Chapter 212: Disrupting the Sea King Ceremony
“The Great Fire can’t be extinguished any longer. Is it really worth wasting time and energy like this?”
After clearing out the elves and Beast Academy folks who were trying to put out the fire at the edges, I looked at the elf and asked with a smile.
“Witch, everything is as you wish now! What else do you want?”
“Nothing much, just curious. After all, we’ve met a few times, although most of the time you just call me a madwoman, but I still think it’s better to know your name. Don’t you think?”
“You…”
“Not willing to say?”
“Witch, remember this: I am Mona Timothy, and sooner or later, I will make you taste d*ath!” The way she declared her name was filled with a gritted teeth aggression, especially when she mentioned making me taste d*ath.
“Alright, I look forward to your performance.” Although she’s still putting on a tough facade, that energy feels pretty good and gives me a sense of being a true villain.
But that doesn’t stop me from preparing to k*ll her now.
I realize this place is an excellent spot for gaining points. But most people have already run away, after all, no one is a fool. As the fire spreads wider, it’s hard to keep track of all those places. If they sneakily extinguish the fire somewhere, I wouldn’t even know.
Unless they seek help from the Sea Tribe, or… it rains?
I looked at the sky; the weather during the exchange match is set, sunny, cloudy, rainy, snowy.
Even day and night are synchronized with the outside world, but the weather is random, with sunny weather being slightly more probable.
On this clear, cloudless day, it won’t rain, so I don’t worry too much about the weather system backfiring on me. Even if it does rain, there will be signs.
“Is there anything else you regret? If not, say goodbye to your life; the farce should end now. What do you think?”
Although I asked, I didn’t give her a chance to answer. I wanted to instill a sense of urgency in them, bringing out their enthusiasm.
“Let me tell you, the moment the flames were ignited, their ultimate target became the largest World Tree of your Aphhemia Academy~”
After saying this, I sent her off amidst her astonished gaze.
After all, I had insulted her so badly before; retribution is coming.
Sometimes I really can’t understand if they’ve forgotten this is a dream world. I’m about to become the host granting them a dream ecological environmental protection award.
Why bother caring about the greening of the dream world?
It’s just an excuse to refute me.
Even without my saying, they should understand the fire was ignited for a reason; otherwise, setting ablaze would only be to create chaos for them, right?
Impossible, I’m not that bored.
I only admitted and stated this now so they had no choice but to face this issue directly, extinguishing any lingering hope.
Though it might take a long time to reach the World Tree, I still need to work hard beforehand.
Of course, I know that the World Tree has powerful forces as well, and burning it won’t be easy. But a threat is a threat; if the fire really reaches the edge of the World Tree, those elves would truly be slapped in the face.
I wonder how the others from the Witch Academy are doing now. The Wizard Academy has finished their part, and they must be looking for the venue for their ceremony.
So I can’t rush; I still haven’t settled on the venue for my ceremony.
I also wondered if the scorched earth here qualifies as a site for the Witch Tea Party, like the place where this fire ignited has a significant meaning but seems a little ordinary.
It really doesn’t attract as much as the World Tree.
At this moment, ceremonies slowly began to rise and then shatter across various parts of the map. Following the Wizard Academy’s failure, preparations for their ceremony also started, and the speed was indeed dazzling. If this continues into the night, should I even bother sleeping?
After all, no one knows how long the exchange match will last. If I don’t sleep at night, no one can last many days. Even the next day, poor mental state will result in poor performance.
Just wondering if anyone will sneak a completion of the ceremony at night while the Witch Academy has to speed up.
As I looked at the map, planning where to start another forest fire to encircle the World Tree, a ceremony lit up in the distance.
“This direction, this distance… is in the sea.”
The hosting of the ceremony within the exchange match isn’t particularly strange; any academy might start their ceremonies at any time. However, seeing the Sea Tribe initiate theirs made me pay attention.
Their Sea King Ceremony might even fulfill some hidden rules. The rules are not explicitly stated, but the effects of the ceremony hint at triggering localized tsunamis and such; though these are just assumptions, they are possibilities to consider.
