The Cornflower Witch

Book 2: Chapter 63: The Metamorphosis of Life

Vol 2 Chapter 63: The Metamorphosis of Life

In the academy office, Seraph inspected the spell models submitted by the two girls and had each of them demonstrate once.

"Not bad, both completed very well, especially Sylutia." Seraph nodded.

"Your foundation in runes, it seems you have mastered them proficiently." The two young girls exchanged a smile.

"Next, your goal is to consolidate your current abilities and prepare to step into the Third Tier."

"So soon?" Sophitina was somewhat surprised.

"It's not early." Seraph shook his head, then stood up.

"The Third Tier is the first major hurdle Transcendents face. Many people remain stuck here their entire lives, unable to advance an inch."

"It is different from the past where one only needed to accumulate Aspect power and upgrade Ability Cards. Stepping into the Third Tier is equivalent to forging a path in a place where there is no road at all."

He walked to one side of the room, pulled out a scroll, opened it, and hung it on the wall. It depicted the form of a living being's Fate Plate using intricate, retro-style patterns."The Fate Card surrounded by three phases, this is the foundation of all life, ensuring the stable continuation of life, but also a kind of shackle, restricting further breakthroughs upward."

"Entering the Third Tier means, on the original Fate Plate, slowly opening up a brand new card slot from scratch and coordinating to accommodate it. This is the path created by the Fairies during the Fifth Epoch, later popularized to all living creatures."

"Before this, many beings also tried different ways to step into the Third Tier." He turned around to explain to the two.

"You should have heard the legend of the Hellhound, this three-headed monster is precisely a legend from the fourth epoch, the 'Star-Beast Epoch'."

"At that time, the 'Star-Gazing Beasts', baptized by information and knowledge from other worlds, gradually awakened their intelligence. They didn't know how to break through the limitations of the Third Tier, so they could only crudely grow larger bodies, devour food, accumulate through sheer quantity, until their Fate Cards were strong enough to expand the Fate Plate, revealing positions for six Ability Cards."

"Of course, knowledge from other worlds also brought many insane actions. For example, the same species of 'Star-Gazing Beasts' would attempt to fuse with each other, connecting their Fate Cards together to construct a unified monster."

"In that era, one could see many 'multi-headed monsters', 'fusion monsters', such as the Hellhound, the Hydra, the eight-legged giant horse, the Chimera—a monster fused from a lion, a goat, and a snake—the Griffin with an eagle's head and lion's body, and so on."

"Even now, there still circulates a certain 'Fusion Ritual', allowing originally low-tier monsters to fuse with each other to advance, achieving the goal of becoming stronger."

"This advancement method pioneered in the Fairy Epoch was originally called 'Metamorphosis'. The 'Core Card' opened up in this way, like a silkworm cocoon or a cicada's shed skin, protects the Fate Card, becoming its sturdiest armor and weapon. It is the shell of the Fate Card, and also the external world's evaluation and impression of you."

"Later, we concretized this evaluation and impression into 'Profession', 'progression path', representing your current achievements and experiences."

"A progression path not only allows you to gain power, it also represents your way of life, and will in turn shape your personality, your concepts, just as the 'cocoon' dissolves the larva inside, transforming it into a completely new individual."

This scholar's explanation, progressing from the simple to the profound, step-by-step explained how history developed and the differences between past and present advancement methods, making the two girls feel stirred with emotion, their thoughts many.

"When life is weak, it will instinctively seek the protection of a shell. Similarly, during the period of Tiers 1-4, life also needs to condense a certain 'progression path', to manifest its own value and advantages, to obtain the chance to survive. As for the 'complete freedom of life's will' that some people anticipate, I'm afraid only Seventh Tier life would have the ability to achieve that." Seraph explained the advancement process like a large tree slowly growing.

After the lesson ended, Sylutia and Sophitina walked side by side as they left, discussing advancement matters along the way.

