Chapter 139

The next morning.

At dawn, the sun rose as usual, still shining brilliantly, casting down its light.

The Fairy Kingdom's land once again welcomed daytime, bathed in the gentle radiance of the twilight hue.

However, with the arrival of this new day, this island still remained immersed in deep silence, quiet and still as if it had never awakened at all, but had always been sunk in soundless slumber, having lost the vitality and vigor of days past.

Of course, this silence is a completely understandable normal phenomenon.

After all, the once-in-a-millennium "Great Calamity" had just passed.

Immediately following came the sweeping "Great Purge".

Two waves of disaster arrived in succession, occurring simultaneously just yesterday — not to mention the rampant Moss that nearly filled the entire island; just the meteorites capable of annihilating the island's ecology, several fell in a single night, enough to sink the island under normal circumstances……

After the impact and baptism of two consecutive massive disasters, the Fairy Kingdom was already devastated, nine out of ten homes empty, living beings suffering, not even one in ten able to survive and breathe.

Humans, on the other hand, didn't have much to do with it, not because they were specially spared, but simply because they were never the mainstream to begin with. Although they truly are, besides the Fairies, the only other kind of intelligent creature in this Lostbelt World.

However, they naturally have hardly any "human rights" to speak of.

Just as people do not provide guarantees for their tools, nor believe their property has any independent autonomous rights. At this current stage, so-called humans are merely the slaves raised by Fairies, the tools and property manufactured by Fairies.

Their numbers have always been extremely scarce, which is why they are luxury goods.

The kind ordinary Fairies simply cannot obtain even if they seek them.

In the war against the Moss, they could barely participate at a small scale, serving as cannon fodder to be consumed for a wave. But in the face of the fully erupted Great Calamity, their main losses came even more from being slaughtered by Fairies gone mad.

Due to their originally extremely scarce numbers, and struggling on the brink of extinction, the impact of these two disasters on the overall human quantity was actually relatively limited.

As for the dominant creatures — the Fairy race, the shock they suffered was undoubtedly the greatest. In a thousand years of reincarnation and prosperity, they had already propagated sufficient numbers, on the scale of hundreds of thousands, even millions.

Although it doesn't sound huge, considering they are relatively high-level Phantasmal Species, and all live on the same island, such a quantity is already quite considerable.

However, a single massive disaster caused the Fairy numbers to plummet by seventy to eighty percent.

Now only a sparse few survivors remain, and currently these survivors are all in a state of being controlled.

The entire Britain Island naturally became abnormally silent, quiet and still.

—————

—————

On the ruins of the town.

Still in the original position, a new town "refreshed" into existence overnight. If it weren't built directly on the ruins, allowing one to see the destroyed broken walls and remnants, one might even feel it had never been destroyed.

Just this new town, rather than calling it a town……

It would be more accurate to say it is a temporary large prison.

The remaining surviving Fairies were all detained here, kept under strict guard. As for Aurora, the Wind Clan Chief who was the only one to survive after the various Clan Chiefs fell, she naturally took on the jailer's work.

From that soaring high tower at the town center, one could clearly see——

This Wind Fairy was currently running about the town very hard, wholeheartedly suppressing those stubborn Fairies who still refused to yield, a scene of bustling activity.

Of course.

Aurora herself definitely would not admit that she was acting as a jailer, exchanging survival by suppressing her own kin.

Perhaps she would still try hard to package herself, transforming into a glorious image of enduring humiliation and biding her time, exerting full effort solely to preserve the Fairy race, forced to sacrifice her own reputation.

Almost no need to suspect.

Aurora is exactly this kind of typical example, stick her butt up and you know she……

Cough cough, Xia Zhi cut off the subtle vulgar association, shook his head and no longer looked at the scenery outside the window, instead withdrawing his gaze, pondering for a moment, then continuing to quietly read the Magic Path Book Manuscript before him, while gently tapping the table with his hand.

After a while, he commanded a Feather Quill, which wrote rapidly in midair on the parchment.

The pen tip made a rustling friction sound, leaving line after line of text identical to his own handwriting on the paper surface.

