novelraw Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 1: The Unextinguished Embers
“Thud!”
A stack of bread as hard as bricks was slammed onto the wooden stall, kicking up a cloud of flour and dust.
The long street was crowded, with merchants’ cries woven together with the neighing and braying of livestock.
Under the blazing sun, the black-haired girl raised her head. Her pale golden eyes were bright like a cat’s, yet the tiny tear mole beneath the corner of her right eye added a few sharp edges to her delicate appearance.
Her black dress had turned whitish and fuzzy from wear; the hem had already been patched several times. The brim of the wide witch hat on her head drooped slightly, and the bronze badge on her chest, symbolizing a witch apprentice, glittered in the sunlight.
“Two Copper Deer,” the vendor said coldly, his palm pressing down hard on the bread.
The girl laughed in disdain. “Two? The price is exactly the same, but it’s a whole size smaller than the ones in the next town! Mister, I know your bread’s as hard as a hammer, but even a blacksmith selling hammers wouldn’t cheat people on weight like this!”
The surrounding crowd burst into laughter, and someone muttered in a low voice, “Hey, dressed like that… she’s a witch, right? How is she so poor she has to haggle with a bread vendor?”
“Shh! Keep it down! Careful, or she’ll burn you bald with one fireball!”
But as if she had heard none of the idle gossip around her, the girl flicked that one Copper Deer between her fingers with a crisp “ding.” “Take it or leave it. Otherwise, I’m gone.”
The vendor glared at her for a long while, but in the end he sighed and pushed the bread over.
She lifted her chin in triumph, cradled the hard black bread in her arms, and turned to leave the market.
A month had already passed, and Lina had more or less adapted to this new identity.
Like in many transmigration novels, in her previous life, Lina had spent an hour traversing the map in a game, only to see the message that the door could not be opened from this side and die on the spot from sheer rage; then she was reincarnated into the world of the game she had been playing before death.
The game was called ‘Embers’, an ultra-realistic fantasy ARPG.
And so she began a magnificent adventure in this world.
Her previous-life identity, “Lavinia,” had originally been her fully maxed-out game account. After reincarnating, she had followed the template of an overpowered chosen heroine, cutting down everything in her path all the way to the final boss’s doorstep.
As the “Witch of Stars,” first among the Ten Great Witches, she slew the final boss established in the game’s setting, the Shadow of Embers, and successfully resolved the apocalyptic crisis.
Then, on some year, some day, some month, the other nine Great Witches suddenly joined forces and stabbed her in the back, causing her to die on the spot.
Thus ended Lavinia’s legend, and thus began Lina’s story.
However, in her second playthrough, she had ended up on an NPC’s account instead—a lonely little apprentice witch who had died suddenly from staying up all night studying.
The point in time she was currently in was Year 1876 of the New Calendar, which was also fifty years after her death in her previous life. Society was in the middle to late stages of the Industrial Revolution—except that the industrial revolution here was guided by magitech, and was therefore also called the Magitech Revolution.
The country she was in was called Kobelen, a constitutional monarchy with flourishing commerce and trade, located in the coastal region of the far northwest.
She lived in Oserlo, a border town at the junction between Kobelen and another country, Solennam.
The original owner’s father and mother had once been in the fur business. On a rainy night, the magitech freight train carrying goods derailed and overturned; of the entire train, only the mother survived.
After that, the mother’s temperament changed drastically. She often beat and cursed the original owner, and even incited her younger brother to bully her. In the end, the mother abandoned the original owner and took away only the younger brother, who had better magical talent.
The little girl sold off everything that remained in her home and began teaching herself magic. Although her aptitude was abysmal, through sheer diligence and hard work she still passed the witch apprentice exam and obtained the qualification to take the E-rank witch test.
Next, she only needed to pass the Witch Association’s witch qualification exam to advance to an E-rank witch and find a job enough to keep herself alive.
However, the Witch Association’s certification included not only a magic exam, but also an academic assessment.
For a little country girl like her who could not afford a professional tutor, the academic subjects were even harder than practical magic.
And so, on the night before the exam, she studied herself to death from overwork.
