Azure Cloud Sect, Illusory Moon Cave Abode.
Sitting beneath the curtain of water, Jiang Si kept his eyes closed and quietly listened to Bingtang finish her report.
"Thanks for the hard work," he said, opening his eyes. "Give Four Leaves Clover a month of paid leave."
Bingtang picked up the towel beside her and handed it to him. "That was exactly what I was planning."
Once Jiang Si had wiped his face clean, she passed him the fresh clothes prepared beside him. His old clothes were soaked with sweat from training, so she put them in a bag and set it aside.
She really wanted to take them home and wash them for him, but unfortunately, Jiang Si disliked having other people do his laundry.
As he stood up, he asked casually, "Did you sell those Magic Crystals I gave you last time?"
Even after three years, Bingtang still blanked for a moment whenever she heard "Magic Crystals."
Then she immediately caught on. "Oh, the Grief Seeds. They sold. That B-rank Calamity Beast's Grief... Magic Crystal was a little hard to sell. Fewer and fewer buyers have been buying them lately."
"Is that so?"
"And B-rank magical beasts have been scarce lately. If we sell ours too quickly, the Disaster Countermeasures Bureau might notice."
Jiang Si finished dressing and sat back down on his sect master's meditation cushion.
It was the only meditation cushion in the entire Azure Cloud Sect, because nobody else liked sitting on one.
Honestly, the thing was small, and sitting properly meant tucking your legs in. Normal people couldn't get used to it. Only Jiang Si liked it.
Bingtang kept talking beside him. "Over these three years, Azure Cloud Sect has been selling more and more Magic Crystals, and market prices have started dropping. Low-grade Magic Crystals no longer fetch what they used to. If this continues, Azure Cloud Sect might not be able to balance its books..."
"Then find the Witch Association and have them make more B-rank Calamity Beasts."
His tone was as casual as though Azure Cloud Sect and the Witch Association were longtime business partners.
Bingtang felt rather helpless.
Naturally, Azure Cloud Sect couldn't rely on her alone to cover its expenses. However wealthy she was, supporting an organization like this by herself wasn't sustainable.
So one of Azure Cloud Sect's major lines of business was selling Grief Seeds.
Of course, Jiang Si had been the one to suggest it. In his eyes, Grief Seeds were more or less the same as Magic Crystals-rare items that would surely have buyers, and wouldn't sell cheaply.
That was how all the novels went.
So, half-convinced, Bingtang had used her family's connections to look around. To her surprise, Jiang Si had actually been right.
There really were places buying Grief Seeds at high prices.
Some used them as decorations. Although Grief Seeds couldn't compare to Miracle Seeds, their faintly sinister aura and wondrous material gave them considerable ornamental value even after they lost the magic within.
Many rich people treated Grief Seeds as status symbols, so their prices weren't low.
Some universities and research institutes also studied the characteristics of Calamity Beasts, creating considerable demand for Grief Seeds. The Disaster Countermeasures Bureau's supply alone wasn't enough.
Most of Azure Cloud Sect's income over the years had come from trading Grief Seeds. They had even established a dedicated department.
Bingtang had merely provided the startup capital. The money that kept Azure Cloud Sect running still came from the Calamity Beasts Jiang Si and the disciples hunted themselves.
The other magical girls naturally received salaries and bonuses. Although Jiang Si didn't, the entire Azure Cloud Sect had been established for him. If he wanted, all its liquid funds would become his personal assets.
But Jiang Si never meddled in Azure Cloud Sect's operations, and rarely asked her for money.
He would rather work a job himself than take a single penny from Azure Cloud Sect. It really was hard not to admire him.
He had even asked her before whether her family had any jobs available.
Back then, Bingtang had been too naive to understand his thinking. She had simply felt that a sect master couldn't go out and work a job, and that there was no need. Later, she had found it a little strange when Jiang Si went elsewhere to work. Even for the sect's sake, surely he didn't need to go that far.
After observing him for a long time, she finally understood completely.
It wasn't just for the sect, but also for cultivation and training! He specifically sought out manual labor, which provided exercise every bit as effective as gym equipment.
Once she understood Jiang Si's intentions, Bingtang stopped thinking about proactively providing the sect master with money and easy jobs.
Presumably, Jiang Si also knew she could understand him, which was why he never spelled it out. After three years together, they already understood each other without needing to communicate.
She mustn't interfere with Jiang Si's cultivation and training.
The sect's disciples would sometimes wonder why their sect master was so difficult to meet. Bingtang would earnestly tell them that he was busy cultivating. He wouldn't slack off and enjoy life just because of his high position, staying in Azure Cloud Sect and letting himself rot.
The disciples all admired him immensely after hearing this. Even though Azure Cloud Sect's base salaries were exceptionally high, the sect master led by example, so extravagance never became fashionable. Most took pride in frugal living and cultivation.