But I’m not afraid of that; even if a tsunami comes to put out the fire, could the damage caused by a tsunami be ignored?
It’s better to pray for rain to extinguish the fire.
One can’t just think of things like that.
A tsunami could also achieve more meaningful results.
Thus, I needed to personally see what the Sea Tribe was up to.
Although the sea is the Sea Tribe’s home turf, can they really strike me down while I’m riding a broom over the sea?
I hopped on my broom and took one last look at my own masterpiece before feeling satisfied and headed toward the sea.
Before long, after leaving the land, the vast ocean reflected the colors of the sky; the open sea instantly opened up my thoughts as if worries were discarded at that moment.
But soon, this good mood was shattered.
“Witch! You… still dare to run into our sea, you really don’t know how you will d*e!”
I focused my gaze and found a rather ugly-looking creature on the sea surface. Its face was heavily deformed, deviating from human aesthetics, with ears somewhat resembling fish fins and a neck that seemed to have been cut, possibly gills given its Sea Tribe characteristics.
But it truly looked hideous.
I remembered that the Royal Sea Tribe Academy had two affiliated academies, the Mermaid Academy and the Merman Academy. If that previously beautiful mermaid was a mermaid, then this ugly one is probably a merman, right?
The creature spat out filthy words that were downright ugly.
Have my exploits already spread among the Sea Tribe? It shouldn’t have spread that quickly; I’d rather believe it’s just the low quality of the other party.
So, I cast a Lightning Strike as a warning.
However, the other party was quite agile. Even though I hit them, with the protection of seawater, they probably wouldn’t dare to show their face again after getting burned.
Of course, a casually cast Lightning Strike without any modifications certainly isn’t very effective; maybe they just got stunned and sank to the ocean floor?
I need to hurry; since I’ve been discovered, and even provoked, they will probably soon realize someone is approaching the Sea Tribe’s ceremony.
Speaking of the Sea Tribe’s ceremony, it’s indeed troublesome. In the ocean, there aren’t many people or academies that can stop it. So the difficulty of their Sea King Ceremony is quite high.
What do you mean the Sea Tribe is not just one academy, won’t other academies stop them?
Haha, there aren’t just three academies for the Sea Tribe, but only three came for the exchange match; two are affiliated academies—what’s the difference?
As I vaguely saw the Sea Tribe’s ceremony, I found it was an island or rather a group of coral reefs peeking above the sea surface.
The main body consists of three islands, surrounded by large and small hidden rocks, some exposed above the water, others lurking beneath the surface.
My arrival immediately caught the attention of the Sea Tribe, or they seemed to have anticipated someone would invade and were waiting specifically for me.
Suddenly, underwater attacks came pouring in, some being spells from casters, others from Sea Tribe weapons. Even I, who am used to flying, found it challenging to dodge while riding my broom. The protective spells I had were even beginning to waver.
“I thought it was those meddlesome Holy Angels who came, but it turns out to be a witch from the Witch Academy? Bring her down!”
At the foremost position of this coral reef island stood a Sea Tribe member. Though her lower body had transformed into human legs, her flickering fish tail phantom was still swaying.
Upon seeing me, this intruder, she immediately took a combat stance. The protection of seawater was even more exaggerated than what I’d seen previously with the mermaid named Yvette. The seawater enveloped and sheltered the entire coral reef island, though I wasn’t sure if it was the effect of the ceremony.
Of course, this also has to do with her fighting on home turf, accompanied by those around her working together.
Such a “territory battle” really caught me off guard. The way the other party manipulated the seawater in this area was exquisite. I felt as if I were surfing while riding my broom, chased by waves and attacks.
“Now this is more like it!”
I took out a potion and chugged it down, then as the empty bottle passed over the sea surface, I smashed it down on a merman’s forehead. Though the damage wasn’t high, the insult was significant.
Back when I fought those three Holy Angels, I felt far less pressure, but that feeling has returned!
After chugging the potion, I also quickly got into position, employing spells with the principle of unity of knowledge and action.
