Rosalyn had left many letters behind, but as time passed, the intervals between them only grew longer.
In the monotonous routine of her life, Yvette found her existence increasingly dull and tasteless.
She regularly set out to hunt and devoured aberrant creatures of phase two and above. At home, she would read various books, studying the professional ones as well as a range of miscellaneous literature. She indulged in sleeping on rainy days, thinking it helped her forget all her troubles. Occasionally, she would check under some elevated bridges to look after the wild chickens her student so dearly cared about.
In such a repetitive cycle of day-to-day, year after year, whenever the time came to open the next letter, her serene gaze would briefly flicker with a hint of emotion.
However, within this long wait, a somewhat melancholy realization began to take root deep within her heart.
A hundred years, and then another hundred.
No auroras, no familiar voice.
Until one morning, after the rain had passed and she had read the last letter—the one signifying the two-hundredth year—Yvette turned her head and stared out of the window for a long time. Ultimately, she picked up a pen and paper, determined to begin writing a letter.
She thought that if Rosalyn was still alive and truly back in the End of Days, it was more likely that she would appear on one of the three main continents of this world due to the unpredictable landing points of the Abyss, rather than Ish Island.
Therefore, instead of waiting, embarking on a journey and traversing these three continents would greatly increase her chances of meeting her student again.
Of course, she was aware that this was merely self-comforting.
According to the research from Black Tower Pharmaceuticals, the effects of magical cultivation on lifespan extension were minimal, and limited by one’s biological form. Without genetic alteration, living to 180 years old was considered the maximum—especially considering the authoritative research on longevity technology that far outpaced current understanding.
Yet the Glowing Continent was a high-magic world, a realm where true gods existed.
As for the unknowns of this otherworldly place, who could say?
Regardless, as long as she hadn’t seen Rosalyn’s gravestone with her own eyes, she would always hold onto hope.
That was why she wrote this letter, to ensure that if she set out on her travels, her student wouldn’t return and find her suddenly gone.
In her letter, she would explain her travel route, the cities she would visit along the way, and the messages she would leave. If Rosalyn saw them, she could follow along in reverse to their final destination, enabling the two of them to reunite sooner.
The letter completed.
She sealed the windows and doors.
She tucked all her important belongings into the basement.
After completing these preparations, Yvette donned a black dress and strapped a sturdy alloy blade across her back. She settled into the driver’s seat of her magitek motorcycle, ready to embark on her first journey around the post-apocalyptic world.
Compared to the rusty old machine she had used two hundred years ago, her current silver-white motorcycle was far more aesthetically pleasing, resembling a mobile home more than a vehicle.
This was, of course, a result of modifications; as she was about to commence her nomadic life, she needed a place to shield herself from the elements. Camping outside every night, while unsafe, also risked dirtying her clothes or attracting small insects.
Although she could theoretically go without sleep, she knew she would still grow weary. While she had a high tolerance for hunger, the same couldn’t be said for drowsiness. Whenever conditions allowed, she still preferred to sleep.
Half an hour later, as she drove along the large motorcycle, Yvette watched as the view outside her window gradually faded into a boundless azure ocean.
Ish Island shrank behind her, turning into a distant speck, while waves rolled freely under the sun at the horizon, shimmering like schools of golden fish.
This ocean was known as the Abyssal Sea, situated to the west of the Black Tide Continent.
If one were to consult a square map, they would find that the distribution of the three continents of the origin civilization resembled a diagonal line stretching from the upper-left to the lower-right corner.
The Black Tide Continent was positioned at the top left, the Emerald Continent took center stage, and the Silver Mirror Continent lay at the bottom right.
Thus, planning her journey became straightforward; she would simply travel diagonally downward.
Soon, having left the waters surrounding Ish Island, Yvette noticed that underwater creatures occasionally sprang up to attack the vehicle. However, they were no match for her silver hair, which pierced their forms, reducing them to fleeting corpses in an instant.
This was another significant reason Yvette had chosen to travel—she had already exhausted the high-tier aberrations in the waters encircling Ish Island.
While she wouldn’t engage with phase one aberrations due to the poor cost-benefit ratio, the magical energy provided by phase two aberrations was still somewhat useful.
On this trip, she looked forward to encountering more phase three aberrations. Only by reaching that level could she gain considerable improvements.
However, calculating the total amount of aberrant magic she had was still difficult; if phase one aberrations were counted, her current aberrant magic sat around 40,000 points—whereas her magical power value at the moment was barely over 2,000.
But comparing these figures was problematic; aberrant magic decreased with usage, but her mana could quickly replenish through meditation.
So under normal circumstances, as long as conditions permitted, she would first use spells to weaken her prey and then consume them with her tentacles, conserving much of her aberrant magic expenditure.
The days at sea drifted on for about a week.
In truth, given the speed of her vehicle, she could have reached the west coast of the Black Tide Continent in two or three days.
However, along the way, she encountered a colossal monster battle that forced her to take a significant detour.
One of the combatants was the “Steel Sea Dragon Beast” that Yvette had previously witnessed.
The other was a massive purple-red jellyfish that sprawled like a mountain, adorned with tortured human faces on its umbrella, primarily attacking with its tentacles. Yvette named it the “Nightmare Tentacle Spirit.”
From a distance, as Yvette observed, she had speculated if these two colossal aberrations were simply large in stature, but not particularly evolved.
However, upon watching them unleash various unfathomable mysterious spells against the waves, she was certain they were highly evolved beings, at least above phase three.
Especially the pulse beams fired from the Steel Sea Dragon’s mouth, which made her suspect whether it could obliterate a mountain.
In any case, they were far beyond anything she could confront at the moment, so she chose to make a detour. It wasn’t until a week later, lost amid the endless terrain, that she finally found the west coast of the Black Tide Continent and landed with difficulty.
On the first day of her arrival, the sky had begun to darken towards dusk.
Yvette parked her vehicle on the beach and slept for the night. The next morning, based on a pre-apocalypse map in hand, she set out for the nearest large city belonging to the United Nations of New Eden.
The city she aimed for was named “Agash,” which had been one of the metropolises comparable to Ish City before the apocalypse, well-developed and among the most prominent cities in the entire New Eden.
She planned to explore the city, take in the sights, scavenge a bit, and leave traces in the city center.
Since flying consumes five or six times more energy than regular mode, to conserve energy and enhance her journey’s feel, she opted to run with all four tires on the ground, kicking up clouds of dust and debris wherever she went.
After several hours of travel, as the ruins of buildings began to increase ahead, indicating she was nearing the desolate city, she suddenly noticed a figure walking out from one of the dilapidated structures, standing at the abandoned roadside, waiting for her vehicle to approach.
Yvette paused, finding it hard to believe. While she had imagined meeting other living beings on the continent, survivors or fellow travelers alike, she felt indifferent.
But encountering someone on just the second day seemed awfully quick.
Then, through the glass, she discerned the figure’s features.
At first glance, it appeared to be a human girl clad in exploration gear, holding a flashlight, clearly reminiscent of an adventurer. However, upon closer inspection, Yvette noticed subtle differences in her eyes compared to humans, along with distinct circular seams around her arms, and the texture of her skin bore a sheen not found in humanity.
—This was undoubtedly a mechanical magic puppet.
Once Yvette parked the motorcycle, the magical doll girl spoke in a tone void of emotion but exceedingly polite: “I am a traveler from the Silver Mirror Continent. My vehicle has run out of energy and won’t start. Could you please give me a ride to the nearest sanctuary?”