What drove Lina to despair most was that the next witch rank certification exam was still a whole month away!
What the hell, which little darling came up with this rule for academic exams?
And this nonsense of holding one exam every month—how could a godforsaken little town like this possibly have that many candidates for you to organize a unified exam? Wouldn’t it be better to let people take it whenever they arrived? Wasn’t this just a complete waste of resources?
“Smack——”
A lump of bird droppings fell in front of her feet.
Several black lines appeared on Lina’s face.
Oh, right, she remembered. “I” was the one who set that rule, never mind...
That was right, all of these rules had been things she came up with on a whim in her previous life.
Now Lina only wanted to give her former self two hard slaps across the face. The sins she had committed in her previous life had finally turned into the suffering she was enduring now.
However, what Lina found strange was that ever since she began her second playthrough, she had never heard any information whatsoever related to “Lavinia”.
All the various roles she had played in history in her previous life had been replaced by other people, and there was not a single record concerning the information about the endtime crisis.
Lina guessed that perhaps some other Witch Association had erased that information. A behemoth of that scale definitely had some means of accomplishing such a thing.
The only fortunate thing was that Lina had not been starting entirely from scratch either.
In her previous life, she had basically figured out the rules of the world: aside from NPCs and monsters possessing the ability to think, there was no difference at all between this world and the logic inside “Embers”.
Not only was there no real difference in how characters were built, even the “bugs” that could be exploited in the game were exactly the same.
In her previous life, she had exploited quite a few of those little loopholes. On top of that, she had mastered all kinds of broken carry weapons to perfection, and all sorts of bizarre cheese strategies had been carved deep into her soul.
But in this life, Lina did not want to be as high-profile as she had been in her previous life, nor did she have any plans for revenge—
She only wanted to find an easy job, then live out her life in peace and security.
The life of her previous life had never felt particularly real to her. Much of the time, she felt as though she had still merely been “playing a game”.
With her rebirth, many memories from her previous life had already become completely blurred, especially that stretch of memory after defeating the final BOSS.
She could only vaguely recall that after the Shadow of Embers was killed, it dropped some kind of special item... As for what happened after that, she remembered nothing at all.
In order to achieve her mission objective, she had stopped at nothing, offended quite a few people, and really had done many “bad things”.
Maybe she had offended one of the other nine witches somewhere, and then gotten stabbed in the back by one of her “good sisters” taking the opportunity?
But this time was different. Even if she had done quite a few bad things in her previous life, she had at least brought about an “age of peace and prosperity”. In this life, there was no need to think about any endtime crisis. She only needed to quietly be a happy little commoner.
It was just... sleeping on the streets for a month and gnawing on potatoes and black bread for a month really did not count as ‘enjoyment’...
Lina walked out of the noisy marketplace and looked up at the sun.
That warm star hung high above the vault of heaven, as though it had never gone out.
A two-meter-tall magitek walker strode past her with heavy footsteps. Its brass-colored alchemical shell reflected the glaring sunlight, and the “Witch Association” emblem on its chest was especially eye-catching.
Rows upon rows of closely packed houses stretched all the way to the end of the road. Towering cylindrical alchemical blast furnaces and ring-shaped leyline magic extraction towers stood in the industrial district in the northern part of town, and now and then, streaks of colorful radiance could still be seen flashing across the sky above the park.
Magitek really was great—harmless and pollution-free, and even alchemical waste could be reused... At the very least, stepping outside would not mean taking a big gulp of PM2.5.
She withdrew her gaze, steadied herself, and silently recited in her heart, “Display panel.”
Username: Lina
Class: Witch Apprentice
Magic Level: LV12
Magic Attribute: Fire
Money: 2 Silver Lions, 7 Copper Deer
Armor: Academy Witch Hat (Head) Academy Witch Robe (Torso) Academy Witch Boots (Feet)
【Set Effect Activated (3/3): Magic Damage +5% Magic Damage Reduction +5% (Enhanced Affix: None)】
Accessories: None
Weapon: Black Bread Stick 【Physical Attack +5】
Magic: Fireball Divination
Character Attributes:
Physical Attack: 6 Magic Attack: 20 Physical Defense: 5 Magic Defense: 15 Health: 10
Overall Combat Power Rating: 15 (D-)
Good grief, this black bread really was a weapon!