Even with everyone saving so much, their efforts over the years had begun to saturate the Grief Seed market. With more and more disciples joining as well, Azure Cloud Sect's finances were still somewhat tight.
Bingtang had no choice but to start considering new sources of income.
She handed Jiang Si a proposal.
"This is the latest Azure Cloud Sect proposal I've discussed with some disciples recently. We'll use a shell company as our base to conduct magical girl idol activities. Although their real identities need to stay hidden, Azure Cloud Sect has quite a few highly popular magical girls. Judging from the Disaster Countermeasures Bureau, conducting idol activities solely in magical girl form is feasible..."
Magical girls had to keep up with the times too.
In fact, the Disaster Countermeasures Bureau had also been pushing to turn magical girls into idols. Their previous magical girl concert had been wildly popular and earned quite a lot.
Bingtang had come up with this proposal precisely because she had seen the Disaster Countermeasures Bureau's successful approach.
Jiang Si glanced at the "Beihai Idol Is Legend" proposal, then placed it on the table. "Handle it as you see fit."
"We're planning to create a magical girl band called Magica. I wonder whether Shion would be interested..."
"No."
Leaving aside the fact that Jiang Si couldn't play an instrument or sing, as far as he knew, girl bands rarely ended well.
Bingtang herself had mentioned that the vocalist and keyboardist of a hugely popular girl band had recently started tearing into each other. Their bassist only learned online that her band had disbanded three days after it happened. Before that, she had still been denying rumors of the breakup...
Magical girls all had different temperaments. It felt even more likely to die a sudden death.
But since it was Bingtang's proposal, he didn't intend to pour cold water on it.
Though a little disappointed, Bingtang didn't keep asking, because Jiang Si had clearly begun cultivating.
Thin wisps of smoke drifted, and the lingering, ancient toll of a bell echoed, filling the Illusory Moon Cave Abode with an immortal air.
Bingtang looked around before finally spotting a little recorder behind Jiang Si.
Who knew where he had recorded that bell...
She had to admit, it had quite a charm. After spending so long with Jiang Si, Bingtang had gradually come to understand what "immortal air" was.
She couldn't explain it clearly, but it was a feeling, and she could feel it now.
Jiang Si took out his Miracle Seed, which had now turned deep purple, almost black.
Its dense magic carried the Witch Association's ominous aura, yet showed no sign whatsoever of going out of control.
All the magic was perfectly contained within the seed. However it churned, it could neither spill out nor affect the seed.
Miracle Seeds were born from magical girls' hearts, manifestations of those hearts.
Ease, anguish, happiness, grief-every emotion manifested in a Miracle Seed.
The polluted magic within Grief Seeds was an amalgamation of all negative emotions. To magical girls, it was like poison.
Once a Miracle Seed was polluted, its magical girl's power would weaken greatly. She might even lose her ability to transform.
No magical girl would want to absorb such deadly poison.
Only Jiang Si had been the first to try absorbing large quantities of polluted magic from Calamity Beasts' Grief Seeds. However much he absorbed, his seed never cracked or changed shape. It remained the same throughout.
Other than staining it, the polluted magic couldn't affect his Miracle Seed at all.
Jiang Si had also quickly confirmed that the polluted magic of Grief Seeds was fundamentally no different from magical girls' magic.
It was precisely because Jiang Si had proven that Grief Seeds' magic could be absorbed that Azure Cloud Sect had sought a way to purify them.
That had led to Azure Cloud Sect's highly systematic cultivation methods today, giving its magical girls a considerably higher overall level than those of the Disaster Countermeasures Bureau.
After all, until Full Blossom, accumulating magic was the fastest and most convenient way to improve one's strength.
Under normal circumstances, though, magical girls had always been rather casual about accumulating magic...
"Give me your Miracle Seed."
Hearing Jiang Si, Bingtang immediately took the blue seed hanging from her bracelet and handed it over.
Jiang Si closed his eyes, sinking his entire mind into the power of the Miracle Seeds.
Tempering his body with single-attribute magic had already reached a bottleneck. Naturally, the method he had come up with was to fuse magic to further improve his flesh's compatibility with it.
Although he had failed last time, it had still given him some experience. Magic with conflicting attributes would push his body's limits to the greatest extent.
Bingtang's magical attribute was cold, while his was blazing fire-the most conflicting attributes.
But the proportions of magic also required continual testing.
The conflict produced in an instant by a fifty-fifty mixture tore open parts of his skin.
He first adjusted his own magic, reducing it to forty percent, but the clash remained terrifying.
Even with the most precise magical control, the overflowing magic still tore a wound in his forehead.
Using Bingtang's magic required continually seeking her permission, making adjustments rather troublesome. Only after lowering his own magic to twenty-five percent did Jiang Si continue manipulating hers.
