Azure Cloud Sect, Illusory Moon Cave Abode.
Several girls lay outside the sect master's cultivation room, peering curiously inside.
Blue Flower: "Is the sect master finally going to break through? Will there be one of those heavenly tribulations? Can our Azure Cloud Sect withstand it?"
Six Leaves: "No wonder it's been raining all day. Wow, we're doomed! Sis, how about we go home first?"
Four Leaves: "...I wonder how long the sect master will be in seclusion this time."
Six Leaves: "Will the sect master abstain from food again this time?"
Blue Flower: "Surely not? Last time, he went without food for seven days and passed out."
Four Leaves: "With the way the sect master trains, not eating really could kill him..."
Six Leaves: "Once the sect master advances to Full Bloom, will the Azure Cloud Sect be able to rule the world? Make everyone pay tribute!
Do whatever we want! Six Leaves will get to eat whatever she wants, too! Six Leaves wants to build a food city that makes delicious things every day."
Four Leaves: "What novel were you secretly reading yesterday?"
Blue Flower: "I just want the Disaster Countermeasures Bureau to give me unlimited gacha resources in Magical Girl Idol Project-"
"You three."
Bingtang, who had been bent over the desk reviewing documents all this time, took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. "Don't disturb the sect master's cultivation. If you really have nothing to do, practice fusion using the optimal magic ratio, thirty-five to seventeen. You might just break through your current realm."
Four Leaves immediately raised her hand. "I-I still have to contact Susan!"
Six Leaves immediately took out her schoolbag as well and began searching for her homework. "Six Leaves hasn't finished her homework yet."
Blue Flower: "I haven't cleared my dailies-"
Bingtang glared at her, and Blue Flower shrank back. "I mean, I need to go serve my confinement."
Bingtang did not force them to practice magic fusion.
After all, this really was not their holiday cultivation time, and Bingtang was not that strict.
Besides, magic fusion could not be rushed. They had all experimented with it before, and thirty-five to seventeen was indeed the optimal magic ratio, but there were still all sorts of difficulties involved in fusing it.
Even Azure Cloud Sect disciples, who had trained the precision of their magic control ever since joining, found it difficult to catch up with Jiang Si in this respect, and magic fusion happened to demand exceptionally precise magic control.
Even the tiniest extra sliver of magic would cause the fusion to fail, or even cause injuries.
In fact, Yumo was currently the only one who could achieve magic fusion, controlling the magic perfectly without unstable explosions. Everyone else had been injured to varying degrees.
Although injuries in magical girl form were no great problem, pain still hurt, and none of the girls particularly wanted to practice this without Yumo around.
Rubbing her somewhat stiff neck, Bingtang tilted her head to glance at Yumo once the three girls had dispersed.
At that moment, she was curled up on a blanket in the corner of the cave abode, her hands in front of her face, sleeping like a little kitten.
The coat covering her had slipped off to one side.
Having just finished her work, Bingtang got up and covered Yumo with the coat again.
Calamity Beasts had been everywhere today, and Yumo had been the most exhausted of all.
She had been on standby since morning. Whenever the threat from Calamity Beasts somewhere began to exceed what could be contained, Yumo would swiftly arrive to provide support. Her ability was also the best suited to rapid support.
Maintaining her transformation and manipulating magic at high intensity from morning until afternoon was more than even Yumo could withstand, despite her considerable magic reserves.
When she returned that afternoon, Bingtang had specifically cleared a spot for her to sleep.
Blue Flower had actually contributed quite a bit during this large-scale appearance of Calamity Beasts as well, but making magic puppets was too inefficient. By the time she finished her third one, it was almost over.
Two inner disciples, nine outer disciples, and the other auxiliary personnel made a dozen or so people altogether. Though the operation had not been large, the trouble afterward was considerable.
Some auxiliary personnel would inevitably have their identities exposed. As far as Bingtang was concerned, some of them would no longer be useful after their identities were exposed, so they needed to be settled properly before contact was severed.
Apart from the core magical girls, all other members of the Azure Cloud Sect only had one-way contact. They could give them some money to settle matters and cut off contact, without even needing to erase their memories.
Besides, the Disaster Countermeasures Bureau had ways of dealing with the magical girls' memory-erasing methods. Recovering memories was not difficult for the bureau.
She simply did not know whether headquarters had made that technology available to the Disaster Countermeasures Bureau in Beihai.
