Azure Cloud Sect, Illusory Moon Cavern Dwelling.
A few girls were lying in front of the sect master’s training room, curiously peering inside.
Qinghua: "Is the Sect Master finally going to breakthrough? Could there be so kind of Heavenly Tribulation? Can our Azure Cloud Sect handle it?"
Six Leaf: "No wonder it’s been raining all day. Ah, we’re dood. Sis, maybe we should go ho first?"
Four Leaf: "…I don’t know how long the Sect Master will be in seclusion this ti."
Six Leaf: "Is the Sect Master going to fast this ti too?"
Qinghua: "That probably won’t be necessary, right? Last ti he fasted for seven days and passed out."
Four Leaf: "With the Sect Master’s training thods, not eating could really kill soone…"
Six Leaf: "Once the Sect Master reaches Full Bloom, won’t the Azure Cloud Sect rule the world? Make everyone pay tribute! Do whatever we want! Six Leaf can eat whatever she wants! Six Leaf wants to build a food city full of delicious things every day."
Four Leaf: "What novel were you sneaking a look at again yesterday?"
Qinghua: "I also want the Disaster Control Bureau to give unlimited draws for the Magical Girl Idol Project…"
"You three."
Bingtang, who had been hunched over correcting paperwork, took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. "Don’t disturb the Sect Master’s training. If you’ve really got this much free ti, practice the best mana ratio fusion: thirty-five to seventeen. That might help you breakthrough at your current stage."
Four Leaf imdiately raised her hand: "I—I still need to contact Susan!"
Six Leaf also imdiately took out her backpack and started searching for her howork. "Six Leaf’s howork isn’t finished yet."
Qinghua: "I haven’t cleared my daily tasks…"
Bingtang glared at her; Qinghua shrank her neck. "I an I’m going to be confined."
She wasn’t forced into the mana fusion either.
After all, it wasn’t exactly the holiday training period, and Bingtang wasn’t that strict yet.
Besides, mana fusion couldn’t be rushed. The others had already experinted before; thirty-five to seventeen was indeed the optimal mana ratio, but there were still many difficulties in the fusion itself.
Even disciples of the Azure Cloud Sect who had trained mana control precision since the beginning found it hard to catch up to Jiang Si in this area, and mana fusion happened to demand extrely strict control precision.
Even the tiniest excess of mana could cause fusion failure, or even injury.
In fact, right now only Yumo could perform mana fusion without unstable explosions—she could perfectly control mana—while the others had been injured to varying degrees.
Although getting hurt in Magical Girl form wasn’t a big deal, pain is still pain, and the little girls were reluctant to practice without Yumo.
Rubbing her sowhat stiff neck, once the three girls dispersed, Bingtang turned her head to look at Yumo.
Yumo was curled up on a blanket in the corner of the cavern dwelling, hands in front of her face, sleeping like a little kitten.
The jacket covering her had slipped to one side.
Bingtang, having just finished her tasks, stood and covered Yumo back up.
There had been Disaster Beasts everywhere today; Yumo had it hardest.
She had been on standby since morning; whenever a Disaster Beast threat started to go out of control sowhere, Yumo would rush in to assist. Her ability was best suited for rapid support.
From morning until afternoon she maintained her transformation state and exerted high-intensity mana control. Even though Yumo’s mana reserves were not low, she couldn’t sustain that level of exertion forever.
When she returned in the afternoon, Bingtang had prepared a spot specifically for her to sleep.
In this large-scale Disaster Beast incursion, Qinghua had actually contributed a fair amount too, but because her puppet-making efficiency was so low, by the ti she finished the third puppet it was almost over.
Two inner disciples, nine outer disciples, plus other off-staff personnel—about a dozen people in total. The operation scale wasn’t large, but the follow-up trouble was significant.
So off-staff mbers inevitably had their identities exposed. For Bingtang, once so of those off-staff identities were exposed, they were no longer usable; they needed to be settled and contact severed.
Apart from the core Magical Girls, other mbers in the Azure Cloud Sect were only contacted unilaterally—pay them so money, cut ties; there wasn’t even a need to erase mories.
