Ivette's fleeting glimpse had clearly not been an illusion. Over the following years, not only did she grow increasingly youthful in appearance, but her height also rose from less than 1.5 meters to around 1.65 meters—a full dozen centimeters or more.
With her perfectly proportioned figure, pure white skin, gorgeous silver hair, and magnificent face, anyone who saw her would have to sigh and say, what an unparalleled beauty.
However, that trend did not continue.
Four years later, in the eleventh year after her transmigration, her development stopped. Over the next two or three decades, despite no changes to her lifestyle, she retained the appearance of a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old girl, showing no signs of aging at all.
She could not understand why this was happening. It made her feel like some kind of biological machine implanted with a corresponding program: whatever functions it had, whatever limits it reached, everything had been written clearly into the code, beyond her control.
Remember the original website domain
Had someone carried out Rune Compilation on her at the genetic level?
Were both her Magic Light Vine-like vitality and her ageless beauty after reaching a certain age preset in advance?
Was it some hidden technology Black Tower Pharmaceuticals had yet to reveal?
Thinking of this, along with the sealed metal door below Level -10 that led to an even more central area, she could not help making a few connections.
If she could open that door someday, perhaps every question would be answered.
Lead-gray clouds blanketed the sky. Scattered raindrops drifted beneath the thick cloud cover, sending ripples across the crater lake.
It was the fifty-third year after her transmigration. Ivette, whose Mana Points had already broken past eighty, sat at a desk in the study on Level -1, dipping her pen in Magic Light Vine juice as she lowered her head to write notes. Dried vines burned in a fire in the corner of the room. It was cold and damp outside, but pleasantly warm indoors.
"Ice Rune Arts C-9, provisional name: Frost Bullet. It feels like I've reached my bottleneck. The runes don't seem to have much room left for improvement..."
"Fire Rune Arts B-5, provisional name: Flame Dance. Experiments prove that more logical symbols and operators can still be added. Continue iterating..."
"Wind Rune Arts A-7, provisional name: Wind Walk. The user experience is awful. It feels like hopping around on the moon, light and unsteady. Still needs optimization."
This was her personal cultivation journal, recording the rune arrangements she had derived through her own understanding of magic.
In truth, she could only use three spells proficiently.
It was not that she could not obtain the magical formulas left behind by the Origin Civilization. Rather, without exception, all of them required being entered into a Magic Guide Terminal to assist in casting. Otherwise, with tens of thousands of runes alone, she could not even memorize them, let alone use them.
After much consideration, she could only draw inspiration and ideas from those Rune Arrays, then imitate them to create magic she needed at the moment.
That was how Frost Bullet, Flame Dance, and Wind Walk came to be—three spells that were half copied and half original.
"It feels like I can find a Fish Monster in the lake and test them out."
As she made that judgment, her gaze swept over a pile of objects in the hall on Level -1 that looked very much like surfboards.
They were magical devices called Flying Boards. As the name suggested, they were miniature vehicles that allowed people to float and fly, reaching heights of around twenty meters.
At the moment, these Flying Boards were all out of energy. Her magical "pressure" was not enough to charge them, and she did not know whether they were broken, but they still let her see a glimmer of hope for escaping this cage.
Then, after leaving the tunnel and arriving at the Water Platform, Ivette faced the cool wind and rain and noticed a massive shadow slowly gliding beneath the distant lake surface.
"This Mutant is a little smaller. I'll use this one..."
The thought flashed through her mind. Ivette raised her right hand, formed a pistol gesture, aimed her index finger beneath the water, and lightly pulled the thumb "trigger."
The next second, as 2 Mana Points drained away, a semitransparent streak of light shot from her fingertips, plunged into the water dozens of meters away, and exploded into a dazzling icy bloom!
—Frost Bullet, the spell she had iterated on for more than a decade, was simple and powerful. With only 2 Mana Points, it could deliver three to four times the single-target damage of a similar spell, Ice Spike Technique. Its mana efficiency was utterly crushing!
Of course, as introductory magical knowledge from the Origin Civilization, Ice Spike Technique was not a particularly practical spell. It was mainly simple and easy to remember, with only twenty runes in total. Frost Bullet, on the other hand, had more than three hundred runes. Other than Ivette, no normal person would bother memorizing them; they would only copy and paste them into a Magic Guide Terminal.
However, for a caster with limited conditions, using magic did not mean reciting the entire Rune Array in their head.
As long as two conditions were met—"memorize the rune sequence completely" and "practice in massive quantities until cross-memory formed between the body, spirit body, and memory body"—it could be turned into a special kind of "feeling."
Then, by linking one's thoughts to that feeling, the spell could be cast instantly, like an instinct carved into one's genes.
Compared to the monster that had scared the soul out of her when she first arrived fifty-three years ago, this Mutant was much smaller, only two meters long.
After Ivette enraged it, it immediately approached. Before even reaching shore, its head split eagerly into four petals, revealing a flower-shaped mouthpart in the center. It was obvious that it could not wait for this hunt.
Ivette retreated while curling her thumb, feeding more Frost Bullets into its malformed mouth.
Her aim was a little off, though. Most of the Frost Bullets failed to hit the target directly and landed in all sorts of strange places.
Hmm, I need to put accuracy training on the schedule too... She silently noted it down.
Soon, accompanied by a roar, the ferocious Fish Monster rushed onto the metal platform in only a few seconds. It wriggled toward Ivette like a crazed seal.
Seeing this, Ivette cast Wind Walk on herself. With only a light step backward, she opened a distance of more than ten meters.
Then she immediately used her third spell, Flame Dance.
In an instant, a magical ring adorned with classical patterns appeared on the ground roughly twenty meters ahead. Blazing flames rose from it in the form of a tornado, sweeping up the Fish Monster as it crawled over it!
The Fish Monster's agonized shrieks filled the air, followed closely by the stench of burnt flesh. Although it had not been burned to death directly by the fire tornado erupting from the ground, the burning effect had still dealt tremendous damage.
Seeing this, Ivette did not press her advantage. Instead, she retreated straight through the door at the tunnel entrance and skillfully locked it behind her.
—More than twenty Frost Bullets, each costing 2 Mana Points. Add the 20 Mana Points for Flame Dance and 6 Mana Points for Wind Walk, and her mana bar of over eighty points had already fallen below one-quarter, exceeding the danger threshold.
Meanwhile, many bizarre aquatic Mutants on the surrounding lake surface had been drawn over by the battle and the smell of flesh, accelerating toward her. From every angle, there was no need for her to continue fighting.
In any case, she had already obtained the practical feedback she needed and gained her first combat experience. There would be plenty of time to hunt in the future, so there was no need to rush now.