf of Heaven’s Way
She did indeed go back once, and Shion didn’t know whether the two worlds simply flowed at different rates, or if the Mental Landscape had introduced a time discrepancy when it sent her there.
It was much later than he had imagined.
After all, based on what others said later, it seemed the Mental Landscape didn’t actually send people to other spaces.
Everyone else had only experienced memories and some illusions.
Only she had actually been sent out.
But at the last moment, after comprehending the Mental Landscape, she was sent back.
Most likely it still counted as a trial inside the Mental Landscape...
One could only say Magical Girl stuff is truly strange, wildly imaginative in many ways.
Whether it was Mu Jin’s Heart Image Remnant or this time’s Mental Landscape, both had given him a lot of surprises.
And before Shion left, she naturally paid close attention.That entire sky, ocean, clouds, flowers, trees... even a whole mountain had been transposed over, so inevitably there would be some effects.
To avoid causing murder karma or leaving behind causal ties, she literally tossed everyone back out.
She even pulled the falling helicopter pilot out and dropped him somewhere safe.
The Emperor’s Path runs blood-red, but it spills the blood of enemies and rivals. The Emperor’s Path never needs innocent blood.
This Mental Landscape journey undoubtedly left Shion very satisfied.
From the moment she stepped in, she had realized the route she came from was not the old world.
Judged purely by the Great Dao’s rules, or by positional standing, it was fully on par with the large Magical Girl world.
Only in that world there were no Magical Girls, no extraordinary powers—so at the time it wasn’t that she hadn’t worked hard, it was that the world’s Great Dao rules were that way.
Some Great Emperor’s ascension had apparently drained the original world’s spiritual energy, so that whole world’s Great Dao actually suppressed magic and Personal Reality.
Shion’s mind was keen and delicate!
In an instant she understood: the point of that Mental Landscape was to send someone into an extra world, and then let a Magical Girl pull a chunk of space from that other world, compress it into her Personal Reality, and use it as a Mental Landscape domain.
This is a technique of earth-immortal cultivation!
She couldn’t help but admire: the wise can overlook a hundred things, the foolish stumble but sometimes find one cleverness.
As the saying goes, teach a person to fish rather than give a fish; merely gifting a Mental Landscape has little meaning. Letting Magical Girls learn how to obtain a Mental Landscape themselves is far more valuable.
Later they wouldn’t need to suffer through the Mental Landscape trial anymore — just find a world, carve out and refine a region to break through realms. Who could outsmart the ancestors in such methods!
What she hadn’t expected was that although the path of physical-ascension cultivation hadn’t been fully opened, the Patrol-on-Behalf-of-Heaven path had become a repeatable route.
Then Azure Cloud Sect disciples would each have their own Mental Landscape Purple Mansion, directly seize the creation of heaven and earth, encroach on the mysteries of sun and moon! Prove the wonders of the Purple Mansion and set the foundations of divine techniques!
Hmm, once upon a time a joke was made that if Azure Cloud Sect really did this, they’d become the East China Dao Court...
Now, without the small-path suppression of this world, once you drag a magical man and a magical woman into retreat, they can only fall back into the Mental Landscape’s eighth domain of melee fighting.
First domain specializes in cunning, seventh specializes in magical combat.
Collectively known as — Shion’s Three Perfections!
Although for Shion being limited to melee was a bit of a loss—she couldn’t fully exploit her advantages.
But thinking of Mu Jin and the Heart Image Rule power on Chilian’s body from earlier,
which could best prevent other Magical Girls from using rule power to surpass her well-tempered flesh,
it was acceptable.
Yet as a double-edged sword, this Mental Landscape also heavily suppressed her own magic and Personal Reality.
After all, in that other world she had struggled tremendously just to transform.
Others would be even less likely.
But Shion felt that the divine mysteries of the Great Unity Yin-Yang Creation Cultivation Mansion did not fully rest in the single method of concentrated light. When she further understood the Purple Mansion’s Dao practice, perhaps there would be new surprises.
Once the Mental Landscape was removed, the Disaster Control Bureau’s Magical Girls instantly exited their transformations.
Thanks to Shion’s special care, Azure Cloud Sect’s Magical Girls all safely retreated.
“That one isn’t a Mental Landscape!”