The little nun's output during this period has been quite stable.

After all, she has always had a photographic memory; everything she has seen is firmly engraved in her memory. Therefore transcribing the contents of the Magic Path Books is not difficult; it's only a question of how long she can persist in copying in one go.

Compared to that——

Conversely, Xia Zhi's mastery speed is somewhat unable to keep up.

Researching Magic Path Books requires investing massive amounts of time and energy; it's not something you can just swallow whole without chewing, reading once and being done with it. Even if he can read through the text and understand it without difficulty, to say that counts as mastery is definitely unrealistic.

Although Xia Zhi's learning efficiency is already shockingly high, greedily absorbing all knowledge at an unprecedented speed, rapidly mastering the various "Abnormal Knowledge" and "Abnormal Laws" recorded in the Magic Path Books.

However, the massive volume of content, profound truths, obscure knowledge……

Still inevitably make him feel a headache when conquering them.

It's called magic, but the content recorded in the Magic Path Books is not some technique repeated through empiricism; it is equally precious knowledge that requires finding patterns, recognizing principles, and ultimately practicing to the essence of things.

The content on every Magic Path Book can be said to be the precious wisdom crystals researched by countless sages, predecessors, geniuses, and ordinary Wizards, in a world where that magic technique reached its pinnacle, developed to the extreme, throughout history too difficult to correctly measure.

Not merely pure knowledge and technique, but also the evolution of thought can be seen within.

Therefore mastering them through study is even more difficult.

The magic side has always had a saying: as long as one masters 103,000 Grimoires, one can possibly become a Magic God, yet no one has ever achieved it, because careful consideration reveals just how absurd this condition is.

Even if one could completely master one volume per week, it would still require 720,000 days……

That is nearly two thousand years of time to complete the Mission.

Two thousand years……

Tsk tsk, how many Wizards can smoothly live for two thousand years?

Xia Zhi couldn't help but sigh, immediately followed by what seemed like a sudden thought, becoming slightly absent-minded. He suddenly thought that he seemed to have always ignored this aspect, as if he had never considered his own lifespan problem.

It seems that unknowingly, he had already cultivated an immortal's mindset in this regard.

By the time he abruptly reacted, he had indeed already broken free of lifespan restrictions.

Crack——

At this moment, the door was opened.

Vivian's complexion looked somewhat tired as she stood outside.

"Let's go, I've roughly finished handling everything. Now let's find a place... I'll demonstrate the Holy Lance's magecraft for you." She gave the room's arrangement a casual scan, then locked her gaze onto Xia Zhi, speaking thus.

"Oh? Are you going to demonstrate directly?"

The youth blinked, standing up at the same time, and directly threw the Magic Path Book Manuscript he had been reading into the warehouse, and picked up the parchment he had just written.

"Yes, although I learned Rhongomyniad directly as magecraft, this Great Magic is actually very complex, so it's best to demonstrate it directly to you..." The girl nodded slightly, then thought for a moment and added:

"Or later I can first try to forge a Holy Lance; having a physical reference should be more intuitive."

"It's just that the production process isn't easy, consumption is enormous, and Britain Island's resources probably can't make even a few right now."

"......"

"......"

"Understood, understood. After all, it's this level of Divine Weapon; Vivian, you being able to scrape together twelve is already quite good."

Xia Zhi thought for a moment and also expressed agreement.

"However, since the entire island is the result of fairies reclaiming land from the sea, that means all resources of this Fairy Kingdom are essentially renewable resources, right?"

He walked out of the room while blinking his eyes, proposing a suggestion about sustainable over-exploitation: "Does that mean, as long as the technology for raising fairies in captivity is mature enough, we could actually achieve stable mass production of Divine Weapons..."

"Master——!!"

A voice containing an obviously displeased tone rang out.

The voice and tone were exactly the same as Vivian's, but it wasn't Vivian speaking.

Instead, it was another golden-haired girl, holding a stack of documents, appearing at the end of the corridor. She widened her eyes, quickly walked over, looked the youth up and down, and fiercely glared at the bad woman beside him.

"Please don't say such terrifying things..."

