Chapter 45: Cha Bao’s Magic Development Concepts

She didn’t start by raising a shield; instead, she first hid a set of multi-dimensional arcane traps. With a wave of her staff, she unleashed a mid-level environmental spell called “Corrupted Quagmire,” which carried multiple effects like slow and curse.

With one hand, she fired a volley of lightning bolts that connected in parallel, reforging the thunder’s radiance. In the blink of an eye, her eyes formed a spell model, and she initiated a preemptive mental assault.

Chanting aloud, skeletal claws emerged from the undead knight trapped in the quagmire, while countless spikes erupted into the air beneath her right foot.

Finally, she used a force-melding spell to harness the scattered magic and delivered a brutal blow to Lina.

This was Jiang Cha’s current combat style.

Her entire set of casting actions was completed within three seconds. Others needed carefully calculated spell models, but for the girl, no preparation was needed—it came effortlessly, even casually.

“Cha Bao, can you even cast spells with your ass!?” Lina shouted, sluggish and slowed, cursed with slow casting, magic weakening, and interruption. She spread her dragon wings and flipped in mid-air, tearing apart lightning with a claw and smashing the spikes with a kick. She wielded a flaming greatsword, struggling to charge forward, nearly catching the fleeing girl.

But unexpectedly, a “Hurricane” spell model appeared from Jiang Cha’s enticing rear like a fart, forcefully bouncing her back, just triggering the arcane trap set at the start—her mindset immediately collapsed.

“Isn’t a spell model supposed to be cast anywhere it’s drawn?”

Jiang Cha, in full power mode, didn’t get Lina’s complaint and kept attacking without hesitation.

Her staff lightly tapped forward, firing a thick beam of magical light directly at the golden-haired girl trapped in arcane chains.

But that wasn’t enough.

This little dragon girl was tough and resilient; one arcane light beam wouldn’t take her down.

So…

[Enhanced Casting] + [Exploding Fireball] + [Water Stream Cannon] + [Sword of Judgment] + [Elemental Burst]

She unleashed a combo that instantly evaporated and overloaded Lina.

When the little dragon girl fell out of the explosion, her face was blackened, and her dragon scales were all tattered and torn.

“Dirty, so dirty.”

The resurrected Lina cursed and muttered as she looked at the girl who barely suffered anything except magic exhaustion.

“Why would you ruin a perfectly good turret combat style like this, not even using a shield? This is the first time I’ve seen a turret like that, Cha Bao!”

“Ahahaha~”

The girl scratched her head awkwardly and smiled sheepishly, “If I use a shield, the casting cycle slows down by 0.3 seconds, giving you an opening.”

Though Jiang Cha just completely dominated Lina, even a 0.1-second opening would be deadly for her.

No way around it—Lina had far more combat experience, and her traits and magical power strength were beyond Jiang Cha’s.

“Jiang Cha-chan is already stronger than me.”

He Qin gently handed drinks to the two, smiling softly.

“Early-stage magic puppeteers are still too disadvantaged in combat.”

“No choice, sub-profession combat styles just burn money…”

The golden-haired girl continued following Jiang Cha’s words, her big eyes spinning as she floated toward Carol, “Unless the club reimburses.”

“Don’t look at me. Do you know how much of the combat club’s resources you three little rabbits have eaten? We’re not as wealthy as other clubs.”

The black-skinned, spicy girl quickly waved her hand, indicating she wasn’t paying.

“Besides, you three all have your own teachers. If you want resources, get them yourselves.”

The combat club was indeed poor, but several of the instructors were wealthy ladies, each having accumulated considerable wealth and resources from long years of fighting in other worlds.

If Jiang Cha and the others didn’t have teachers, they wouldn’t mind becoming their unofficial mentors and investing in them.

Especially since each of these three had potential to reach Sage level—the investment return was enormous, a guaranteed win.

But they all had teachers~

—Snatching disciples was a battle to the death.

Carol wasn’t afraid of fighting but didn’t want to make enemies without reason either.

“Hey~ Qin Bao, no rush. When your magic puppetry reaches its peak, waving your hand and commanding tens of thousands of puppet troops, you’ll be invincible in the world!”

Lina quickly changed the subject, smiling and patting He Qin’s shoulder.

If she kept talking, Carol would tear her apart. Having been disgusted by Jiang Cha, she didn’t want to get crushed by Carol again.

“Magic puppeteers are definitely late-game professions… but Jiang Cha, why don’t you use magical tools?”

Facing Kacey’s question, the girl immediately made a kitten face: “It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just no money. Besides, low-tier tools hardly trouble Lina, so might as well not use them.”

“Kacey, don’t give her bad ideas! Cha Bao’s already hard enough to fight against! If she uses tools too, how am I supposed to play?”

Lina got angry, showing her little tiger teeth and yelling.

She had met “pay-to-win” combat styles before, and honestly, they were as disgusting as Jiang Cha’s current tactics.

Most sub-profession witches weren’t good at combat, especially below Great Witch level, but if Jiang Cha also used pay-to-win tools…

“Then you better work harder yourself.”

Kacey smiled and rubbed her little head.

“Specializing in combat but losing to all-rounders—isn’t that your problem?”

“Hey! You call Cha Bao an all-rounder? She’s just a six-sided polygon freak, okay?!”

“Lina, want another round?”

“Bring it on! I’m not scared of your dirty, rotten heart!”

…

After twenty matches in one night, the score was twelve to eight.

Lina narrowly won.

The golden-haired girl’s combat talent was naturally excellent, and with dragon scales maxing out magic and physical resistance, once she broke through defenses and rushed in for close combat, Jiang Cha would definitely suffer.

This scoreline was standard for an aggressive witch versus a turret witch.

“Magic power strength, magic power strength… forget it, I’ll develop the thought circuits first.”

Witches’ thought circuits differed fundamentally from other spellcasting races that cut and split souls to force mental fragmentation.

This was a delicate task: they divided the brain into regions and inscribed runes inside to build false thought circuits.

Compared to traditional methods, the advantage was preserving the soul’s integrity; the downside was slower speed.

In some high-tier cultivation worlds, cultivators casually cutting their souls can create tens of thousands of soul fragments, while witches take about half a year on average to build a single thought circuit.

For spellcasters, thought circuits were extremely important; each additional circuit was a huge upgrade.

At equal knowledge and magical power levels, a witch with two thought circuits could easily dominate one with only one.

This was the first magic Jiang Cha planned to develop herself:

Wisdom Magic: Thought Overlap.