It felt so good to be close to the witch!

If this is the case for the Witch stage, one can only imagine how it is for the Grand Witch stage.

The Grand Witches' talents are already effective against Legendary Knights. While a Grand Witch might not be a match for a Legendary Knight in a one-on-one situation, the combined power of so many Grand Witches working together creates effects far beyond the simple 1+1=2; they can produce 3, 5, or even 10! In this way, even a Legendary One-Star Knight wouldn't dare claim a guaranteed victory.

Not to mention, the magical fluctuations emanating from these witches are far more than those of someone who has just entered the Grand Rank.

Fuma's gaze fell on a ram-horned girl wearing a pale yellow fitted woolen dress, whose figure was so voluptuous that even Fuma couldn't help but glance at her.

This witch, whom she vaguely remembered, possessed the strongest magical energy among all the witches!

Let me introduce you to each other.

After everyone took their seats, Roy smiled and said, "This is Fuma Soros, the daughter of the Border Duke and a legendary two-star knight. At the same time, she is also a witch, just like you."

"This is Shanica, the head maid of the Tulumbel family. Her ability is 'healing'." Shanica smiled gently at Fuma, her pale golden ram horns shining brightly in the light.

"So it was you..." Fuma suddenly realized why she felt this witch was vaguely familiar—she had been following every witch assigned by the temple in the province of Lafa, including their photos.

Shanica was originally a witch serving in Blackrock Territory. However, Shanica disappeared not long after she began her service, something Fuma once regretted—she thought Shanica had gone out of control due to corruption and had been secretly executed by the temple.

Now that she has seen him and heard his name, she finally remembered who he was.

"Miss Shanika, I've heard so much about you. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"It's a pleasure to meet you." Shanika smiled.

“This is Vivian.” After introducing Shanica, Roy pointed to Vivian: “She is Lilia’s younger sister, and her talent is ‘Light Element Control’.”

“Miss Lilia’s sister…” Fuma’s eyes brightened slightly as she looked at the exquisite girl in front of her, who seemed like an angel descended to earth and was wearing a pure white sundress. She nodded and said, “Hello, Vivian.”

"Hello, Sister Fuma," Vivian said softly. She was always rather shy around strangers.

“This is…” Roy was about to introduce the next person.

"I'll do it, I'll do it myself!" The little fox girl's clear voice rang out. She stood up, holding up her delicate white hand, a smile of interest on her lips: "Sister Fuma, hello there. My name is Elena, and my talent is 'illusion'."

After a brief self-introduction, she gave a sly smile:

"Sister Fuma, what's your relationship with Brother Roy? This is the first time I've seen him introduce himself to us."

Upon hearing this, Fuma, who was about to speak, paused, her eyes darting away slightly.

“Irina, don’t talk nonsense!” Roy’s expression turned serious: “Miss Fuma is our ally.”

"Hehe." Elena blinked her charming eyes, her two fluffy and soft fox tails swaying gently behind her, her mouth slightly pouting, like a little girl who had accidentally done something wrong.

“Miss Fuma, please don’t mind her. Elena just loves playing pranks,” Roy said helplessly.

"It's alright." Fuma shook her head gently, her eyes returning to normal, and smiled faintly, "Elena, it's a pleasure to meet you."

To avoid causing any more trouble, Roy directly pointed to Tonine and introduced her this time: "This is Tonine, a cyborg girl, whose talent is 'Metal Manipulation'."

Tonière nodded to Fuma without any expression.

“Don’t worry about it, Tonnie is like that with everyone,” Roy explained from the side.

“Hello, Miss Tonigne.” Fuma smiled. As the daughter of a duke, she had met many people, and people with a naturally aloof nature were not uncommon. In fact, her Uncle Doug was just like that. Therefore, she not only did not mind, but also felt a strange sense of kinship.

After meeting the four new witches, Fuma's shock did not lessen but instead intensified.

Healing, control of light elements, illusions, control of metal... plus Miss Ais's control of ice elements and Miss Lilia's control of shadows.

Of the six witches, four possess elemental manipulation talents.

Don't be fooled by the fact that elemental control talents are the most straightforward and simple to manifest; in reality, they are among the strongest talents.

Witches possess a wide variety of talents, encompassing all sorts of things. Any kind of talent is possible, but among all talents, the undisputed top tier is the elemental control talent—it is extremely powerful from the start, and becomes even more pure and formidable as it progresses.

Elemental control witches are the mainstays of witch combat power. They are extremely rare, and for some reason, basically only one witch with a particular elemental control talent will exist in an era. Only when the witch who controls that element dies can the next one be born.

Besides the four elemental control talents, Miss Shanica's "healing" talent and Elena's "illusion" talent also greatly alarmed her.

Fighting, venturing out on adventures, breaking through realms... doing so many things will inevitably lead to injury. How fortunate it is to have a witch with the talent of "healing" by your side. The importance of a "healer" is self-evident.

And illusions are even more invisible and intangible; once you're caught in one's spell, you might not even realize it yourself—they're terrifying to the extreme. In fact, she believed that of the six witches' talents, Elena's talent for illusion was the most frightening!

Before meeting Roy, even if Fuma knew of the existence of these six Grand Witches, she would have been concerned, but not overly so. She knew very well how difficult it was for a Grand Witch to advance to the "Great Witch" realm.

However, due to Roy's presence, the pollution level of Lilia and the others was reduced to 0, which means that these six Grand Witches all have a certain probability of advancing to the Great Witch realm.

Six Grand Witches are nothing, but if there are six Great Witches, and not even the weakened version of Great Witches who cultivate the "Demonic Puppet System"... then even the temple will be restless.

