Chapter 17: Crimson Lotus Activation

Mulee Hua placed the small black case on the ground, then squatted down.

She pressed a thumb against the latch on the box. With several soft clicks, the black case sprang open on its own.

Votila felt a wave of cold air wash over them. The small case was billowing with white mist.

Inside, Votila saw transparent crystal shards neatly stacked, shimmering with iridescent colors under the direct sunlight.

‘These are all crystal scrolls, and so many of them,’ Votila mused.

They remembered Mulee Hua taking nearly half an hour that morning just to produce five. The crystal scrolls in this small case, however, surely numbered in the four digits.

‘Hmm… if converted to money, that would be close to hundreds of thousands of silver coins.’

A hint of hesitation clouded Mulee Hua’s face. After opening the case, she made no further moves.

‘What’s wrong with this girl now?’ Votila nudged the young woman’s face with their tail, urging her to snap out of it.

From a distance, Gasla’s pained howl echoed towards them.

“Ah…” Mulee Hua sighed softly. “If I had any other choice, I truly wouldn’t want to use this…”

“But there’s no other good way,” Mulee Hua’s eyes regained their resolve. She gently tapped the edge of the case.

“Crystal Array Matrix: Row and Column Expansion!”

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

One by one, crystal shards shot out of the case, like a celestial maiden scattering flowers. Thousands of streaks of light soared into the sky, endlessly spreading and crisscrossing in mid-air.

Then, the shards neatly aligned themselves, forming a colossal crystal screen. It resembled a transparent, shimmering nebula, slowly hovering before Mulee Hua.

The sheer impact of the sight left Votila momentarily dazed.

“Three thousand crystal scrolls…” Mulee Hua lamented, her face contorted with heartache. “My one and a half million silver coins…”

Votila could sense the obscure yet potent magic contained within this crystal screen. It was an accumulation of magic from three thousand crystal scrolls, flowing evenly and steadily across its surface.

Mulee Hua took a deep breath, relaxing her mind. She raised both hands, lightly touching the crystal screen with her index finger, causing ripples to spread across its surface as if it were water.

‘How beautiful,’ Votila marveled. ‘This is the purest and most pristine magical fluctuation, clear as water.’

The young woman’s index finger gently glided across the crystal screen, outlining symbol after symbol and pattern after pattern. With her movements, countless starlight points on the screen flickered and shone.

‘This girl?’

‘She’s directly inputting a spell program by hand on the source of magic?’

Votila watched Mulee Hua with a strange gaze.

Mulee Hua was not a Archmage; she possessed no magic. Even now, Votila couldn’t detect even a trace of magic from her.

It was a consensus among all races on the continent that magic could not be used without it. Though Votila didn’t know why, everyone accepted it as fact.

The crystal screen before Mulee Hua bore a massive amount of magic. After an unknown period, the screen was densely covered with various symbols and characters.

With the young woman’s final stroke, the last blank area on the crystal screen was also filled.

“Hoo…” The young woman exhaled slowly, rubbing her wrist.

Votila knew that the most crucial part was now at hand: how would she, utterly devoid of magic herself, convert the written arithmetic and programs into a spell model?

Having completed her preparations, Mulee Hua raised her hand and lightly tapped the empty space. The entire crystal surface gently rippled.

The runes and programs she had written slowly twisted and were absorbed by the crystal screen.

‘Magic is being mobilized?’ Votila couldn’t comprehend it; this was entirely different from their understanding of magic.

Like two sudden bursts of hurricane, the young woman’s hand gestures transitioned from extreme stillness to extreme motion, tracing paths across the crystal screen that Votila could not understand.

If Votila’s vision hadn’t been exceptionally keen, they would have struggled to make out the young woman’s hand movements.

If her actions while writing the runes had been like a gentle breeze and fine rain, her subsequent movements were akin to a violent storm.

Each of the young woman’s movements caused a pulsation on the crystal screen’s surface, mobilizing the magic to operate in an unknown manner.

“Command input, spell model established.”

“Equation computation complete, spell model construction confirmed.”

“Magic channel structure stable, command confirmed!” Mulee Hua took another deep breath, then shouted towards Gasla in the distance, “Gasla! Emergency evasion!”

“Awooo!” Gasla, who was locked in a fierce struggle with the black behemoth, immediately broke free from its entanglement upon hearing the command.

He dug his claws into the earth with all four limbs and turned to flee, leaving the black behemoth to stare at him in confusion.

Mulee Hua raised her slightly trembling hand and, with all her might, drew a line across the crystal screen before her. “Crimson Lotus Spell, activate!”

The flowing light on the crystal screen rapidly dissolved.

Boom! A muffled thunderous explosion ripped through the forest.

A crimson, lotus-like pillar of fire erupted, completely engulfing the monster. A wave of heat spread outwards, instantly incinerating nearby trees into charcoal, and causing steam to billow from the lake’s surface.

Centered on the monster, a dazzling, scorching, colossal lotus, crystal clear and translucent, slowly formed, rotating. Substantial flames composed its petals, enclosing the black monster within its core.

The black monster’s fur had already turned to char the moment the crimson lotus formed.

As the petals closed one by one, the temperature of the flames intensified, becoming like a miniature sun, blindingly bright and incinerating everything within its grasp.