Spring Arrives Again

For the next few days, Ivette began a grand cleanup of all third-order Aberrations and Mother Nests on Ish Island, determined to devour them all and leave behind nothing but shriveled husks.

As she carried out this operation, Ivette gradually gained a better understanding of the nuances of her unique abilities.

For instance, increasing the thickness or length of her tentacles, or increasing their number, drastically increased her consumption of Aberration factors. Furthermore, the factor concentration within first-order Aberrations was quite low, sometimes resulting in a situation where the factors absorbed from a single tentacle attack were less than what was expended to launch it.

Another example was how her tentacles' hardening ability wasn't just for offense; it was also quite effective for defense. From the perspective of improving combat power, she might need to learn some close-quarters combat or fighting techniques from Rosaline. One should learn from whoever is skilled, regardless of the field. Even if the student-teacher relationship were to reverse, she didn't believe she would feel any shame.

What Ivette found even stranger was the discovery of a new entity within her body, similar to a Mana Core, with the Aberration factors as its source.

So, the Aberration factors that freely spread, invaded, and assimilated within other Aberration creatures, when they reached her, obediently aggregated and lost their original activity, becoming a core she could use at will?

Why was that?

Come to think of it, during that moment of consciousness sinking into complete Aberration, she remembered being in the depths of a dark ocean and choosing a segment of black tentacle, abandoning a mass of black-red liquid.

What connection existed between these two events?

Could it be a selectable evolutionary path?

She couldn't understand it at all, nor could she figure it out, so she quickly abandoned her thoughts on the matter and decided to name the second core within her body the "Aberration Core." The power it contained was directly named "Aberration Magic."

Well, she supposed this counted as dual cultivation of magic and mutation.

The cleanup operation lasted for four days, starting from Luya City in the far north, all the way to Grayport City and Ish City, then back to the Mount Ish range and the Corrupt Forest. During this long journey, a total of seven third-order Aberrations met their end, consumed by her pure white tentacles.

Rosaline was unable to assist throughout the entire process. It was simply a matter of the teacher walking up to an Aberration, bombarding it with spells to weaken it, then casting a tentacle to begin its wicked consumption, after which they could repeat the process and move on to the next.

Since she could replenish her mana during the absorption process, her teacher, who had once nearly died in the belly of a bug due to depleted mana, transformed into an existence akin to a magical perpetual motion machine, no longer needing to worry about running out of mana.

However, according to her teacher's explanation, the incident in the Corrupt Forest wasn't entirely due to her planning errors. The Six-armed Demon in its full power was indeed a bit overpowered. Even after sweeping through all the third-order Aberrations on the island, she still believed the Six-armed Demon's strength was in a league of its own, infinitely approaching the legendary fourth stage. This gap in information was the root cause of her near-death experience.

Rosaline didn't think much of it at first. Although she hadn't witnessed it firsthand, she unconditionally believed everything her teacher said and never doubted her.

But later, whenever that life-or-death crisis was mentioned, her teacher would subconsciously emphasize it repeatedly, not as if speaking to a student, but more like trying to convince herself.

It was evident that her teacher was still bothered by the imperfect, life-or-death conclusion of that battle. Rosaline wanted to comfort her but didn't know how.

Because the truth was, they were lucky not to have Aberrated, and had even evolved in reverse. Otherwise, they would already be queuing up for reincarnation in the underworld.

Therefore, perhaps only time could heal her teacher's psychological trauma.

After the grand cleanup concluded and the crisis was averted, the former leisure and tranquility returned to the manor.

And unlike before, Ish Island was truly safe this time. Ivette had thoroughly cleared all the formerly high-risk areas. Let alone her, even if Rosaline were to hike across the island alone, her life would be absolutely out of danger – unless she went into the sea, but that was a different matter.

But just as Rosaline thought life had settled down again, on the morning of the second day after the cleanup ended, she woke up to find Ivette sitting on the sofa in the main living room downstairs, hesitating to speak.

"Good morning, Teacher. You're up so early today~" Rosaline greeted her and headed towards the kitchen to prepare breakfast.

Then she heard her teacher call her back in a somewhat peculiar tone: "...Rosaline."

"Mm-hmm!"

"Do you have time?"

"Huh?" Rosaline turned around in surprise. "Teacher, if you need me, I always have time."

"Then, later, come out and teach me swordsmanship." Ivette looked out the window.

"Ah?" Rosaline wondered if she had misheard. In her eyes, her teacher was a genius who knew everything. How could she, Rosaline, possibly teach her anything?

But she immediately became happy and nodded vigorously.

And so, the learning sessions on swordsmanship, cold weapons, and various close-quarters combat techniques began abruptly that morning.

During this process, Ivette gradually realized that seeking knowledge from her student with the mindset of learning from whoever is skilled wasn't as easy as she had imagined.

The biggest factor was this: she was perceived as a genius by her student, but she wasn't actually one.

Her knowledge of runes and her foundation in various fields came from her two hundred years of imprisonment in the Abyss Base. In that place, filled with faint blue and green light, there wasn't much she could do each day: daydream, read books, clean, practice spells. Days just passed like that, and all her knowledge was painstakingly accumulated through the sheer passage of time.

And after leaving there?

In the decades she spent on Ish Island, ever since she realized no Aberration posed a threat to her, she had become incredibly lazy. She could find books on various specialized fields, but her progress was slow. Even watching for two hours a day was considered a great achievement. Although she engaged in activities like renovating the manor, cultivating a vegetable garden, and repairing vehicles, the core essence was to improve her quality of life, to live in a mansion, eat good food, have a Magitech Motorcycle with longer range for joyrides, ensure power supply at night, and relight the ruined streets around the manor.

Yes, in essence, she wasn't a universally talented Witch, but rather an ordinary person with average talent who relied on time to gain experience, lacked drive when comfortable, and was a lazybones who felt no guilt in letting her student serve her.

Now, without external threats, and already being the undisputed master of Ish Island, having to start from scratch, follow her student, work nine to five, and diligently practice cold weapon techniques was indeed a very challenging task, especially since she learned very slowly.

But she still decided to persist, even if it meant losing the divine idol persona she had in front of her student.

As for why, perhaps the threat of impending death had given her PTSD, and she didn't want a similar situation to happen again.

If it were six years ago, she probably wouldn't have acted this way. Sometimes, she even held the extreme belief that death was nothing significant. What was the point of living hundreds or thousands of years on a deserted island in a world full of monsters, unable to leave? It would be better to reincarnate quickly, perhaps even transmigrate again.

But now, she felt she at least had to ensure her student's safety until that day arrived, years or decades later, when the Aurora reappeared and the Remnant Abyss reopened, allowing her to send her student home safely. At that time, whatever she did wouldn't weigh on her mind.

However, occasionally, she would wonder if her student, Rosaline, could truly encounter such a special celestial phenomenon that appeared once a century in her lifetime.

If they never encountered it again, wouldn't that lead to a tragic scenario where an elder buries a younger relative?

The thought of such a lifespan-based tragic narrative made her feel uneasy all over, and she even began to consider whether she should venture out to sea in the future to find the Aurora in a wider world. But considering the perilous ocean conditions, a sea voyage didn't seem feasible within the next ten years. Exploring the deeper underground areas of the Abyss Base, however, was something she could consider again.

Thus, time flowed by, and half a year passed in the blink of an eye.

In the blink of an eye, another spring arrived.