Besides, the Disaster Control Bureau had ways to cope with mory erasure for Magical Girls; recovering mories wasn’t difficult for them.
It was unclear whether the headquarters had delegated that particular technology to the Beihai branch of the Disaster Control Bureau.
From yesterday to today she had been handling these matters almost nonstop.
She took a sip of water to moisten her throat, looked over the finished paperwork, and stretched lazily.
Bingtang had been taught from childhood how to handle these things: how to allocate manpower, dispatch personnel, what reasonable regulations look like, and how to negotiate with others.
Different positions required different approaches; you negotiated according to each subject’s personality and background.
Bingtang used to hate these things because they were dull and seemingly useless in daily life.
Not only did she have to study, but after starting school she had to learn adult matters too. From middle school, her family arranged positions for her to practice real-world operations.
At that ti her family often kept her from going to school because they felt school didn’t effectively improve Bingtang. Her parents wanted her to start learning the family business early and master those skills.
But she had no interest in inheriting the family company. For her, school—an ordeal for her peers—was actually a relaxing place. She preferred going to school.
Even though she didn’t want to inherit the family business, she had nothing else she wanted to do. Days blurred into each other: going to school, coming ho, arguing with her parents—seemingly aningless.
Until she t Jiang Si and began thinking about founding the Azure Cloud Sect, she finally had a goal.
She began to take on so of the family’s business tasks voluntarily, learning in more detail how an organization operated and how to build and maintain one herself.
If the initial idea of founding the Azure Cloud Sect was Jiang Si’s usual wild imagination, the subsequent hands-on establishnt and current operation were Bingtang’s self-satisfying interest.
Putting all she had learned into practice and perfectly replicating her family’s organizational structure gave her a strong sense of accomplishnt.
And now the Azure Cloud Sect had grown far larger than the small company her family had set up for her practice.
She had built this little by little from nothing, and she cherished it more than anyone.
Learning only truly motivates when applied and rewarded.
"Four Leaf."
Sipping tea, Bingtang turned her head and called to Four Leaf on the other side who was contacting Susan. "Once the Disaster Control Bureau situation stabilizes, have Susan co to the sect to attend the promotion ceremony."
Four Leaf poked her head out from the spirit hall. "Huh? That soon?"
"She perford well this ti and the mission was a relative success. Moreover, she’ll need to help cover the Sect Master’s identity later. Giving her an inner disciple identity is appropriate."
Four Leaf nodded. "So Bingtang-daren had Jiang Si transform in front of her and exposed his identity because of this?"
"To indicate identity is the Sect Master’s intention." Bingtang sat down and yawned, her tone light. "I can’t command him."
"Oh, right, Bingtang-daren, Susan just confird that the remaining two seeds were likely taken to the Witch Association by Yinluo. They can’t be found in the Disaster Control Bureau. At the ti she and Yinluo fought their way out from the Disaster Control Bureau; Susan saw many Disaster Beasts around Yinluo, but she didn’t have the ability to intercept them then. That was probably when they were sent away."
"That’s fine. We’ll recover them later. How did the Disaster Control Bureau react to losing the Miracle Seeds?"
"With Susan there, it’s temporarily identified as the work of the Witch Association; for now they don’t intend to trouble the Azure Cloud Sect. But Susan said that the Disaster Control Bureau headquarters seems furious about the loss of three seeds and plans to dismiss the current director and parachute in a new one."
"There will probably be new Magical Girls coming over."
Rubbing her forehead, Bingtang smiled wryly. "Ti to rebuild relationships. Whatever, take it slow. The Azure Cloud Sect was established for tis like this—if we can’t help the Sect Master with his cultivation, then this place has no reason to exist."
Four Leaf nodded repeatedly on the other side.
"I just wonder how our Magical Girl combat squad’s captain is doing…"
…
Shion looked at the seed in her hand. Though Yinluo had taken it to beco a witch, the seed did not appear to be polluted.
Clearly, Yinluo intended to obtain transformation ability long-term. If she had directly polluted the seed, the Miracle Seed would have been destroyed quickly, which she could not accept.
