Chapter 259 (1/2)

Chapter 259 The Witches from Sleeping Island (Part 2)

The fourth to be tested was Sylvie.

Whenever he faced the witch, Roland always felt a bit uncomfortable. It really wasn’t because Nightingale had told him she lied too much, in modern society, with the exception of speaking to relatives and good friends, not even a dozen people could speak bluntly. Since long ago, he was already accustomed to hearing all kinds of flattering and rumors.

He just felt that he had no possibility to hide anything from her. Even worse, he knew that it wasn’t an illusion, but the other’s ability. Being able to ignore all visual barriers, as long as she wanted, wearing clothes in front of her was completely useless. But within a dark corner of his mind, Roland lamented not having this kind of ability himself, while also involuntarily changing his sitting position by tilting his legs.

Speaking of appearances, she could be considered as the most unique of the five witches: with aquamarine hair that dropped straight to her shoulders, slender eyebrows, and the fringes of her hair seemed to have the appearance of someone that had just stepped out of a picture. Especially her amber colored pupils, which were so transparent that they had almost no depth, as if they were mirrors that reflected all incoming light. Looking at them for a while, Roland felt as if a red beam could come shooting out at any moment now.

Sylvie’s ability was very easy to understand, using her inner sight, she was able to see everything – even the area behind her back was not an exception. Furthermore, her vision could penetrate all barriers, the specific depths of the penetration depended on her own desire. She also possessed a similar branch ability as Nightingale did: She could see the gathering and dissipation of magic.

Which itself was somewhat surprisingly to Roland, for the branch abilities to be so similar, then what about the primary ability? When he asked Sylvie this question, the latter first hesitated, but then said that from the hundreds of witches on Sleeping Island, there were no witches who had the same ability. He then felt a soft pinch on his left side coming from Nightingale, he knew that this sentence was the truth.

The reason for this is probably because the sample is just too small, Roland thought.

The last witch to be tested was Candle.

She and Anna had both experienced their day of adulthood when this year’s Months of Demons was happening. When she was still a minor, her ability could only be used for lighting candles, oil lamps, torches and the like. But after her day of adulthood when her magic had also become more stable, this effect had also been significantly enhanced. Furthermore, after that day, she had gained the ability to preserve an object’s characteristics for a brief moment – for example, after casting her magic on an ice cube, it wouldn’t melt even after placing it in the hot sun. Instead, it would still send out bursts of cold.

At first glance, this ability seemed to be simply incredible. With it, Roland would be able to do many things he couldn’t achieve using conventional means. But after several rounds of testing, Roland had to acknowledge that in the end, her ability wasn’t as perfect as he had imagined it to be. First, it belonged to the category of enchanting abilities, which meant that she needed to have direct contact with the target. This limitation made it difficult for Candle to preserve high-temperature objects.

Thereupon his attempt to obtain a liquid drop of steel which would forever keep its incandescence state in that way providing the blast furnace with an everlasting heat source broke apart. With the exception of Anna, no one else would ever dare touch something that was as hot as a thousand-degrees with their bare hands. And in case the metal was turned into a long and thin iron wire, allowing Candle to keep hold of one end while enchanting the other also led to another problem.

Which was that the more the object’s state surpassed what was considered as its normal state, the greater the magical consumption would be, and the duration of the effect would also become shorter.

Roland used ice to verify this point – after solidification, he cut a block of ice into two equally large sizes. One he put onto the scolding hot ground while he threw the other into a basin filled with water. The former only persisted for an hour before it quickly began to melt, while for the other, besides cooling the water’s temperature still maintained its original form.

This meant that when the effect was placed on red hot iron or steel, it would only become more inefficient.

Finally, the volume of the object was also a factor which restricted Candle’s ability. Like Hummingbird and Mystery Moon, the greater the size of the object was, the more magic Candle needed to spend. According to Nightingale’s observation, Candle’s amount of magic was placed within the lower to middle ranks. It looked like a golden mist, which had yet to form a dense cyclone.