Chapter 583 – Shadowless Mountain

The legacy of the Winged One archers relied entirely on their superior eyesight, and much of the time, their techniques needed to be used in conjunction with their ability to fly with wings.

Whether it was the eyesight or the wings, neither was something Mo Lan could easily replicate with Mana.

So this portion of the memories was of limited use to Mo Lan personally, but that didn’t stop her from compiling them and designing a series of {Knowledge Card – Winged One Archer Training Manual} cards.

Even if she couldn’t use them herself, she could sell them to earn Mana.

The Winged Ones’ light-element magic was actually somewhat similar to that of Witches.

The Winged Ones’ bloodline was attuned to light elemental force, allowing it to be easily converted into pure light elemental force.

Then, through willpower, they controlled the light elemental force transformed from their bloodline power to produce various effects and cast magic.

If not for this, the earliest Winged Ones would never have been able to develop so many light-element magic spells from just a single book,Mo Lan 《Properties and Applications of Light Elements》, left behind by an Angel.

The casting principles of Winged One light-element magic and Witch light-element magic were similar enough that Witches could learn them without difficulty.

However, Witches had developed and applied light elemental force far more extensively than the Winged Ones. Their light-element magic covered all aspects and was more practical overall.

The Winged Ones’ light-element magic was combat-oriented — attack, defense, and support — without a single utility spell for daily life.

They didn’t even have a spell that utilized light’s most basic property: illumination.

Mo Lan estimated this was because the Winged Ones had lived on the Light-Suspended Cliffs for generations. Even at night, the light element Crystals on the cliffs emitted a glow that provided illumination.

They were also particularly fond of using Angel Vine sap, spreading the juice on their wings or vessels so that they would glow in dark environments.

The Sacred Mountains were rich in light elemental force, and there were plenty of plants that glowed at night.

The Winged Ones probably had no need for illumination at all, so it naturally never occurred to them to design a dedicated illumination spell.

With the mindset of learning from others’ strengths to compensate for her own weaknesses and selectively adopting what was best, Mo Lan compared the Winged One light-element magic system against the Witch light-element magic system side by side. In the end, she found only one property of light elements from the Winged One system that Witch light-element magic had generally overlooked but the Winged Ones had widely utilized.

Namely, when light elemental force burst within a fixed range, by cutting off the transmission of light and altering its propagation path, the influence of light could be drastically diminished outside that range, confining the collisions and redirections of light to within a defined area.

Using this technique, Mo Lan enhanced the casting effect of the Witch Radiance spell, giving it the same fixed-range blinding effect as the Winged Ones’ Blazing Light. It would no longer blindly affect friend and foe alike as before — no more needing to close her eyes in advance or put on tinted goggles when blinding enemies.

If even the memories of the most talented hunting squad members among the Winged Ones in the prime of their lives only yielded this small amount of valuable material, Mo Lan lost interest in further exploring the Winged Ones’ legacy. She fed the Winged One blood to the Book of Cards as raw material, produced a {Winged One Blood Card} for Lilith to research, and then continued on her way.

Passing a lushly vegetated extinct volcano, Mo Lan compared it against the map several times before confirming that this was indeed the homeland of the Morningstar Dwarves — Shadowless Mountain.

But in all the materials she had read, Shadowless Mountain was clearly described as barren, devoid of any magical beast activity — a peak without any shadows whatsoever, where every corner of the mountain was bathed in rich light elemental force at all times.

Yet now, plants common to the Sacred Mountains were growing perfectly well on Shadowless Mountain. The only way to tell was by judging the age of the plants — the vegetation on Shadowless Mountain appeared to have sprung up recently, no more than ten years old at most.

Under the sunlight, shadows cast by flowers, grass, and trees were everywhere, completely at odds with the name Shadowless Mountain.

“Wasn’t it said that the Morningstar Dwarves accidentally fell into a lake of liquid light elements, contracted light element sickness, underwent bodily mutations, became unable to leave the light, and could no longer survive in shadow?”

Mo Lan was puzzled.

Shadowless Mountain was now covered in vegetation, with shadows everywhere even in broad daylight. What had happened to the Morningstar Dwarves who originally lived here?

Mo Lan steered the flying carpet toward the summit. She recalled that the peak of Shadowless Mountain was supposed to have a lake formed from condensed liquid light elements. The first Morningstar Dwarves had contracted light element sickness in that very lake, becoming forever bound to Shadowless Mountain.

The higher she climbed, the sparser the vegetation indeed became.

Trees gradually disappeared, leaving only wildflowers and grass.

At the summit, a verdant meadow surrounded a beach of light element crystalline sand.

The crystals on the outer edges were dimmer, their light elemental force nearly depleted.

At the very center was a puddle no larger than a washbasin, but the water within was entirely liquid light element.

Beside the light element puddle, a Dwarf with semi-transparent skin lay there absorbing sunlight and the light elemental force from the surrounding air. The luminous patterns flowing through his body were clearly visible.

The features were too distinctive — Mo Lan immediately identified him as a Morningstar Dwarf.

Like plants, they could perform photosynthesis, absorbing sunlight and light elemental force from the air to sustain their bodies and even draw in magical energy.

No — it shouldn’t be “they” anymore, but “he.”

The volcanic lake that had once been full of light elements had been reduced to a tiny puddle, and even the light element crystals had degraded into ordinary stone.

The living environment for the Morningstar Dwarves, who depended on light elemental force to survive, had been compressed again and again until only this patch of shadowless ground, barely a hundred square meters, remained.

If Mo Lan had arrived any later, this last Morningstar Dwarf would probably have gone extinct too.

From his appearance, he seemed to still be a juvenile, with Mana fluctuations below Intermediate level.

Mo Lan had originally arrived with her invisibility shield active, but upon discovering that only a single weak Morningstar Dwarf child remained on Shadowless Mountain, she deactivated the shield and leaned out from the flying carpet:

“Hey! Are you alright? What happened to Shadowless Mountain? Why are you the only Morningstar Dwarf left?”

The liquid light element lake on Shadowless Mountain had formed from the accumulation of light elemental force seeping out of the mountain’s rich light-attribute mineral veins. By all reason, it shouldn’t have dried up this quickly.

The little Morningstar Dwarf lying by the remnant puddle of the Lake of Radiance, waiting to die, opened his eyes. In his translucent pupils reflected the curious Witch. He tried to open his mouth to say something but couldn’t produce a sound.

Seeing him motionless, only his eyes fixed intently on her, Mo Lan was puzzled for a moment, then suddenly recalled something she had once read in a book: Morningstar Dwarves had to regularly drink a type of ale from the Underground world that contained trace amounts of dark elements to maintain their body’s elemental balance. Otherwise, their entire body would vitrify and ultimately shatter into crystals filled with light elemental force.

Could the light element crystals by the puddle actually be the remains of Morningstar Dwarves?!

She searched through the Book of Cards: “Found it! {Food Card – Dark Rock Ale}!”