Chapter 98 New Witches, New Abilities (Part 2)
The name of the third witch was Hummingbird, she was a witch that had a small size, just like her nickname depicted. When asked to perform her ability she had acted much more cautiously than the other witches had. It was just in this year that she had become an adult, had symmetrical dimples on her cheeks and very delicate features with a waxy soft voice, summing it up she was cute.
Her ability was to “lighten an object”. When she put her magic into an object, it’s weight would be greatly reduced. According to her description, the weight would almost become close to zero. Roland let Hummingbird give him a live demonstration with her own cup, seemingly letting it float in the air – in other words, its weight was about equal to the air. Of course, in this era in the eyes of the people, the air had no weight.
It seemed it was due to her ability, that the Witch Cooperation Association was able to cross the Impassable Mountain Range. With the help of this young witch, the bags could be filled up with the wheat and dried fish and were still easily to carry. Like this, only a few people had been needed to carry a lot of materials, which had significantly reduced the trouble with logistic.
Although Hummingbird had already become an adult, but she still hadn’t developed any branch magic. To cast her magic, she needs to be in contact with her target, in addition the target wasn’t allowed to be a living entity. The bulkier the object, the more time would need to transform its weight and the more magic she would consume. However, once the conversion was completed, it would last for several hours.
This capability looked to be very suitable for the transportation industry, and it also had some promising uses in the upcoming war. But there were still just too many unknown elements, so her ability still needed to be more researched before that.
Thinking all this trough, Roland wrote at the bottom of her parchment: Learning to control the needed magic output, by training with stones of different weights, so that in the end she can precisely determine the effective time of her magic.
After finishing the first three training programs, he ordered his attendant to light another candle, making the room brighter. But even with this, in the waving orange candlelight, the reading and writing became much more tiring to his eyes.
Roland yawned and took the parchment with information concerning the fourth witch.
The fourth witch had a rare surname, with her full name she was called Soraya Zoen. She belonged to a merchant family from Graycastle and had brown short coils and a pair of slender eyes. On top of her nose she had a small freckle which didn’t destroy her beauty, instead, it gave her a unique touch of youthful vitality.
She was nineteen years old and her ability was also a very special. After all, she was able to paint a picture of everything she saw or could imagine. In addition, with her “Magic Pen”, which was her branch ability, she was able to draw without any paint on any paper and it would be just like creating a photo-realistic image.
Her ability which was just like a camera, had endless possibilities and as for her training, he would just let her draw some paintings every day.
Afterwards, he pulled out the next parchment.
The fifth witch was called Echo and was a woman from the extreme south. She was tall, had brown skin and her eyes and nose had the typical southern features, giving her a very exotic look. According to her story, after her awakening, she was able to imitate any animal’s call and after her day of adulthood her calls had only gotten more wonderful and charming. She didn’t develop any branch ability.
Roland decided to name her ability “Magic Sound”, as for the long time uses he had no idea, even for practice possibilities... she should just roar at the top of her voice as much as she wants.
The sixth witch who came in to be interviewed was Lily, who was only sixteen years old. She had two ponytails and a delicate doll-like face, without showing any facial expressions while sitting in front of Roland. Her ability was to prevent food from rotting, and even though her awakening had only been one year ago, she was still the witch with the most important role in the Witch Cooperation Association – without any food preservation, a lot of food would have become inedible during their journey. Lily together with Hummingbird would be a good addition to his logistic force.
As for how she kept the food fresh, whether she was killing the bacteria or had any other means was still to be confirmed. Roland decided to let her practice on all kinds of meat and fruits, and that she should also confirm her magic power’s – time of duration ratio.
He rubbed his tingling neck and put the information about the six witches on a pile and set them to the side. Now there was only one last piece of information on his table.
After Leaves, she was the next surprise for Roland.
Seventh Witch: Mystery Moon.
