Chapter 637 – The Fruit Ripens

Elven magic was far more balanced and harmonious than that of Demons or Angels — one only needed to convert Mana into forces of nature to cast it.

The forces of nature were essentially a combination of wood elemental force and the power of life.

Mo Lan had excellent command of both Witch wood-element magic and healing magic, so Elven magic posed no real difficulty for her.

Whatever Elven spellbooks she got her hands on, she learned quickly after reading them, and at no low level either.

Even if these Elven spellbooks might not be comprehensive, they were already everything she could access at the moment.

It wasn’t as though she could just waltz into the Elven Woods right now and plunder the memories of a few pureblooded Elves!

Even if she were going to do that, now wasn’t the time.

Lady Carmela and the others still hadn’t returned!

Mo Lan lay listlessly on Dunmu’s stump, which had grown a full size thicker than before, the rough bark scratching against her back and making it itch, yet she couldn’t be bothered to move.

She held up the Communication Card in her hand. Carmela’s name still showed that dispiriting gray color, and she couldn’t help but let out a deep sigh.

At first, Sylph, Vasida, and Lilith found her dejected appearance novel and amusing. After all, Mo Lan — usually bursting with energy and relentlessly driven — suddenly becoming this listless was quite a rare sight.

But as the days dragged on and they noticed Mo Lan doing nothing but staring blankly at her Communication Card and sighing, the three gradually shifted from curiosity to concern, and eventually even began to find it a headache.

“Is there really nothing else left for you to study?” Vasida finally couldn’t help asking. She was sitting on a nearby Dunmu tree, tossing various gourmet cards into the Devouring Stomach.

Now that she was living large, the Devouring Stomach ate well too.

“Nothing.” Mo Lan’s reply was listless, and she didn’t even bother to open her eyes.

“You’ve finished all the books in the Witch Council’s collection?” Lilith looked up from a pile of reagent bottles, Bloodthirst Needle in hand.

“Finished them all.” Mo Lan answered lazily.

In truth, when she had just graduated, her Grimoire couldn’t possibly hold all the books from the Witch Council Library.

But after the incident with Lady Anita, the Witch Council decided they couldn’t keep all their heritage in one basket, so they uploaded transcribed copies of every category of book into the Book of Cards as materials.

This was truly a windfall for her — it meant she could read through the entire Witch Council collection without having to go back to transcribe new books herself.

Sylph poked her head out from the canopy of the mutated Tree of Life:

“Why don’t you go on a journey to the Elven Woods? The environment there is secluded and peaceful, and the Elves are quite friendly toward us Witches. It would be a perfect opportunity to study Elven magic in depth.

Although I collected quite a few Elven spellbooks during the wartime period, they still fall short compared to the Elven race’s true heritage.”

She paused, then added: “Besides, the Elven Woods are close to the Wilds. If anything happens in the Wilds, you could rush back in time. Though I doubt anyone would dare to cause trouble for the Witches now.”

“That’s right!” Vasida had grown tired of stuffing gourmet cards, and had started playing a gacha game with the Devouring Stomach, dragging it along to pull from the gourmet card pool. “There have been far fewer Witches around Emerald Creek Plains lately. I heard they’ve all accepted challenges from other races and gone off to compete. You could come back after Lady Carmela and the others return.”

Mo Lan shook her head again: “After studying dragon-tongue magic, Angel magic, and Demon magic, when I look at Elven magic, I find it’s really quite a lot weaker. The power wielded by the truly dominant races is simply on a different level. Going forward, I don’t plan on making the magic of Valen’s remaining races my primary focus of study.”

Her gaze slowly drifted upward, toward the enormous energy vortex in the sky — it was like an eternal eye of a storm, rotating slowly, radiating energy fluctuations that made one’s heart tremble:

“I think it’s time for me to venture into the Well of the Sky. Once Lady Carmela and the others return and we find out what’s happened with Lady Anita, I’ll start preparing for my journey to the Well of the Sky.

As for the Elves of the Elven Woods, the Beastmen grasslands, the Dwarves of the Durin Volcanic Cluster, the Merfolk and giant trolls of the ocean depths, and the races of the Underground — I’ll save them as palate cleansers for when I return from otherworldly expeditions, something to decompress and digest what I’ve gained!”

“…” Lilith, Vasida, and Sylph all fell silent.

They hadn’t expected that even Elven magic couldn’t hold her interest anymore.

But thinking about it carefully, it made sense. The hierarchy of racial power on the Continent of Valen was entirely tied to strength.

Magic was the wellspring of that strength.

Races that weren’t in the top tier naturally had weaker magic as well.

Sylph was about to say something when a flash of white caught the corner of her eye. She quickly ducked back into the tree canopy.

The fruit of the mutated Tree of Life had finally turned from green to white.

Worried she might be seeing things, she called down to her three companions below: “Come look, quick! Has this fruit turned white?”

Hearing this, a glimmer of interest finally appeared in Mo Lan’s eyes, and she stood up.

Vasida patted her belly and stowed the Devouring Stomach away.

Lilith set down the reagent bottle in her hand and looked up.

The three of them squeezed into the dense canopy to examine the large fruit nestled among the branches.

It had grown considerably larger now.

“It’s nearly as big as a dragon egg,” Vasida said. “Now when you say Elves hatch from this kind of fruit, I believe it. There’s more than enough room in here for an Elven baby.”

“It really has turned white. Just yesterday it still had a greenish tinge!” Lilith said.

Mo Lan compared the fruit against the mature Tree of Life fruits she had seen in Elven texts, and even pulled out the book to show them: “It should be ripe. It looks exactly like the illustrations in the book.”

With everyone saying so, Sylph could barely contain her excitement. Still, she communicated with the mutated Tree of Life first, confirming that the fruit had indeed ripened before reaching out to pick it.

But the moment she wrapped her arms around the fruit and tried to pull it free, all the power of life swirling around the tree rushed into the fruit at incredible speed.

When not a trace of the power of life remained around the tree, the fruit in Sylph’s arms suddenly grew heavy, detaching on its own and dropping into her embrace.

The tree before them immediately wilted, looking far less vibrant than before.

When Sylph tried to communicate with it again, there was no response.

Mo Lan tested with Tree Friend as well: “It seems to have lost all its spirituality.”

If anyone were to claim now that this tree was related to the Tree of Life, no one would believe it.

Because there wasn’t a single trace of the power of life left in it. It looked like nothing more than a reasonably good magical plant.

“So what do we do now?” Vasida asked.

“Let’s try to hatch this fruit first!” Sylph said.

“It really doesn’t look like a fruit anymore,” Lilith said. “It looks just like an actual egg.”