Gold Tea beside her blurted out anxiously, speaking with righteous indignation, “How could a Mental Landscape be like that...”
Shion naturally had no mood to indulge her. Having just ascended to universal cultivation and received the Purple Mansion, she had formally stepped into the Cycle Sea realm.
Now she was at the Cycle Sea half-step Flourishing Branches extreme Ultimate five-color flawless Lush Leaves peak Perfection stage.
She was only three steps away from Full Bloom. First stabilize the foundation after universal ascension, then open the cognitive sea, then seclude for a while...
This time Grain Abstention would be absolutely fine.
Although Bingtang had also first sent away their own Sect Master, seeing Gold Tea’s anxious expression,
once the Sect Master left, she still came over to ask, “What’s wrong? Is something off?”
“Her Personal Mental Landscape is abnormal, and inside her Mental Landscape we didn’t detect a Heart Image record.”
As she said this, tinkering with the device in her hand, Gold Tea suddenly froze.
“What’s wrong?”
Gold Tea glanced toward where Shion had left and then at the surrounding Magical Girls.
Because of Bingtang’s presence, she couldn’t even listen to other Magical Girls’ inner voices, which made her somewhat panicked. “In that person’s Mental Landscape, we didn’t detect the presence of any Magical Girls.”
Bingtang listened and confirmed, “What do you mean?”
“Ordinarily, inside a Mental Landscape there are observation devices to prevent the Mental Landscape from sending a Magical Girl into a weird space — Mental Landscapes can traverse space, so this is a safeguard. But inside the Mental Landscape Shion entered...”
Gold Tea lowered her voice, “we found no sign of any Magical Girls’ presence...”
A smile tugged at the corner of Bingtang’s mouth, but she tilted her head to glance at Gold Tea’s instrument.
“Is it malfunctioning?”
“Impossible. She was in there so long that space fluctuations even occurred — the Mental Landscape might have sent her to another space. From the fluctuations, when she came back the Mental Landscape’s time also didn’t match, which means the place she went to flows time differently from here...”
Bingtang fell silent a while and smoothed her hair, “Why would it be unobservable?”
“Do you know how Magical Girls are born?”
Bingtang frowned, “Personal Reality fused with everyone’s wishes, and the gathered miracle is a Magical Girl.”
“It’s like this — the most important thing is everyone’s wishes strengthening and altering the Personal Reality. Of course this also links to the Magical Girl’s Personal Reality itself, but the collective wishes are indispensable. You could say that a Magical Girl creates miracles because of everyone’s efforts, because of everyone’s prayers.”
Gold Tea walked toward the tower complex with Bingtang and explained, “There are no other people’s wishes in her Personal Reality. That’s why the Mental Landscape couldn’t detect her.”
Bingtang paused and then laughed.
That was very much Sect Master style.
“I don’t know how she became a Magical Girl, calling a miracle with only her own Personal Reality without receiving everyone’s wishes...
...By rights it’s impossible, because each person’s Personal Reality is very weak. It’s precisely because it’s mixed with everyone’s wishes, drawing power from them, that Magical Girls protect the people...”
“Your Sect Master,” Gold Tea hesitated, “not only lacks other people’s wishes, she even rejects others’ wishes.”
Absolute self that doesn’t understand others.
“My Sect Master is formidable, right.”
Gold Tea had expected Bingtang to panic and ask questions.
Instead the girl walking under her umbrella smiled proudly, as if showing off, “She has always been special.”
That wasn’t the point!
Gold Tea had thought Bingtang was one of the rare sane ones in Azure Cloud Sect, but it seemed she had been mistaken...
“Still, is that a problem?”
Hearing Bingtang finally ask that, Gold Tea relaxed and thought,
“The problem is, she cannot gain the support of others to call forth an unbelievable miracle...”
Gold Tea herself almost felt the statement unnecessary by the time she finished.
“Is that all?”
Bingtang twirled her umbrella and said, “Looks like no need to worry. My Sect Master was never favored by miracles from the start.”
Gold Tea scratched his head. “Well, generally speaking, becoming a Magical Girl is already a miracle...”
“Maybe for others, yes, but for my Sect Master it’s the result of effort, an inevitability.”
Bingtang said arrogantly, “A one-percent chance miracle is heterodox to her. What she needs is something she crafts with her own hands, a one-hundred-percent inevitability!”
