Chapter 115: Kallen

Beneath the hazy shadow, Karen suddenly rose to her feet. She stood in midair as steadily and naturally as though she were standing on solid ground. Her soft, snow-white palms, delicate as polished mutton-fat jade, gently closed around the crystal-clear divine staff. She felt its flawless, jade-like smoothness beneath her hands, and her slender fingers slowly stroked along the staff until they reached its very end.

There, concealed all this time, was a peculiar mark. Karen had examined it more than once and naturally knew exactly what lay hidden beneath it. Even so, this time she merely tapped the mark with her fingertip and released a faint pulse of energy toward it. At once, the hidden mark emerged completely.

That so-called special mark was, in fact, only two words. Yet those two words left Karen staring in slight astonishment—

Will.

“He really wasn’t lying to me. This truly is his!”

Karen thought to herself. She subconsciously glanced at the Losy Eichigel Divine Staff in her hands, then turned her head toward Will. In an instant, the young man before her seemed to become mysterious in her eyes.

“Perhaps… he really is the same kind of person as me…”

Karen thought. Ever since the first moment she had laid eyes on the boy, this strange notion had appeared in her mind more than once. For some reason, it had gradually grown stronger and stronger.

“Here! Take it!”

Will was still wondering how he could possibly reclaim his own divine staff when his vision suddenly blurred. Hearing the shadow’s voice, he instinctively reached out to catch whatever had been thrown to him. Before he could even figure out what it was, his palm closed firmly around it.

The touch was exquisitely smooth, like jade. It was neither cold nor hot, but carried the warmth of a human body, making it extraordinarily comfortable to hold. Its size, length, and weight were all close to perfect.

Will stared at the divine staff in his hand, momentarily dazed. He slowly raised his other hand and began to caress it, his slender fingertips tracing the staff’s end—more refined than crystal—all the way to the flawless half-moon at its tip. Set with astonishing regularity within that tender emerald-green surface were seven supreme magic crystals, each about the size of an infant’s fist.

“You…”

Staring at the staff in his hands, Will stood stunned for a moment. Only after a long while did he seem to remember something. He raised his head and looked toward the shadow still standing in midair, then asked in confusion, “What are you doing?”

“Returning it to you, of course!”

Beneath the shadow, Karen answered in a perfectly matter-of-fact tone. She gave a soft laugh, and her heavenly voice once again caused Will to lose himself in a brief daze.

“It wasn’t yours, after all. Naturally, I should return it to you.”

Karen spread her arms and added with a hint of regret, “This thing seems to be very useful, but its temper is rather awful. It took me a long time to force it into behaving itself a little. Still, that was far too troublesome. Since it belongs to you, you should be able to make it obey you willingly, shouldn’t you?”

Although Karen’s words sounded absurd, they astonished Will. He had once been the owner of the Losy Eichigel Divine Staff and naturally understood it very well.

A divine artifact was not defined solely by its formidable destructive power. More importantly, it was no longer a dead object. It possessed a certain degree of intelligence.

An intelligent divine artifact had thoughts of its own. It could distinguish friend from foe, and this was especially true of its relationship with its master. When fighting alongside its wielder, a divine artifact would develop an exceptionally high degree of synchronization with them, greatly enhancing both attack and defense.

Take the Losy Eichigel Divine Staff, for example. Even as its wielder, Will had needed a considerable amount of time merely to gain some control over it—he had never truly mastered it completely. Yet from what the shadow had said, she seemed to have subdued the staff by brute force.

Anyone capable of such a feat either possessed overwhelmingly superior strength or was a complete fool.

Clearly, the shadow belonged to the former category.

“Can even an intelligent divine artifact be rendered powerless to resist through absolute suppression?”

Will wondered inwardly. He lowered his head and looked at the staff in his hands, then extended his senses and attached them to the staff.

At first, the staff released a thread of power to reject his probing. But before long, it seemed to recognize a familiar fluctuation within Will’s senses. That trace of resistance vanished instantly, and his perception entered the staff without the slightest obstruction.

The moment Will’s senses fully spread through the divine staff, his consciousness seemed to enter a vast, misty emerald world. Everything within it felt so familiar.