She had also been busy all night, and only now had time to bring her results over to report.

As a result, she hadn't expected that just as she went upstairs, she saw at a glance that Morgan, that bad woman, was conspiring with the Master about things that sounded hard to accept.

Raising fairies in captivity, treating them as renewable consumables to stably mass-produce Divine Weapons and such... are you devils?

"......"

"......"

Vivian calmly glanced at Artoria, not wanting to speak to her at all, but seriously thought it over, nodded, and responded: "Theoretically, this is indeed feasible. I will consider maintaining twelve Holy Lances and no longer increasing the quantity—"

"It was originally because of the issue of magical resource allocation. Using Holy Lances requires a huge amount of magical power. Otherwise, even if the quantity is large, if the magical power supply can't keep up, the intended effect cannot be exerted."

"But if the budget is increased in this aspect, magical power allocation in other aspects must be correspondingly reduced, which might very well affect the stability and survival of the Lostbelt. Even if magical power tax can be collected from all fairies, this is not unlimited..."

Vivian also had a bit of insufficient firepower phobia. In the Second Playthrough, to deal with the ancient gods awakening in the Great Void, she spared no effort in erecting twelve Holy Lances around, but this was not her limit.

If possible, she would definitely be very happy to continue increasing the number of Holy Lances.

—Power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

—The more Holy Lances she mastered, the more stable and unbreakable this Lostbelt would undoubtedly be.

But since after forging twelve Holy Lances, the number had always been maintained at that amount without continuing to increase, this showed it wasn't that she didn't want to, but that she couldn't... not that there weren't enough resources to forge Holy Lances, but that there weren't enough allocatable magical power resources.

"Then this time we can consider it more. You don't need to worry about the magical power issue. Even if the number of Holy Lances increases several times, I can easily bear it."

Xia Zhi stroked his chin, thinking seriously as he spoke.

A new playthrough should have a new atmosphere, and some new attempts should be made. If it's completely retracing old steps, simply replicating the old path from before, then there's no meaning to it.

"Master!"

Artoria was somewhat anxious. Were these two serious?

"Don't worry, Saber. I'm not so easily led astray by Vivian. This is just because I'm not a good person myself..." The youth smiled to comfort the little lioness, "But there's no need to worry. You'll soon agree with our view."

"How could it be! This is impossible!" Artoria denied outright. She wouldn't collude with Morgan.

"How could it not be possible? I plan to let you manage the fairies next. As long as enough time passes, you'll know what kind of beasts they are..."

Xia Zhi said with a smiling expression: "Right now you've only just come into contact with their ugliness, just this once, and it's not deep enough, so you don't agree with Vivian and my view. But time will prove everything!"

"Ugh..."

Artoria was both angry and anxious for a moment, but didn't know what to say. She could only stomp her feet angrily: "Anyway, I absolutely cannot agree to that kind of thing!"

After saying this, as if declaring her determination, she turned around and left directly.

"......"

"......"

"It seems she doesn't quite agree..." Vivian looked at him.

"Oh, that's nothing. If it really doesn't work, I'll try summoning that Darkening Artoria Alter." The youth's smile was very hearty, sunny like a devil: "Having competition brings motivation, anyway, they're all her."

"You want to increase the number of Artorias?"

The girl wasn't happy because she could see her foolish younger sister make a fool of herself. Instead, she narrowed her eyes and looked at him with a very suspicious gaze.

"Just saying... Alright, let's go prepare for the academic exchange now." Xia Zhi waved his hand with an unchanged expression, and at the same time stuffed the parchment he had just written into Vivian's hand. "By the way, look at this. It's also a plan I formulated for you."

"What?"

"That Magic Dragon. The preliminary plan to turn it into a temple symbolizing the Fairy Kingdom, suppressing Britain's Dragon Vein..." The youth said with a smiling expression. "Since we need to suppress the fortune, how about making it into a cauldron? Dragon Pattern Black Gold Cauldron?"

"Mm, not right. Sounds too much like cannon fodder..."

Just as he said it, he immediately denied that name, feeling it had no prestige.

(Chapter End)