Chapter 354: Bai Jingxuan's Inspection

When Bai Jingxuan stepped into the examination hall with a hint of unease, what she saw was a space almost entirely decorated in white.

The floor, walls, and ceiling were a flawless, pure white, and even the lighting lacked the slightest hint of color. The room was filled with large pieces of equipment that looked to have unknown purposes and were currently in standby mode; their casings were all white, emitting a faint humming sound within this quiet space.

In the center of the hall stood two women dressed in white coats. Their gazes did not fall upon Bai Jingxuan as she entered; instead, the two women were looking down, tapping frequently on the light screens in front of them, seemingly recording something.

Bang.

The examination hall door closed behind Bai Jingxuan, and the perfectly timed noise caused the two people who appeared to be examiners to lift their heads.

"Examinee number, Thin Snow, is that correct?" one of them asked.

"...Yes." Bai Jingxuan stood at attention and replied.

"Mm, then we will now begin the inspection and evaluation of your Magical Armament. The first item is the inspection of your ability specifications; go to the instrument on the far left of the hall to register first."

The examiner who had spoken first reached out and pointed to the side of the room: "The operation is very simple. Manifest your Magical Armament, then stand still and wait for a minute to let the instrument scan it."

"Oh, okay."

Bai Jingxuan gave a simple response and then obediently walked in the direction the examiner had pointed.

She had no intention of asking anything more; if anything, she wished the examiner wouldn't pay too much attention to her. After all, she knew her own situation best; this assessment was likely the moment when the residual beast magic within her was most prone to exposure.

From the moment she set off from Fang Ting City until the assessment officially began, Cui Que had emphasized to her many times to be careful and hide herself. There had been many outside observers during the previous maze assessment, and this assessment surely had many eyes watching from the shadows. If she exposed something she shouldn't at this moment, she feared even Emerald would find it hard to clear her name.

Bai Jingxuan was very obedient, and she wanted to become a formidable magical girl, so she did not want to expose any problems. But the more she worried about gains and losses, the more incredibly nervous she became.

Admittedly, she had undergone sufficient study and training out of the need to hide the base color of her magic. Not only had she learned the technique of turbidity from Margaret while in Fang Ting City, but she had also been training spontaneously since arriving in the Kingdom. Theoretically, there should be no possibility of exposure for her now. But nervousness was often irrational, to the point that as she walked between the equipment, her toe accidentally kicked the sharp corner of an instrument, and she nearly fell on the spot.

This caused the examiners to cast their gazes toward her position.

Fortunately, they didn't pay too much attention; among the examinees participating in the assessment, there were plenty of people who appeared even more nervous than Bai Jingxuan—if anything, those who weren't nervous were the minority. So, they quickly refocused their attention on the data work at hand.

Bai Jingxuan walked sheepishly to the corner of the room and cautiously whispered "Tianyin," manifesting her Magical Armament.

Following Cui Que's suggestion, Bai Jingxuan had not swung her Magical Armament as a melee weapon for the past two months, mostly relying on magic to levitate it. At the same time, she had also begun to learn to apply Tianyin's abilities more into her combat. Although the difficulty of multitasking like this was not small, it had indeed caused the form of the Magical Armament to begin evolving in a positive direction.

Compared to two months ago, the appearance of the Magical Armament Tianyin had changed significantly. The most obvious point was that the support frame, which had almost turned into a hammer handle, had shrunk quite a bit. Looking at it now, it had returned to its original music box form rather than a hammer that could play music.

The instrument's scanning process went without a hitch. One minute later, the instrument in front of Bai Jingxuan lit up with a green indicator light, signaling that the data entry was complete. Along with this change, the examiner's voice also sounded from not far away:

"The magic activity is very strong, and the degree of manifestation of the original form is relatively low, but judging by the magic fluctuation field, your Magical Armament's ability specifications are not bad—at least level 3 or higher."

While checking the data on the light screen in her hand, the examiner asked: "What is your current Leaf rank?"

"Yes." Even knowing she had passed one hurdle, Bai Jingxuan still appeared quite reserved.

"To have a level 3 fluctuation field at the Leaf rank, and such a low degree of manifestation... incredible. It doesn't look like data that would appear on a single Magical Armament at all. Generally speaking, only group-type Magical Armaments would have values like yours."

The examiner continued to flip through the values, a hint of surprise appearing on her previously plain face: "No direct magic body interference phenomenon, but there is interaction and indirect influence. Is your Magical Armament's ability to apply status effects to yourself or others?"

"Yes."

"Interesting, interesting..." Judging by her demeanor, after hearing Bai Jingxuan's answer, this examiner had completely perked up.

"Excuse me, may I ask, what do all those terms you mentioned mean?" Seeing that the other party didn't seem to have discovered the problem with her, Bai Jingxuan's courage recovered a bit, and her curiosity naturally surfaced.

"Which terms?"

"The ones like magic fluctuation field, manifestation, and... catching snakes?" Bai Jingxuan said in a low voice.

"Oh, those are some technical terms in our profession; they are all indicators related to Magical Armaments. You children don't need to learn them."

The talkative examiner blinked, looked at Bai Jingxuan's reserved and cautious appearance, and showed a relatively kind smile on her face, not correcting or mocking the words that had clearly gone off-track in this "child's" repetition:

"However, I can explain the concept of a magic fluctuation field to you. Generally speaking, the concept of a magic fluctuation field is the 'depth of impact on the world.' If you find this explanation hard to understand, you can also directly understand this concept as 'the strength of the ability.'"

"The strength of the ability... is it?"

Bai Jingxuan repeated it: "Then, what is this so-called level 3?"

"For a magical girl whose ability is relatively at the average value, when she awakens her Magical Armament at the Bud rank and undergoes a period of training, her Magical Armament's fluctuation field will generally have a level 1 strength."

Perhaps because she had taken an interest in Bai Jingxuan's Magical Armament, the examiner was exceptionally patient: "By the Leaf rank, her fluctuation field will be level 2, while the Budding rank starts to fluctuate between level 3 and level 4, and the Flower rank will be around level 5 to level 6."

"Then, my level 3 means..."

"Mm, it's much stronger than the average person."

The examiner affirmed Bai Jingxuan's statement: "If anything, it's almost impossible to reach this level of fluctuation field at the Leaf rank unless your base magic color is different from ordinary people."

Her next sentence made Bai Jingxuan's hair stand on end instantly.

—"Or, looking at this data, there is no doubt that you must be a Deviant."