"The direction I've chosen is the same as Father's, a scholar of the 'Secret Word' Aspect. The Core Card I need to construct is the 'Tome of Vast Knowledge'. This requires me to study and comprehend a great deal of knowledge, to integrate and thoroughly understand this knowledge, constructing a systematic cognition of this world. This way, in the future when facing any problem, I can seek the source and answer from within the 'Tome of Vast Knowledge'."

"The advancement of scholars is generally not fast, like droplets of water, requiring the accumulation of knowledge and experience. But the advantage is that it's relatively stable, with little danger, and also consumes fewer resources."

"Tia, are you planning to choose the path of the 'gardener'? I've heard the manor advancement method of the 'Four Seasons Alliance' requires a large amount of rare resources to construct the ecological cycle of the manor."

"Mm, I've heard that too." Sylutia nodded.

Her current goal is still to follow the 'gardener' path, though she won't abandon the 'Luminous Moon' Aspect either, it's just of lesser priority.

"The 'Spring Garden' of the Four Seasons Alliance can create a stable environment of perpetual spring, used to cultivate delicate plants. The 'Summer Garden' can provide intense energy, used to cultivate plants with extremely high demands for nutrition and energy. The 'Autumn Garden' can be used to cultivate plants specifically for bearing fruit, greatly increasing yield. The 'Winter Garden' can provide extreme environments, used to cultivate those rare plants with peculiar temperaments."

"Tia, which one are you preparing to choose?"

"Probably the 'Autumn Garden'." The girl brushed the hair beside her ear as she spoke.

"Autumn? I thought with your personality, you'd choose the 'Spring Garden'."

"It's not that I dislike spring, but my personality might lean more towards the unfettered and tranquil autumn." Sylutia blinked, explaining with a smile.

The purity of spring, the fervor of summer, the unfettered nature of autumn, the serenity of winter. Aside from the fervor of summer, she rarely possesses such personality traits;

she has a bit of the others. It's just that she's a bit more practical, liking fruit more than flowers.

Time passed leisurely. Only two months remained before Sylutia would leave the Glittergold Plains.

...

'Evil Wolf Wilderness'

Under a gloomy sky, wild grass spread everywhere, gray-white wolf-tail grass swaying, stretching to the horizon's end.

On the earth at the edge of the wilderness, a giant wolf was locked in a fierce battle with the young man before it. Among its flying mane were wounds deep enough to see bone. The young man opposite also had his clothes soaked in blood, the hilt gripped in his two hands sticky with thick blood.

Agren's gaze was fixed intently on his opponent as he wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth.

He roared and lunged forward again, his figure leaving afterimages in the cold wind as he dodged the giant wolf's fangs. Then, with a hair's breadth of danger, he grabbed the other's mane, used the force to pivot his body, flipped onto its back, then whirled the blade and plunged it into the wolf's neck, bringing forth a great spray of blood.

This blood, steaming hot, sprayed out. Then the blade grew scalding hot, glowing red like a branding iron, constantly steaming, igniting crimson flames.

Afterwards, the giant wolf fiercely rolled over, throwing Agren off in an instant. Then its massive paw swiped, clawing him down, its maw biting into his body, fangs piercing through his shoulder bone.

At this critical moment, Agren's two hands desperately forced apart the giant wolf's upper and lower jaws, preventing them from closing.

If those sharp teeth interlocked, they would surely tear his body apart. This was his final chance to survive.

"Ahhhh—" The muscles on Agren's body bulged, boiling blood circulating within. At this moment, he pushed the 'Bloodline' Aspect to its extreme, white smoke rising all over his body.

And so, his arms trembling, he held the wolf's jaws apart for nearly ten minutes. During this time, the giant wolf constantly shook its head, trying to tear him apart. Then, due to its own blood loss, it finally slowly weakened.

Several minutes later, the giant wolf died. A figure covered in blood and grime slowly crawled out from the wolf corpse. He used his knife to cut off the giant wolf's head, bare-chested, dragging the massive wolf head as he walked into the distance. The trail of dark red blood left behind slowly dried under the bleak blue sky.