He kept adjusting the proportions and the way the magic circulated, attempting to circulate and absorb it within his body.
Until he found a critical point.
When his own magic reached seventeen percent and Bingtang's reached thirty-five percent, the mutually repelling, conflicting magic finally found a point of fusion.
The way the two kinds of magic circulated also kept changing. Jiang Si stretched and extended his magic until it formed an exceptionally complex three-dimensional network. The icy blue magic became even finer threads, flowing through the centers of those channels.
The two kinds of magic maintained a delicate balance. Though they trembled slightly and could collapse at any moment, they still held their shape perfectly.
Magical control as precise as a scalpel allowed the three-dimensional network to expand in a slow, uncanny fashion, spreading toward his entire body...
Bang!
With a crisp explosion, the magic scattered!
Like a basin of cold water, it drenched Jiang Si from head to toe.
Bingtang, who had been tense the whole time, finally relaxed, fine beads of sweat covering her forehead.
Even though she had only assisted, such fine magical control had still been immensely taxing for her.
Only Jiang Si could manipulate two kinds of magic with such effortless ease...
"As expected, a Miracle Seed that already has an owner is still difficult to control." Jiang Si casually returned Bingtang's seed. "But I've found the optimal ratio for the two conflicting kinds of magic-roughly thirty-five to seventeen. I don't know whether it applies universally. Find a few more disciples to experiment with later. If it works, we might be able to mass-produce Full Blossom."
After catching her breath a little, Bingtang took medical cotton from the small bag she carried, cleaned Jiang Si's forehead, and carefully bandaged the wound. "Why did you suddenly start experimenting with this again?"
"I thought of it while sparring with Limp today." Jiang Si stood and moved his arms. The magical clash had put considerable strain on his muscles, leaving them a little sore. "When his magic penetrated my body, I noticed a peculiar balance. I suspected it was related to the proportions of magic, so I wanted to test it."
Then he walked over to a punching bag, took a deep breath, abruptly raised his head, and drove a fist into it!
The punching bag exploded with a crash! The remaining force even overturned the treadmill behind it!
Looking at his fist, Jiang Si showed a rare smile. "Good. Although it failed, the improvement to my body is obvious. Unfortunately, I can't make the magic remain in my flesh. Otherwise, I should be able to break through to the New Sprout stage. My raw strength is already very close to New Sprout. My current realm really is Half-Step Limit Bud Great Perfection. That's fairly close to my initial prediction."
Bingtang was also startled by her sect master's physical strength.
Although Jiang Si had never stopped strengthening his body, to Bingtang, reaching Bud was already the human body's limit.
Yet this punch had shown her the possibility of Jiang Si entering New Sprout through his physical body alone in the future.
No way. Wouldn't that really be beyond human?
At the thought that Jiang Si might someday defeat her without transforming, a powerful sense of crisis instantly rose in Bingtang's heart.
Transforming into a magical girl, only to be defeated by an untransformed body of flesh and blood...
It was simply unacceptable!
More importantly, wouldn't that mean she couldn't see Shion anymore?
That was even more unacceptable!
So Bingtang asked quietly, "It's still... still a lot weaker than after you transform, right?"
"Yes. Although my destructive power can injure a New Sprout, without magic, my defenses are somewhat lacking. I also can't fly, which puts me at a serious mobility disadvantage."
Jiang Si analyzed himself very calmly. "I should be able to injure one by taking them by surprise, but a one-hit kill is unlikely. Once they react, unless they're an idiot, they'll create distance. Once they fly into the sky, I'll be helpless. In a real fight, I wouldn't have much of an advantage. Transforming would still be quicker."
"Right, right."
Beside him, Bingtang nodded like a chick pecking at grain.
Exactly! How could you have a Miracle Seed and not transform? You couldn't waste Shion's beauty. Keeping such a beautiful, adorable face from being seen was simply squandering heaven's gifts. Heaven would punish you...
Naturally unable to guess the thoughts of the close friend who had stayed by his side for three years, Jiang Si straightened his clothes once everything was finished. It was getting late, and he needed to head home soon.
"Be careful on the way, Jiang Si. Du Juan definitely won't let this go."
As they came out of Azure Cloud Sect, Bingtang reminded him, "She might come looking for you."
"Wouldn't that be perfect?"
Jiang Si gave her a puzzled look. "What are you worried about?"
"I... I'm not worried about anything."
Bingtang stammered. "It's not that I'm worried Du Juan will hurt you. I'm mainly worried the Disaster Countermeasures Bureau will discover your identity..."
"Got it. I'll be careful."
Seeing Jiang Si turn and walk away, Bingtang hesitated before finally waving and saying quietly, "Make sure you transform!"
Only once Jiang Si had gone far away did she secretly follow. The Witch Association would definitely act as soon as possible. She might run into them tonight.
Damn Witch Association. If you can't force him to transform, I'll never forgive you...