Chapter 454 – A Mage’s Incantation

“Look, she’s casting magic!” Lilith said.

The Sorceresses looked over curiously, only to see Greta sprawled flat on the ground with her rear sticking up, both hands pressed firmly against the earth.

“O great earth element! Grant me your power and make this soil soft and loose… Loosen Earth!”

“???” Vasida was somewhat puzzled. “Mages need incantations to cast spells?”

She was also preparing to disguise herself as an earth-element mage and had read up a bit on mage earth-element magic beforehand, planning to fake the effects when the time came.

But she hadn’t seen anything about needing to chant incantations!

“Some mages have insufficient elemental affinity and can’t smoothly use spell structures infused with psychic power to leverage elemental force, so they supplement with incantations to increase their attraction to elemental force.

Sometimes, when the target elemental force in the environment is scarce, mages will also choose to use incantations as an aid to increase their casting success rate.”

Mo Lan said, “Although this area is close to the Black Forest, it’s not lacking in earth elemental force. It’s probably that her earth elemental affinity is mediocre.”

Greta’s magical education had come entirely from a set of magic notes she’d found in a sewer, written who knows how many years ago. She had never been formally tested for elemental affinity.

It was actually fortunate that the notes were so old. Back then, mages still believed in balanced development, so the meditation image recorded within was the 《Sky meditation》— now ubiquitous throughout the Mage Empire — and it only contained the first thirty meditation images. The apprentice-level spells recorded were likewise just one from each of the five basic elemental systems.

Besides the Loosen Earth spell she was currently using, there was also Gather Water, Ignite, Metal Needle, and Grass Rope.

She could construct the spell structures for these five apprentice-level spells quite quickly, but actually casting them was another matter — she needed incantations to assist every single time.

Judging by her proficiency with these five apprentice-level spells, she was likely the type of person with decent innate psychic power but mediocre elemental affinity — someone better suited to specializing in Psychic Magic.

Consider this: from the time she first succeeded at meditation until now, she had been almost constantly homeless and on the run, with virtually no time to cultivate. Yet the psychic power she could currently mobilize was already close to 40 Mana.

And that was after she had already expended psychic power to construct five apprentice-level spells.

Her innate psychic power was likely above fifty, which already counted as a genius among humans. Given enough longevity and resources, reaching Peak level would be no problem, and with some rare resources, even Beyond Peak level was possible.

Unfortunately, Psychic Magic was a rare school of magic, and all knowledge of it was held by the Mage Empire. The kingdoms and duchies below had none — one would have to go to the Empire itself to find any opportunity to study it.

In Mo Lan’s view, with Greta’s innate psychic power, once she entered the Duchy of Lance, she would easily be recruited by the Grand Duke and recommended for study at the Mage Empire.

But Mo Lan wasn’t worried about losing talent to competition.

All recruitment and cultivation came with conditions attached. The requirements for obtaining truly rare magical resources were far harsher than those of the Dawn Society. The Dawn Society only required payment in magical energy — much better terms than working for someone without compensation after completing one’s training.

They watched as Greta buried her head and chanted the incantation several times over before earth elemental force finally gathered slowly, converging on her hands.

The soil beneath her hands also began to visibly soften.

But the effect only covered an area roughly the size of a washbasin beneath her hands — less earth than a single swing of a large hoe would turn over.

Greta used the pathfinding stick she’d brought out of the Black Forest to dig out all the loosened soil.

Then she cast the spell again and kept digging.

Later, finding the stick too inefficient, she switched to scooping the dirt out with her bare hands. She had already looked quite disheveled before, and now she was truly a sorry sight.

“What’s she digging a hole for?” Sylph asked. “At this rate, she’ll wear her hands down to nothing.”

“It shouldn’t be that bad — the soil’s been loosened quite a bit by her magic,” Vasida said.

Mo Lan and Lilith couldn’t figure out her purpose either, so they used mind-reading magic to take a peek.

Greta’s thoughts: “A little deeper, a little wider — it needs to be big enough for me to hide inside!”

“???” Lilith was bewildered. “She wants to dig a pit and hide in it? What’s the point of hiding here? Is she giving up on the mission?”

“She probably wants to hide first, accumulate more Gem Coins, exchange them for some protective cards, and then set out,” Mo Lan said. “After all, this is the Emerald Creek Plains, right outside the Wilds!”

Though this was already the northern part of the Emerald Creek Plains’ uninhabited zone, it was still within that zone, and there were quite a few flying magical beasts about!

If Greta walked just a little further away from the Black Forest, reaching the areas with fertile soil, lush grass, and no influence from Death Force, the chances of encountering magical beasts would increase dramatically.

Given that casting even an apprentice-level cantrip required such a lengthy incantation from her, a single low-level magical beast could very well cost her her life.

Originally, Mo Lan had planned to clear some of the dangers ahead for her, but now she was rather curious to see just how far Greta could get on her own with her lucky intuition and exchanged cards.

Greta dug for an entire day before she managed to excavate a burrow barely large enough to fit herself.

Then she went and gathered a large quantity of dried grass, used the Grass Rope spell to weave them into rope, hand-wove the rope into a grass net, stuck wooden sticks through it for support, and fastened more dried grass on top to disguise it as a clump of dead grass.

Finally, she held the grass clump over her head and jumped into the burrow.

The grass covering, a size larger than the burrow’s opening, draped over the entrance while she crouched inside.

The burrow was extremely small — just enough for her to stay in that crouching position. If she stood up, she could push open the covering and expose her upper body.

“Just imagining it, I already know how miserable that must be,” Vasida said.

These conditions were a hundred times more primitive than when she had first built her own dwelling.

“I thought Iris was the toughest when it came to enduring hardship, choosing to live in a place like that back then. I never expected there’d be someone even tougher,” Sylph added.

“How long does she plan to stay here? A burrow this shallow can barely conceal her — is it really safe?”

Lilith felt that after an entire day’s labor, the shelter Greta had dug was so shallow that a Dodo Bird could plop down right on her head. The whole effort seemed completely pointless.

Mo Lan, on the other hand, was quite confident. “Whether it’s her lucky intuition at work or she’s genuinely clever, choosing to dig her burrow in this barren strip where the Emerald Creek Plains meets the Black Forest — and stopping as soon as it’s just big enough to hide in — was actually smart.

There’s nothing in this area, so magical beasts foraging for food won’t come this way. They’d even instinctively keep their distance because of the Death Force emanating from the Black Forest.

She’s hidden herself under the grass, and though the burrow is shallow, flying magical beasts high up in the distant sky can’t spot her with the naked eye, and her scent won’t carry that far either.

In a way, it really is quite safe.”