From yesterday through today, she had spent almost all her time handling these matters. Picking up her cup to moisten her throat, Bingtang looked at the completed documents and stretched.
Bingtang's family had begun teaching her how to handle these things when she was little: how to allocate manpower, deploy personnel, what constituted reasonable rules and regulations, and how to negotiate with others.
Different positions called for different approaches, and each person's personality and experiences also required different methods of negotiation.
Bingtang used to hate these things because they were dull and tedious, and she had no use for them in everyday life.
Not only did she have to attend school, but she also had to learn all those adult things afterward. Her family had even begun assigning her positions for hands-on practice when she was in middle school.
Back then, her family often refused to let her go to school, because school offered Bingtang no practical improvement. Her parents wanted her to start getting involved in the family business earlier and master those skills as soon as possible.
But she had no interest whatsoever in inheriting her family's company. The school her peers found torturous was instead a place where Bingtang could relax, and she generally preferred going there.
Yet even if she did not want to inherit the family business, Bingtang had nothing else she wanted to do. She drifted through school each day and only argued with her parents when she came home. It all seemed meaningless.
Only after meeting Jiang Si and beginning to want to establish the Azure Cloud Sect did she find a goal of her own.
She began voluntarily taking on some of her family's business work, learning in greater detail how a company operated and how she should establish and maintain one herself.
If the initial idea of establishing the Azure Cloud Sect had been sparked by one of Jiang Si's characteristically unbridled flights of fancy, then actually establishing it and running it up to the present had become Bingtang's own personally fulfilling interest.
Putting everything she had learned into practice, and perfectly replicating her family's organizational structures and such, really did give her a sense of accomplishment.
Moreover, the Azure Cloud Sect was already far larger than the little company her family had originally arranged for her to practice with.
She had built it up bit by bit from nothing, so naturally Bingtang cherished it more than anyone.
Learning was something that only became more motivating once one put it into practice and received feedback.
"Four Leaves."
Sipping her tea, Bingtang turned her head again and called to Four Leaves, who was contacting Susan. "Once things settle down at the Disaster Countermeasures Bureau, have Susan find time to come to the sect for her promotion ceremony."
Four Leaves poked her head out from the memorial hall. "Huh? This soon?"
"She performed very well this time, and the mission can be considered a success. Besides, we'll need her help concealing the sect master's identity in the future. It's only right to give her the status of an inner disciple."
Four Leaves nodded. "So that's why Lady Bingtang had Lord Jiang Si transform in front of her and reveal his identity?"
"Revealing his identity was the sect master's decision." Bingtang sat down and yawned, her tone faint. "It's not as if I can order him around."
"Oh, right, Lady Bingtang. Susan just said it's been confirmed. The remaining two seeds were probably sent to the Witch Association by Yinluo. They can't be found in the Disaster Countermeasures Bureau anymore. When she and Yinluo fought their way out of the bureau, she saw quite a few Calamity Beasts running out from around Yinluo, but she couldn't intercept them at the time. That was probably when they were sent away."
"That's fine. We'll recover them later. How did the Disaster Countermeasures Bureau react to losing the Miracle Seeds?"
"With Susan there, it's been provisionally classified as the Witch Association's doing. They aren't looking to trouble the Azure Cloud Sect for now. But according to Susan, headquarters seems very angry about losing three seeds. They plan to remove the current director and parachute in a new one."
"They'll most likely send new magical girls over, then."
Rubbing between her brows, Bingtang chuckled. "Now we'll have to cultivate those connections all over again. Never mind, we'll take it slowly. The Azure Cloud Sect was established for times like these in the first place. If it can't help the sect master cultivate, it has no reason to exist."
Four Leaves nodded repeatedly from over there.
"I just wonder how our esteemed captain of the Magical Girl Combat Team is doing." Shion looked at the seed in her hand. Although Yinluo had used it to turn into a witch, the seed did not appear to have been contaminated.
After all, Yinluo clearly wanted to obtain the ability to transform over the long term. If she contaminated it directly, the Miracle Seed would soon be destroyed, which was unacceptable to her.
But compared to the seed, Shion was actually more interested in Yinluo's use of contaminated magic while not transformed.
If there was anything special about her, it was that Yinluo had an active Calamity Beast inside her body.
She had raised a special kind of small Calamity Beast inside herself.
