Chapter 14: Evolution and Atlas

"Wow, so big."

Just after entering the door, this was Dorothy's first impression of this bookstore.

This was a standard witch shop. It looked small from the outside, but it actually had a hidden world inside. The exquisite "Space Extension Spell" expanded the space inside the shop by almost a hundred times. The neatly arranged bookshelves were like a forest, especially the bookshelves against the high walls, which created a feeling of a library.

No, it should be said that this was a library called a bookstore. The richness of the collection here had already exceeded the scope of an ordinary bookstore.

It was just that although the space was large and there were not a few customers in the shop, the overall environment was very quiet. No one was making noise inside. Even if there was communication, the customers were all leaning close and whispering.

This was partly because witches respected knowledge, but more likely it was awe of the legendary shop owner, the Sage.

Dorothy liked this kind of environment. She was originally a homebody who liked quiet and disliked movement, and as a witch on the Path of Omniscience, this feeling of being surrounded by knowledge in a sea of books was quite wonderful.

"Perhaps I shouldn't go into real estate in the future; opening a bookstore seems not bad either."

She thought to herself.

"Sister, let's go over there. The textbooks are over there."

Alice gently pulled her sleeve and pointed to a direction on the second floor, whispering.

As a witch on the Path of Omnipotence, she didn't really care about reading and studying. In her view, she only needed to know how to use the magic spells she needed. As for the principles of magic spells, forget it, it's fine as long as she can use them.

Therefore, Alice didn't have much interest in the bookstore. Just like Dorothy didn't have much interest in picking clothes, the little witch couldn't wait to run straight to the target, take the textbooks, and run.

She was a character who liked excitement and didn't like the stuffy and oppressive atmosphere of the library.

It was just that Dorothy wasn't in a hurry at all. Alice was running straight to the destination, while she was walking slowly, looking at the bookshelves on both sides, wanting to see if there were any books she was interested in.

"Eh..."

Her gaze swept across the bookshelf beside her, and she stopped. A book on this bookshelf caught her attention.

"Detailed Explanation of Witch Bloodline Talent Specialty Evolution Pedigree."

The reason why witches could obtain their current status actually had a lot to do with the race's powerful evolution ability. They could always evolve themselves according to needs. For example, if they were burned by fire today, their fire resistance would evolve. If they were almost drowned by water tomorrow, they might soon master the ability to breathe underwater like a fish.

Even if they saw birds flying and felt envious, wishing they could grow a pair of wings to soar in the sky, then as long as this belief was strong enough, the witch might finally grow a pair of bird-like wings.

The early witches relied on such evolution power to survive difficulties step by step and gradually grew up.

It was just that the evolution of that time was called "learning from nature" to put it nicely, or "blindly evolving randomly" to put it bluntly, thinking of evolving wherever they wanted, completely without a system. But today, this evolution ability had long been thoroughly studied by witches and could be controlled by themselves.

This "cheat-like" evolution ability also needed to be paid for with mana as the price, or rather, this was originally a manifestation of mana being omnipotent. It was just that the cost of such evolution was not simple mana, but "mana cap."

To use common game terminology, this was not burning "blue amount," but burning "blue bar length."

But the growth of mana cap was very difficult, so the number of evolutions a witch could have in a period of time was actually limited.

Then, looking at it this way, things like breathing underwater that could be solved with a simple magic spell were completely unnecessary to evolve specifically. This kind of low-value evolution was simply a huge waste.

There was no way around this. Early witches were limited by their vision. They could only come into contact with and learn from some wild beasts in nature. The abilities they evolved, such as "bear's strength," "leopard's speed," and "eagle's eyes," also had limited potential.

But now, witches' vision was too broad. The supernatural races in the multiverse were all targets for them to learn and imitate, especially the three old disaster races.

Angels, demons, dragons—these disaster races were simply the best templates for witches' evolution. Many witches specifically evolved in the direction of these three major races.

Of course, as a near-god race, those three major disaster races were not so easy to pirate. For a witch to start from scratch and become a disaster race through evolution, the mana required was too much. Generally, only witches on the Path of Omnipotence could afford this consumption. This process of constant self-evolution was originally the main way for witches on the Path of Omnipotence to become stronger.

Fortunately, this evolution power was not one-time, and the results of evolution could be inherited through bloodline. So, if ordinary witches couldn't finish evolving, they would pass the goal to the next generation, and the descendants would work hard generation after generation. One day, they would be able to reach that goal.

Many relatively traditional and closed witch families walked this path.

Generally speaking, the evolution ability that a witch inherits from her parent witches is called "Talent." A witch will inherit at least one talent from each of her parents, while a witch with excellent talent may inherit multiple talents from her parents.

As for the abilities that a witch evolves by herself later, they are called "Specialty."

Besides the different names, there is no difference between Talent and Specialty. If one had to say, Talent brought from the womb would be slightly stronger than Specialty acquired later because it is more compatible with the witch herself.

In short, witches have basically thoroughly studied their own race's evolution ability. They have even developed a specialized evolution ability atlas, thoroughly studying the supernatural powers possessed by the supernatural races they have come into contact with in their conquests over the years and registering them in the book.

They also divided these abilities into different levels according to their strength, which are N, R, SR, and SSR from low to high. Naturally, the higher the level, the stronger the ability, but correspondingly, more mana cap is required to evolve.

And the name of that book is "Detailed Explanation of Witch Bloodline Talent Specialty Evolution Pedigree."

This is knowledge that witches on the Path of Omnipotence must learn. For witches on the Path of Omniscience like Dorothy, it doesn't matter.

After all, witches on the Path of Omnipotence rely on Talent and Specialty to be strong, and magic is just auxiliary. But witches on the Path of Omniscience rely more on knowledge and magic, and Talent and Specialty are auxiliary.

She had heard the name of this book before, but she hadn't really read it. But now that she happened to encounter it, she felt a guidance of fate in the dark, and her hand reached out uncontrollably.

Then her hand touched another hand. It seemed that she was not the only one who had taken a fancy to this book.

Dorothy suddenly woke up from that state of being "bewitched." She turned her head and looked beside her.

A pure white girl broke into her line of sight. ===== CHAPTER 15 =====