Gold Tea wanted to argue but remembered the power Shion had displayed along the way.
For a moment he was speechless.
In the end he could only shake his head and sigh, “That road isn’t easy.”
Bingtang waved a hand and said sternly, her expression grave:
“The easy path is never the Emperor’s Path!”
Her words carried chill and grandeur!
While Gold Tea was still puzzled by what she meant,
Bingtang suddenly turned to Four Leaf and Six Leaf, “That line I just said scored high, make sure it’s recorded for the Sect Master to see.”
Four Leaf and Six Leaf immediately nodded.
The two opened their domains and replicated the earlier words.
Bingtang admired it for a long while and nodded, “Good, just the right feel, she’ll definitely like it.”
Gold Tea rolled his eyes and fell silent.
Truly, there wasn’t a single sane person in all of Azure Cloud Sect!
Then Bingtang asked, “Can we talk about matters concerning the Magic Kingdom now?”
...
On the way back, Shion had actually planned to leave directly.
After all, at the Central Bureau she was only interested in the Mental Landscape domain. Once her objective was met, she hadn’t intended to stay.
Bingtang and Gold Tea had plans to discuss, and she knew it concerned the Magic Kingdom. Whatever Bingtang wanted to negotiate, in the end it would probably come down to smashing the Magic Kingdom with Azure Cloud power.
Nobody currently knew where the Magic Kingdom was.
Rumor had it the Magic Kingdom suffered a severe attack before, took heavy losses, and finally sealed itself off. Outside a few special Magical Girls, nobody could find where it lay.
That junior who went unconscious, Qingluan, had her Miracle Seed inside the Magic Kingdom.
When a Magical Girl reaches Full Bloom and falls unconscious, the Miracle Seed is taken by the Magic Kingdom — the conspiracy inside looked significant.
But Shion wasn’t very interested in that now.
When Bingtang found the Magic Kingdom’s location, she would clear it out and help Qingying retrieve her senior’s Miracle Seed.
Though the damage brought by complete Full Bloom would make recovery hard even if the seed was reclaimed...
“Shi—Shion teacher...”
As she prepared to leave she was called by a familiar voice.
Looking back along the sakura-littered campus path, Keke stood with hands behind her back, glancing down at her feet.
“What is it?”
The words she wanted to say got stuck, she babbled a bit, and then instinctively said, “From now on don’t burn Silver Lotus’s sister to death again...”
Halfway through she covered her mouth, embarrassed.
Shion frowned, not understanding what she meant, “If there’s nothing, I’ll be going.”
“I—I want you to see my Mental Landscape!”
Shion thought a moment, then stopped and turned to look at her, “Okay.”
“Mental Landscape, unfold!”
Keke formed her hands as if cradling a ball; quickly it compressed into a small orb-shaped Heart Image in her palm.
“I—I just figured out that I can compress my Mental Landscape to this degree...”
Shion recalled how Mu Jin once stayed quiet for days, insisting Shion manually compress it. She felt relieved.
My Keke really does have the makings of a Great Emperor.
“Nicely done.”
Keke took a deep breath... she had been trying so hard just to hear Shion praise her.
After the praise she felt suddenly unsure what to do; seeing the teacher grow impatient, she reluctantly admitted her domain’s flaws, “But my domain only has extinction, all extinction, and it’s ordinary extinction—some parts are useless...”
Shion’s eyes brightened.
“Infinite Flame Domain!”
She even gently tapped Keke’s head, “Good, good, good!”
Repeating three goods in a row left Keke bewildered.
“Don’t be discouraged. The Infinite Flame Domain is very high in positional standing; it’s normal that it’s hard to master as a domain. If you study and practice diligently, don’t slack off, you’ll eventually become the Lord of the Infinite Flame Domain!”
Although dizzy from hearing it, Keke smiled foolishly because it was praise, then immediately sobered and nodded hard, “Keke will definitely work hard, teacher!”
Having received the compliment and made the promise, Keke turned to leave but then heard her teacher ask:
“What did you see in the Mental Landscape?”
Keke froze and then lowered her head, “I saw Mom and Dad, and big brother, but big brother looked fake. I kicked him and he broke...”
She had meant to hide her feelings so the teacher wouldn’t see her embarrassment.
Whenever she mentioned her parents she went quiet, acting childishly.