“My old friend… do you still remember me?”

Will called softly.

As soon as his words fell, he felt an exceedingly gentle force surge toward him. Will closed his eyes. Rather than resisting the gentle power, he allowed it to wander freely through his body, enjoying the sensation.

Though no sound came from the surrounding darkness, Will knew that the divine staff was greeting him.

He opened his eyes and drew one slender finger lightly across the flawless half-moon. The movement seemed to require hardly any force, yet the sharp crescent cut a shallow line across his fingertip. A drop of bright-red blood flowed from the wound and fell onto the emerald crescent.

Karen had been watching Will’s every move from the side. When she saw him cut his finger, something stirred within her. She blinked, wondering what the boy intended to do.

Then something strange happened.

The emerald crescent actually absorbed Will’s blood.

In an instant, the jade-like crescent began to radiate layers of faint light. Its emerald glow was so captivating and beautiful that even Karen could not resist its allure. She found herself unable to restrain a quiet exclamation of admiration at the dreamlike brilliance.

As Will felt the splendor of that light, he slowly closed his eyes and poured all the magic power within his sea of consciousness into the divine staff without reservation.

During this process, Karen clearly sensed that the crescent, which had originally been no more than a slender curve, seemed to grow slightly rounder beneath the magnificent radiance. Not only that, but the seven magic crystals, each the size of an infant’s fist, suddenly became brighter and seemed to possess even greater vitality.

At the same time that the divine staff was changing little by little, tremendous changes were taking place within Will’s sea of consciousness.

His sea of consciousness, which had originally possessed no discernible order, began to undergo a series of transformations. Its immense expanse started to reshape itself in two directions: one side bulged outward while the other caved inward. Even the magic power within it began to change.

No one knew how much time had passed. When the light surrounding the divine staff gradually faded, the transformation within Will’s sea of consciousness had also been completed.

Whether intentionally or not, his sea of consciousness had taken on the shape of a curved crescent moon. Within that crescent, seven different types of magic power were arranged in extraordinarily precise positions.

A closer look revealed that the positions of the seven different forms of magic power in Will’s sea of consciousness were exactly identical to the arrangement of the seven magic crystals on the divine staff.

Will slowly opened his eyes and discovered that his perception had grown far sharper than before. The magic power within his sea of consciousness had improved tremendously, whether in purity, quality, or any other aspect.

He opened his palm, and a mass of crimson flame instantly appeared within it. His five slender fingers repeatedly opened and closed, and the crimson fire immediately began to transform.

The flames danced beneath Will’s casual control like a magnificent performance. With a slight flick of his fingertips, the mass of crimson fire transformed into a thin strand, winding itself in circles around his fingers as though it possessed a will of its own.

Will had been capable of such delicate manipulation before, but never with this degree of ease and natural fluidity. Now, he did not even need to control the flames deliberately. A single thought was enough for them to transform into whatever shape he imagined.

The crimson fire continuously radiated scorching heat, yet it could never harm Will. To him, that intense heat was no different from soft cotton.

“You seem to be having quite a good time.”

Looking at the flame in Will’s hand, Karen suddenly gave a light laugh. She pointed at him and said, “I returned your possession to you. Aren’t you going to give me something in return?”

“In return?”

Will withdrew the flames and looked up at the shadow floating in midair. He gave a wry smile.

“Your strength is far greater than mine. I imagine you can do whatever you want. But I can’t. I have no money and no influence. Just look at me—I’m so poor that even my clothes are in tatters. I honestly can’t think of anything I could give you in return.”

He was not merely making excuses. That was genuinely the truth.

Karen, however, had no intention of letting the matter end there. She gave a soft snort.

“Oh? So you’ve forgotten the kindness of others the moment you got your own possession back? What an ungrateful fellow…”

“…”

Will was rendered speechless. As he wondered what exactly the shadow wanted from him, she suddenly began to descend slowly from the air.

“How about this? Since you owe me something, you can repay me with something else.”

Karen let out a soft laugh.

At that very moment, the faint layer of black mist surrounding her began to disappear little by little.