Once I employed the unity of knowledge and action, I found it could indeed replace many spell effects. However, in actual use, I realized that this language spell’s effect was somewhat different from my predictions.
This language spell leaned more towards self-suggestion. I thought it was a compulsory type, and while it didn’t meet expectations, it turned out to be gentler in some respects.
“Seeing how dumb you all look, I guess you don’t know who I am?” As I flew around, I spoke, mainly probing for intelligence about them.
“You? We naturally pay attention to you, Yang Yuelan from the Witch Academy, the second-in-command. I heard you and Tan Han can go back and forth in fights, so we prepared this scale against you. You should feel honored!”
“Tch, you really don’t know anything.” A simple probe revealed they likely didn’t know what I had done regarding their Sea Tribe.
I remembered the elves were supposed to send elven rangers to communicate with the Sea Tribe, right?
What were they communicating?
Could it be that the alliance between the Sea Tribe and the elves isn’t a general alliance, but rather the Sea Tribe’s individual actions?
“Didn’t you all seek to ally with the elves? It seems like you haven’t had any results until now?”
“The elves aren’t worth allying with! Yvette paid the price of her life for it, but we will avenge her; you don’t need to worry about that!”
“Ah? Hahahaha!”
Hearing their response caused my broom’s motion to stiffen slightly, nearly plunging me into the sea. What kind of ineffective communication was this? Didn’t the elven rangers sent over get slaughtered in the sea?
I never realized the Sea Tribe’s thought processes were so peculiar. But without effective communication, this misunderstanding might genuinely happen.
“Witch! What are you laughing at! Hmph! Cunning rat, all you know is to hide!”
“It’s fine, it’s good! Keep it up!”
I didn’t reveal the truth to them. Since they misunderstood, that worked in my favor, and it might even help me stage a drama of firing the World Tree and drowning the charred wood.
However, this event couldn’t be concealed for long, and misunderstandings are just that; unscrambling them wouldn’t be easy. Plus, I wasn’t merely avoiding. I was also trying out other uses for spells.
Such as the potential applications of the Explosive Trap on the sea surface. Unfortunately, the effects were not very promising. Each battle seemed to allow me to subtly modify spells based on the combat situation. Although it enriched my scope of elemental spells, it didn’t lead to a breakthrough.
It’s similar to the application of the Floating series; it was a whole new way to use spells, though the cost was higher.
“I’m not trying to say anything, but targeting me like this and having the ceremony stagnate, don’t you feel anxious? If I’m not mistaken, holding a ceremony for your Sea Tribe is quite difficult, right?” After observing for a bit, I roughly discovered their intent to build this coral reef island into a crown altar for their coronation ceremony.
But this is a massive undertaking, just thinking about it makes the preparation difficulties become apparent.
Perhaps it was due to the collaboration of the three parties from the Royal Sea Tribe Academy that they purposefully restricted it like this.
Additionally, completing the ceremony preparation also requires carrying out a formal coronation ceremony. If it’s disrupted, scoring can’t be obtained, either.
Through continued probing, I unexpectedly found that the basic elemental spellbook’s Rock Collapse spell was surprisingly useful for disrupting their ceremony.
It could largely impede their ceremony preparations, after all, I came here to hinder the Sea Tribe’s ceremony, which had no one to sanction it, while also probing their strengths.
But the results have been astonishing. Originally slightly worried about the elves and Sea Tribe cooperating, they now turned against each other due to misunderstandings. I even thought about whether to further exacerbate their conflict and cause them to split completely.
However, after much consideration, I decided against it; too many words lead to mistakes. If I accidentally revealed some intelligence or raised suspicions, it wouldn’t be good.
“This seems like a good inspiration~”
After continuously trying, I focused on the current situation to magically modify the Rock Collapse spell. The Rock Collapse spell gathers earth elements to create rock constructs and then collapses, causing splash damage. It’s a spell in the basic spellbook that takes somewhat longer to charge.
And precisely because there are many steps, every step presents options for usage.
But now I was utilizing the collapsing effect of the rock constructs.