She was very nervous when she walked into the office, Nightingale even had to come in to comfort her for a while. Nightingale later whispered to Roland the specific reason why she was so nervous, into his ear.
Even so her ability was still a mystery, yet it was known as the worst ability within the Witch Cooperation Association. It could even be said to be useless, since it was also easily accomplished by human labor. Coupled with often being blamed by Cara, she has become very timid, and now she feared that if Roland also thought that she was useless, he would ban her from Border Town.
Her main ability was to magnetize an object, before she reached her adulthood she was only able to magnetize metallic objects but afterwards she was able to magnetize any object she was able to put her hands on. She also didn’t have any known branch ability and the magnetizing process was also extremely slow. According to her story, it would take her half a day to magnetize a square stone block the size of about half a foot.
This ability wasn’t of much use to the Witch Cooperation Association. A magnet wasn’t new to them, every huge vessel sailing across the seas was equipped with a six-point compass, so they could easily identify their direction. On the contrary, her magnetized objects were causing problems, for example a metallic pot which was lighten by Hummingbird flew always in the direction of her magnetized objects, in the end Cara even banned her from using her power.
But for Roland, this taciturn girl was simply a priceless gift.
She was also the reason why he wanted to hum ‘Super-Star’ – was there anything more appropriate than the lyrics of, “You are electric, You are light”?
Magnetoelectric, electromagnetism, was knowledge that any science and technology dog would know about. He thanked Faraday, Gauss, Ampere and Maxwell whole heartedly. With electricity, there also was light. Perhaps it wouldn’t take him much longer, until he will be able to show Border Town a new miracle.
A witch who was forbidden from using power and was still able to survive the demonic bite, showed that her self-esteem wasn’t so fragile. At least her desire to live on, was much stronger than of most other people. Roland was secretly overjoyed that she only joined the Witch Cooperation Association less than a year ago, or else over the years she would most likely have become a living ruin under Cara’s rule.
With much enthusiasm he wrote: In the following days, Mystery Moon will magnetized a variety of items as training, and determine the relationship between the consumption of her magic and the size she magnetize.
With the addition of these seven new witches, Roland witch-lineup had increased to twelve. After seeing so many examples, Roland got a general understanding of magic. Their traditional classification of combat and non-combat type wasn’t reasonable, Roland instead preferred to divide them by the characteristics of their magic abilities. Summarizing it, the witch’s ability can basically be divided into three categories.
The first category was the self-strengthening type. This type of ability seemed to be very rare, so far only Scroll seems to belong to this category. Even under the effect of God’s Stone of Retaliations, she still wouldn’t lose her extraordinary memory.
The second type was the summoning type. Anna, Nightingale, Nana, Lightning, Wendy, Leaves, Soraya, Echo and Lily all fell into this category. Its characteristic was that the magic could be summoned outside of their body – yet the area of effect was only about five-meter or less. Witches that fell under this category were the witches who were the most suppressed by God’s Stone of Retaliation, once they stepped into its suppression zone, any magical effect would disappear. However, in the case that the power was used before it was blocked, the result was permanent and irreversible.
The third type was the attaching magic type. This belonged to Hummingbird and Mystery Moon. Their magic was displayed by direct contact with their target, the conversion process was also very slow, and the consumption of magic was quite large, and it could always be interrupted by God’s Stone of Retaliation. However, once the conversion was completed, the added properties became inherent properties, which were effective even within the suppressive area of the God’s Stone of Retaliation. How long the enchantment took effect depended on the amount of magic power used and the objects’ size.
Most probably this is also the reason why the God’s Stone of Retaliation is unable to suppress the rampaging magic during the demonic bite, he thought, God’s Stone of Retaliation doesn’t affect the converging magic or the inner magical flow, it only affects magic during the processing time. Described in layman’s terms, it only affects outside powers and no inside powers.
Roland put the quill down and rubbed his eyes. No matter what, he was going to have a busy future.