“Extra, extra! …My lady witch, would you like a copy of the latest newspaper?”
A newsboy’s voice pulled her thoughts back to reality.
After thinking it over, Lina still spent one Copper Deer to buy a newspaper.
Even living in a humble hut, one still had to know the affairs of the world. In this era, information was always the most valuable thing.
Her gaze was immediately drawn to the banner headline on the front page: “Koberen Fifth Army Group Conducts Strategic Withdrawal, Evacuates the Solent Wetlands.”
Oh, Koberen had been defeated again. Then again, maybe they just raised the white flag the moment the enemy showed up... Lina had lived through two lifetimes and had never once seen that country win a single war.
“Elekmiya Mining Company Declares Bankruptcy, Remaining Assets Taken Over by Skyland Group.”
“Roniat Shipping Company Stock Soars! Thirtyfold Increase in a Single Year! Another stock market miracle is born following Skyland Group!”
This... when I died back then, the stock market had only just been established, and now they were already playing this wild?
“Koberen Central Bank Announces Another Interest Rate Cut! Investors’ opportunity has arrived! Your chance to get rich overnight is today!”
“Shocking—A legendary antiquity reappears deep within the Sadal Desert! Experts identify it as the scepter of the Third Pharaoh King!”
Tsk, some lucky bastard had dug up treasure again. Now they would not have to worry about food or clothing for the rest of their life... Hopefully tomorrow’s paper would expose it as a fake.
Lina flipped the newspaper over to the other side.
“Solennam’s Lies: A New Sea Route of Bloodshed and Deceit!”
Ah, another classic round of smearing a neighboring country. Seeing Solennam mass-produce magitek ironclad warships, Koberen could no longer sit still.
“The Fifth World Exposition will be held in the capital, Syngra, with more than 200 enterprises and 7 countries participating...”
The World Exposition? What was that now? Looks like it was something new that came out after I dropped dead...
“Soar through the nine heavens, seek the Way in the firmament! The Jade Palace Republic invites you to join the Nine Heavens Project!”
Hoh? Jade Palace’s recruitment ads had actually reached all the way here? It seemed like they were trying to build some kind of magitek aircraft capable of breaking through the atmosphere...
Wait, this young lady was quite easy on the eyes!
“Ms. Hepburn, starring actress of ‘Valentia Holiday’, announces she will play the lead in the new film ‘Blue Rose’!”
The black-and-white mimeographed photo was not clear, but it was still enough to tell that she was an exceptionally elegant and stunningly beautiful woman.
Looks like the films I made on a whim back then because I was bored had become popular too... Mm, this actress was really pretty!
Tsk, I actually looked pretty good in this life too. Once I got my witch certification, should I consider breaking into the film industry as well?
“Witch Association Notice: From September 5 to 7, the Association plans to hold E-rank, D-rank, and C-rank witch qualification exams in various locations across Koberen. All candidates are requested to proceed to their registered test sites to take the exams. We wish everyone success in the examination. (Note: All candidates are requested to bring tools and equipment officially certified by the Witch Association. For any questions, please read the examination rules.)”
Ah, right, the witch exam... Thankfully, she had learned Divination just in time before the exam!
Divination, rarity E. After reaching magic level ten, one could acquire it by meditating for two hours a day for one week.
Divination could predict the course of many uncertain events, such as the danger level of combat, the location of high-value items, and so on. As the character’s level increased, the results of divination would also become clearer and clearer.
In the game, this spell not only helped players efficiently plan their development route, it could also directly let them skip many puzzle stages, and was hailed as one of the four great early-game crutches.
As long as she had this magic, the practical portion of the test would be a piece of cake!
Hehe, once I pass this exam, the gates to a happy life will swing open!
Lina folded up the newspaper, hummed an off-key little tune, and confidently walked toward the Witch Association at the end of the road.