However, most soil and earth is actual matter and not created by a spell effect; therefore, the collapse can’t be applied here. However, I didn’t need the rocks to break apart to deal damage; just cracking and loosening was enough.
And this brings us to a property of the earth element in elemental theory called “resonance.”
Resonance can be considered an inherent attribute of any element, just like the resonance between fire spell effects and the flames of regular combustibles.
Take the wildfire I started in the forest as an example. In that environment, fire spells caused fire spell effects to be influenced by environmental resonance, thus increasing their might.
Except now, I planned to utilize the rock and earth spell effects to resonate with the rocks and soil, the seabed, causing the coral reef island’s foundation to fracture and collapse.
While this wouldn’t necessarily destroy their ceremony, it would certainly render their prior efforts worthless, requiring them to start over.
Just as I was preparing to put this into practice, a beam of light rose from a distance, and an invitation letter suddenly appeared before me.
“Hmm?” I caught it with slight panic, quickly realizing this was an invitation to the Witch Tea Party.
The Witch Tea Party has begun!
Tan Han and the others are this efficient?
Then I can’t linger; I need to conclude this quickly.
But… let me try out my earlier inspiration before leaving, even if it doesn’t yield the best effect.
“What is that thing?” The sudden appearance of something in front of me couldn’t escape the other party’s eyes, but they clearly didn’t know what it was.
“You idiot, this is the invitation to the Witch Tea Party~ I don’t have time to tangle with you!” I waved the invitation in my hand in front of them while riding my broom, then stored it away in the storage equipment.
“What! Stop her! Don’t let her run away!”
“Just now you were trying to drive me away, and now you don’t want me to escape?” I mocked their fickle expressions.
“Goodbye~ Wait until you can fly into the sky before you come and stop me!”
“And before I leave, I have a big gift to give you!”
Seeing how desperately they were trying to retain me made me want to laugh; it was strangely amusing. However, my actions wouldn’t stop. The “resonance” effect of the Rock Collapse spell was like “Floating,” a type of revolutionary magical alteration, but it hadn’t undergone the tests of actual combat or long-term evaluation.
The effectiveness remains uncertain.
Simply put, I was leveraging the environment to achieve a more advantageous effect. While the prospects of application were limited, it was still a brilliant idea.
Below this island isn’t very deep. At this moment, a massive rock construct was forming, plummeting like a meteor, and I cleared a path for it.
Ensuring it could smash into the seabed to create resonance.
“You idiot! Hahaha, you missed the mark!”
The other party seemed to think that my attack didn’t hit the crucial part of the ceremony because of the seawater’s defense and started taunting me.
However, I said nothing and quickly left the scene.
I wanted to leave, and they couldn’t stop me.
“Haha! Just because you ran fast! I curse your Witch Tea Party to be smashed too!” They felt a sense of loss watching my rapidly disappearing figure but were exhilarated to have driven off an intruding witch.
Yet, before their excitement could last too long, an inexplicable tremor abruptly shattered their atmosphere. As the resonance continued, rhythmic ripples rolled across the surface of the sea.
“Maintain the reef! Quick! Maintain the ceremony!”
“It must be that witch’s doing! Go check where she was last seen!”
After being shaken by the resonance, they saw the ceremony’s arranged reef was beginning to crack. In an instant, they realized the severity of the issue, but by the time they spoke, it was already too late.
In this moment, the coronation altar they were hosting on this island was collapsing, and the mermaid leading the ceremony showed a flurry of panic. Even gathering everyone’s powers could only maintain the ceremony without it being destroyed.
Ultimately, the underwater rock construct spell effect was damaged, but everything settled back into silence, though it felt like it was already too late.
“The Witch Academy… Yang Yuelan… our Royal Sea Tribe Academy and you will not coexist peacefully!”
Even though the ceremony hadn’t been completely destroyed, the preparation for the Sea King Ceremony is intricate. With this disruption, it’s almost like it rendered their progress close to zero.
Their efforts were completely lost. They couldn’t expect other academies’ ceremonies to always be interfered with by others, could they?