Shion thought again of Du Juan, that Witch Association member. When killing her back then, he had indeed sensed an active Calamity Beast as well, but at the time he had simply thought it was a false impression caused by a magical girl becoming contaminated.
Now it seemed that was not the case.
Could the Witch Association's method of strengthening themselves with contaminated magic very well involve raising Calamity Beasts inside their bodies?
Moreover, Yinluo had raised a Calamity Beast inside herself for so long without any abnormalities. Neither the Disaster Countermeasures Bureau nor the Azure Cloud Sect had discovered that she was keeping one inside her.
Perhaps the Calamity Beasts selected by the Witch Association were relatively special.
The drug she had injected later was very interesting too. Shion could get a dose from the Witch Association someday and try it.
Although she had only obtained one seed, Shion was still very satisfied with her gains this time. Both raising Calamity Beasts inside the body and a drug that allowed one to transform into a witch interested her greatly.
Raising a Calamity Beast inside her body, in particular, was nothing difficult for Shion. She could find a small Calamity Beast later and give it a try.
For now, however, the most pressing matter was the Miracle Seed before her.
She had already tried channeling magic into it for a long time, but the seed still showed no response. She did not know whether using it once had left it short of magic, or whether it had entered dormancy.
Stopping the flow of magic into it, Jiang Si took out the Grief Seed.
When he began channeling contaminated magic into the Miracle Seed, the previously dormant white seed abruptly began to seethe!
A vast amount of magic grew agitated, even showing a tendency to self-destruct. Shion swiftly brought the magic of her own Miracle Seed down upon it.
Thirty-five to seventeen, the optimal magic fusion ratio. To gain complete control, her own magic had to account for the thirty-five.
Although Shion's magic far surpassed that of others in the same realm, she had, after all, fought an intense battle. This seed itself was also at the Full Blossom level, so suppressing it to a proportion of seventeen was no easy task.
Noticing the milky-white magic arrogantly attempting to break through her magic's control, a trace of viciousness flashed through Shion's glasslike eyes. Her purple magic gathered into a fist and slammed fiercely into the milky-white magic!
As the two seeds were in the midst of merging, that solid punch also rebounded squarely onto Shion. A flush rose across her face, and blood spilled from the corner of her mouth.
But Shion did not pause, continuing to pummel and diminish the white magic furiously. Only after forcibly battering the milky-white magic down to a proportion of seventeen did she finally stop.
The previously agitated, arrogant milky-white magic became docile, as though it had been beaten into submission. It began obediently following her control, tracing the contours of the purple magic and gradually merging with the purple magic woven into a net.
The perfectly matched fusion caused both Full Blossom Seeds to begin unfurling at once. Shion could clearly sense that the magic had not merely increased in quantity.
Instead, she sensed a change in the nature of the magic.
Her purple magic had incorporated a trace of the milky-white magic's soft suppleness, and it began gradually developing from raging flames into a gentler kind of fluid.
It even possessed the shifting properties of both flame and flowing water at once.
Immediately afterward, Shion discovered that the seed's form had finally begun to change as well.
The purple seed began growing gradually. Inside it, a tender shoot seemed to be slowly growing, about to break through its shell.
The entire seed also began to become more ethereal, and Shion could clearly feel it gradually unfurling.
It grew and grew, seeming on the verge of blooming.
Suddenly, a terrifying suction came from inside the seed, sweeping away all the surrounding magic in an instant!
It was as though a black hole had appeared, greedily devouring all the surrounding energy. For an instant, both Miracle Seeds even showed signs of withering!
Shion swiftly undid her transformation, and the two kinds of magic immediately separated from their fused state as well.
Only then did the terrifying pull inside the Miracle Seed disappear.
Panting slightly, Jiang Si picked up the two seeds and examined them again. The signs of withering remained, and their magic had weakened considerably.
They would probably need two or three days to recover.
He raised his head and glanced at the mirror opposite him in the cultivation room.
His complexion was terrible, as though he had not eaten for a long time, and he even looked somewhat weak.
Sure enough, what burned at the end was not just magic-
His direction was not wrong. This path could be traveled; the problem lay in the destination he was trying to reach.
The milky-white Miracle Seed suddenly began trembling.
Immediately afterward, Jiang Si faintly heard urgent cries coming from within.
"Don't enter Full Bloom! Don't enter Full Bloom! Full Bloom is a trap!"