Shion only asked, “Do you miss your parents?”
Keke’s prepared long speech vanished, and after a long time she nodded.
“Because... there are still many things I didn’t say. It’s a pity. I miss them so much...”
“On the path of sacrifice,” Shion said faintly, “there is no regret.”
“Train well.”
She finished without attending further to Keke and leapt down from the Central Bureau’s isolated island.
Passing through the vast waterfall sky river and racing between heaven and earth, she glanced down at the ground.
Traffic below scuttled like ants, tall buildings looked like toy blocks.
As she flew farther from the Central Bureau, Shion gradually exited transformation state.
After Jiang Si’s magical outfit retreated, a pair of dragon wings unfolded from his back.
This too was the result of Witch Hunter Helen’s research.
Without transforming he could flexibly use the Calamity Dragon’s abilities; these wings made that more convenient.
Although he could also fly with Polluted Magic, these dragon wings far surpassed that in agility and speed.
He flew to a hidden stretch of river and finally folded the wings, slamming down to the ground with a roar.
Like a steamroller, he crashed along to the riverbank and just barely stopped.
He looked at his reflection in the river, pulled out his crystal ball while still masked.
He had contacted Xilan.
Xilan’s return message had been received earlier from the driver, and she was with the Prince now.
It removed a lot of trouble.
But when Jiang Si opened the crystal ball, he found it empty.
Only a few bloody words were revealed.
“Save me, Simo Tu!”
After confirming, the nearby river did indeed begin to part, exposing a hollow.
The entrance to a mirror space.
Jiang Si, already familiar with it, recognized at a glance that this was the Mirror Kingdom’s spatial technique.
Somewhat puzzled, he glanced at the crystal ball again. He vaguely felt an eye watching him inside, but didn’t pay it much heed and stepped into the mirror-space entrance.
What met his eyes was the small conference room where he had negotiated with the Mirror Kingdom Prince several times before.
The moment he stepped in, a few people appeared.
One was the driver, who revealed a ferocious and vicious expression. “You’re finally here! Simo Tu!”
Jiang Si looked at her for a long moment and asked, “Why are you a woman?”
The driver fell silent. “Why the hell are you my buddy?”
“Cough. Anyway, didn’t expect this, huh.” The driver tossed her head, letting long hair fall free, and her originally rough voice became a bit finer. “I’ve always been a woman! What, never seen a man dressing as a woman? The Witch Association does not allow powerful men to exist!”
“I just want to say the transformation was too stiff...”
“Cut the crap!” The driver said with a sinister edge, “Do you care if it’s stiff? Look at this!”
She turned and pulled out a cage.
Inside the cage lay the Prince, unconscious. “Be sensible. Hand over Iris’s Miracle Seed to us and we’ll let your old flame live...”
At that the driver froze for a moment, “Wait, don’t you already have Shion as a girlfriend? You’re two-timing her?”
The Prince in the cage frowned slightly, and the driver immediately straightened, “True, how could that fearsome, fierce little shorty Shion compare to an obedient Prince...”
“Where’s the obedience?”
Someone else shouted, “We’re asking if you’ll save Prince-sama! I’ll warn you, Prince-sama has been poisoned. Even if you kill us, Prince-sama will die. Hand over Iris’s Miracle Seed to save her...”
“You have no technique,” Simo Tu said coldly. “Even with Yingwei’s Miracle Seed you’d be useless.”
The old-driver laughed loudly, “Miscalculation, Simo Tu. We’ve long mastered mirror-space technology. Once the Miracle Seed is in our hands we can fabricate a perfect Full Bloom...”
“Then let’s cooperate.”
The mirror-space fell into dead silence.
The old-driver stammered for a while, then muttered, “Isn’t this your fiancée? Even if you have a girlfriend, a fiancée is important. If you cooperate with us...”
“You got caught? Pathetic. Cooperating with her gives no security.”
Simo Tu naturally replied, “Then cooperate with us.”
After a long silence, the old-driver cleared his throat, “Well, um, we don’t have security either...”
He gave Simo Tu a look. “Buddy, just save her, please, save her!”
“Fine, if you won’t cooperate, forget it.”
Simo Tu turned and began to walk away.
The Prince popped out of the cage in a flash.
“Come back here, Simo Tu!”