Chapter 207 Mothers and Replicates
Within her world of fog, Nightingale waited for the witches’ magic power to change.
Within this black and white world, she rarely had the opportunity to see so many brilliant colors. Compared to the memory of the time when they were in the search for the Holy Mountain, the magic power within them had increased a lot. The unceasing practice each day, not only allowed them to better control their ability it also increased their magical reservoir. But, Nightingale was most deeply moved by the expressions on their faces.
With the Witch Cooperation Association, although Wendy was always gently encouraging them and Cara would always remain steadfast, but even with that, during the days they were in hiding, no one would get a restful sleep. Any wind that moved the grass was enough to rouse the sisters from their dreams. Under the constant chase of the Church and the suspicion of the masses, they were never able to breathe easy. Even after entering the Impassable Mountain Range, this stress hadn’t been reduced by much. No one among them knew if they could really reach the Holy Mountain and obtaining their longed-for place to call home. Back then, the atmosphere within the camp was often very gloomy and most of the sisters had shown vacant and apathetic expression.
But now, no longer needing to starve and no longer having to worry about the Church’s witch hunt, all of their faces had become filled with an unprecedented spirit. Seeing that everyone was relaxed and smiling naturally, Nightingale heart also felt happy at the thought of their comfort. In the end, the Holy Mountain was not in the wilderness, but in this small border town.
At that time, she felt a thread of magic shaking.
A cloud out of a purple mist began to rotate, unceasingly surrounding and being drawn to a magical source, like a miniature-storm. This shocking scene could only be seen by Nightingale, after recovering from her initial shock, she stared with wide open eyes and held her breath not wanting to miss any details like the time with Anna and Soraya. Today would be her first time to seeing the condensation of magic with her own eyes.
At the center of this storm, Lily was standing.
She was completely immersed in the microscopic world beneath the microscope, never noticing that the magic within her body had underwent a drastically change.
The cloud of mist became more and more vigorous, steadily accelerating its rotational speed, appearing to become an entity on it’s own. But at the same time, this silhouette also began to fluctuate, no longer appearing in its original vortex shape. Finally, the magic was drawn inwards, condensing into a ball, and then gradually came to a stop.
Her newborn magic power neither resembled Anna’s solid and smooth cube, nor was it like Soraya’s soft silk. It was only the size of a fist, its main body was round, but on top of it there existed eight pairs of wriggling tentacles, four pairs at the bottom, four at the top. At first glance it looked like an… insect.
…
Roland never expected that he would receive such immediate results with the first Fundamental Biology lesson, and even less that the first witch to evolve her magic would be Lily.
Because her ability was to preserve the freshness of food, in addition to the daily practice, Roland hadn’t given her any other tasks, her understanding of her ability also wasn’t deep. After listening to Nightingales full report, Roland remained calm and collected and just nodded. Waiting until the end of the lesson, so that he could ask Lily to stay behind.
“What, you said that my ability has evolved?” Lily was also utterly astonished, “I didn’t see those balls you had mentioned.”
“Of course not,” Roland laughingly shook his head. “Those balls are thousands of times smaller than the microbes, even granted that we bring the optical microscope to its limit, you will still be unable to see the balls which form all of matter.
“Is that so? I thought that by understanding the ball theory it becomes possible to evolve our ability,” Lily muttered. “I do not believe that everything in the world is formed out of small balls, something as hard as rocks and steel, if they were really made out of a lot of piled up balls, they would have collapsed into a puddle of sand.”
So that’s the reason, he thought; it seems that comprehending the microparticle theory is not the only way to promote the evolution of their ability. “In that case, what did you see?”
“Um…” Lily thought to herself. “Just several purple insects, I believe, that they were summoned by my magic, and it could turn all of the organisms you spoke of into something with the same appearance.”
“Insects?” He slightly stunned for a moment, “And they were as big as a micro-organism?”
“Almost,” she said, nodding. “Anyway, afterward I once again used only my eye to look at the water drop, and it was still as transparent and colorless as before.”
“Then… next we should come to the real test.”
…
Because Lily’s ability was not directly visible to the naked eye, unlike Anna’s and Soraya’s, it was also much harder to test.
When seeing the neatly arranged microbes under the microscope for the first time Roland became started. It seemed as if they all had a collective consciousness, showing an incredible amount of synergy and consistency.
Next were the sub-experiments, including its impact on the duration time of the magic and which influence the God’s Stone of Retaliation had.
The testing continued for three days, although the little girl was fond of bickering under normal circumstances, she still meticulously carried out Roland’s instructions, regardless of her complaints.
Through a large number of sample comparison, as well as discussion with Anna, he roughly figured out how Lili’s new ability worked.
Her purple variation was clearly divided into two major categories: mother and replica.
After releasing her magic, the microorganism who changed on their own were the mothers.
The characteristic of the mother organism was similar to Anna’s black flame, as long as they were supplied with magic, they would continue to exist. Furthermore, the caster also wasn’t allowed to distance themselves further than five meters. Otherwise, they would disappear on their own. Just like any other summon, they were also affected by the God’s Stone of Retaliation, within the suppressing area of the stone, the mothers would instantly disperse.
When the mother was in existence, the surrounding microorganisms would be assimilated into replicas in a short time. What made Roland feel incredible was that the replicas which were the “results” of Lily’s ability, were just like Soraya’s coating, no longer vulnerable to the suppression of the God’s Stone of Retaliation. In simple terms, the creations that were transformed by Lily’s mother organisms had become an entirely new life form, and this life form existed in reality.
The replicated organism were assimilated by the mothers, and would take the initiative to transform other organism on their own, yet some of the results made Roland feel very confused, it seemed that the assimilation process didn’t go on endlessly. In some of the samples, into all of them were the equal number of replicas added, all of the microorganisms got transformed, while in some other samples, he could see the replicas and the non-variation of micro-organisms live in peaceful coexistence.
Due to the lack of more sophisticated observation instruments, this part apparently could only be guessed at.
After discussing it with Anna, Roland got the tentative idea that the number of assimilation a replica could perform was related to its size.
Lily’s ability clearly did not distinguish between the different types of microorganisms. Thus a large number of replica produced by the mothers were created out of the too small to see viruses and bacteria, and also the with the microscope visible protist and single-celled algae. The former body of these replicas determined its assimilation ability. The larger the previous organism was, the more assimilation the replica could perform.
However, a replica of a replica was unable to continue to live by further assimilate others. When the number of assimilation was exhausted, the last batch of replicas was only able to survive a day or so. Boiling the water would also kill most of the replica, in this regard they were no different than another microorganism.
But the interesting thing was, that whenever there was a mother around, these replicas would gather like a swarm of insects gathered around their queen, and arrange themselves in a neat queue, just like soldiers waiting for their orders.
Limited by means of observation, there were still many aspects of Lily’s ability which were unknown. For example, whether the mothers and the replicas resembled bacteria and viruses in the regard that they had a variety of effects on other lifeforms, or if they could take the place of fungi and be used for the chemical industry and food production. It was a pity that currently the little girl was unable to make any sense out of these ideas, even less able to carry out his orders.
Even though, the replicas had shown an immense development potential in the area of medical treatment. Even if they were unable to do anything else, as long as they were able to assimilate deadly bacteria or viruses, they could still play a significant part in the rapid anti-inflammatory and disinfection. This so-called “medicament” could pave the road for an entirely new era of medical developments.