More than the seed, Shion was actually more interested in Yinluo’s use of polluted mana when not transford.
If there was anything notable, it was that an active Disaster Beast resided within Yinluo’s body—a special small Disaster Beast she kept inside herself.
Shion recalled Dujuan from the Witch Association. When Dujuan was killed, Shion had also sensed an active Disaster Beast, but at the ti she thought it was a hallucination caused by Magical Girl pollution.
Now it seed not to be so.
The Witch Association’s thod of strengthening themselves with polluted mana might actually involve raising Disaster Beasts inside their bodies.
And Yinluo had kept one inside her for a long ti without any obvious abnormality. Neither the Disaster Control Bureau nor the Azure Cloud Sect had detected that she harbored a Disaster Beast.
Perhaps the Witch Association chose particularly special Disaster Beasts.
The later injected drug was interesting too—sothing to obtain from the Witch Association for study in the future.
Although she only obtained one seed this ti, Shion was satisfied with the haul: the idea of raising a Disaster Beast internally and the drug enabling witches to transform both piqued her interest.
Especially for Shion, cultivating a small Disaster Beast inside herself was not difficult; she could try it later.
But right now the most urgent matter was the Miracle Seed in front of her.
She had been inputting mana for a long ti, but so far the seed had not reacted.
It was unclear whether it had been used once, depleting its mana, or if it had entered a dormant state.
Stopping further mana input, Jiang Si took out the Grief Seed.
When pollution mana began to be funneled into the Miracle Seed, the white seed that had been dormant suddenly boiled!
A large amount of mana began to churn; it even had a tendency to self-destruct. Shion quickly overlaid her own mana on the seed’s.
Thirty-five to seventeen—the best mana fusion ratio. To gain full control, her mana proportion had to be as high as thirty-five.
Although Shion’s mana far exceeded that of peers at the sa level, after high-intensity combat this seed itself was of Blooming level; suppressing it to a seventeen proportion was not easy.
Sensing the milky mana arrogantly trying to break through her control, a flash of ferocity crossed Shion’s glassy eyes. Her purple mana gathered into a fist and punched down ruthlessly on the milky mana!
As the two seeds began to rge, that punch landed solidly and the feedback hit Shion, flushing her face and drawing blood at the corner of her mouth.
But she kept going, relentlessly battering away to reduce the white mana, until she drove it down to only a seventeen proportion and could finally stop.
The once riotous milky mana, as if frightened by the pounding, beca obedient and began to follow her control. It traced the contours of her purple mana, gradually weaving together with the purple threads.
The perfectly matched fusion made both Blooming-level seeds start to unfurl. Shion could clearly feel that the mana did not simply increase in quantity.
She felt a change in mana quality.
Her purple mana had fused with a softness from the milky mana, and from a ferocious fla it began gradually shifting toward a gentler fluid.
It even took on both fla and water-like properties simultaneously.
Then Shion noticed the seed’s form beginning to change.
The purple seed slowly grew; inside the seed a tender sprout seed to be gradually developing, ready to break the shell.
The whole seed grew more ethereal, and Shion felt it stretching.
Growing and growing, as if about to bloom.
Suddenly a terrifying suction force ca from inside the seed, instantly sweeping away all surrounding mana!
As if a black hole had appeared, greedily devouring all energy nearby. The two Miracle Seeds even briefly appeared withered!
Shion rushed to dispel her transformation, and the two mana types imdiately separated.
The Miracle Seeds’ internal terrifying attraction vanished.
Jiang Si panted slightly, then picked up the two seeds to inspect them. The withered marks remained and their mana had weakened significantly.
It would take about two or three days to recover.
He glanced at the mirror opposite the training room.
His face looked awful, as if he hadn’t eaten in a long ti, showing signs of weakness.
Indeed, the thing burning last wasn’t just mana…
His path was not wrong—the road could be traveled. The problem was the destination he sought.
The milky Miracle Seed suddenly began to tremble.
Then Jiang Si faintly heard urgent shouting from it.
"Do not reach Full Bloom! Do not reach Full Bloom! Full Bloom is a trap!"
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