For a moment, Fuma was filled with mixed emotions.

Inside the hall, Roy sat at the head of the long table. He clapped his hands lightly, drawing the attention of the women, and then began to speak:

"The purpose of gathering everyone here today, besides getting to know each other, is to check your progress in basic meditation techniques, so that we can exchange ideas and make progress together."

"Sanika, you go first."

Shanica, whose name was called, smiled gently and reached out to tuck a few strands of hair behind her ear: "I am now the seventh rune in the second stage."

Her words elicited different reactions from the people present.

Ais's expression remained cold and aloof, but her hands, hanging at her sides, unconsciously tightened.

"So fast!" exclaimed the little angel Vivian. "I haven't even imprinted my first rune yet."

“Me too… Sister Shanika, that’s so fast! I remember you only advanced to the Grand rank a few days before us.” Irina’s two large fox tails stood up straight with excitement.

"..." Lilia didn't speak, but her gaze fixed on Shanika said it all. As Lord Roy's personal bodyguard, she simply couldn't bear the fact that her cultivation level was lower than Shanika's, who was a "support healer."

"The seventh rune in the second phase?!" Fuma's eyes widened.

She also has a basic meditation technique. Although she slowed down her training after advancing to Legendary to reach Legendary Level 2 as soon as possible, and hasn't finished training the nine runes of the first stage yet, she knows very well what the seventh rune of the second stage means—if she imprints two more, Shanika will meet the minimum requirements to advance to the Great Witch!

Given Miss Shanika's current qualifications, her chances of becoming a Great Witch are not guaranteed, but they are over 60%.

Don't think that 60% is low. The vast majority of Grand Witches at their peak have a less than 10% chance of breaking through to become Great Witches!

"Sister Shanika, can you tell me how you practiced basic meditation?" Elena wagged her big tail and asked expectantly, "You haven't been practicing for as long as I have..."

Elena's additional comment made Shanika slightly embarrassed: "Actually, I'm not entirely sure either."

At this moment, Roy spoke up, "I do have some guesses about this, but before I do, Ais and Lilia, you two should also tell me about your progress."

"...The third one." This is Ais's.

"The second one." This is Lilia's.

The two women are progressing at about the same pace.

“The first one isn’t finished yet.” That’s Tonnie’s.

Upon hearing this, Roy nodded knowingly.

This progress is roughly in line with his expectations.

Ais was the first among the girls to advance to the Grand rank, so her progress was a bit faster than Lilia's. Elena, Vivian, and Tonière advanced to the Grand rank around the same time, but none of them had yet completed their first rune.

In fact, if the Witch Guild knew about Ais and Lilia's training speed, they would be astonished. This training speed was ridiculously fast. To be precise, it took Ais about a month to advance to the Grand rank, and Lilia even less.

However, compared to Shanika's terrifying progress with her "seventh" item, the two of them paled in comparison.

"Take these." Roy's spatial ring flashed, and seven boxes with different names on them appeared on the table in front of him. He used his battle qi to push them to the women.

"The key to a Grand Witch breaking through to become a Great Witch, besides the degree of corruption, is the degree of compatibility with the original sin trait."

“I have written down your individual original sin characteristics and put them in a box. Take them back, read them, and remember to destroy them after you have finished reading.”

“Even I have one…” Fuma looked at the small box in front of her, her eyes sparkling.

"The biggest challenge for Grand Witches in aligning with the original sin characteristics of their own souls is that they have no way of knowing their own soul characteristics. They can only try one by one, which is not only time-consuming and laborious, but also wastes a lot of time. In the end, the direction of their efforts may not be correct."

"Once you understand the original sin of your soul, I believe it will be much easier for you to connect with each other."

"I think the reason why Shanika was able to practice basic meditation so quickly is because of her high degree of compatibility with the original sin characteristics of her soul."

After these words, all the women fell into deep thought.

The original sin trait was something they hadn't considered before.

The main point is that this is something that people usually start trying after they have practiced basic meditation to the second stage and reached the ninth stage.

"That's about it. Everyone, try it out when you get back."

Roy smiled, got up, and left the hall.

The witches stared at each other for several seconds, then, without prior arrangement, they all got up and returned to their rooms.

No one is immune to curiosity about the original sin inherent in their own soul.

……

Royal Capital, Saint-Feuer, Central District.

At the top of the magnificent Great Hall of the People, a large bronze bell, its surface bearing the marks of time, gently sways, emitting a melodious chime.

This is the place where the noble council holds formal meetings, and the ringing of the bell signifies the start or end of the meeting; at this moment, it is clearly the latter.

Having removed his armor, the tall and imposing border duke, dressed in a magnificent formal suit, walked out of the Great Hall with a blank expression.

At the entrance of the Great Hall, a knight wearing full golden armor and a sword at his waist spoke first.

"Breton".

“Oh, so it’s you.” The border duke’s lips curled into a mocking smile: “Grand Master of the Royal Knights, one of the Twelve Pillars of Radiance, the Golden Ruler—Eric Bede.”

"After a year apart, even a coward like you has reached the legendary limit."

Ignoring the border duke's mocking tone, Golden Ruler Eric's expression was cold and his tone was stiff: "I'll take you to collect the military funds."

“No rush, no rush.” The border duke slowly brushed past Golden Ruler Eric, shaking his head and saying, “I need to do something first.”

"It's my duty, don't make things difficult for me." Golden Ruler Eric flashed and appeared in front of the Border Duke, blocking his path.

The smile on the border duke's face gradually disappeared. He looked at the knight in front of him: "Do you represent the old king, the eldest prince, or the second prince?"

"It doesn't matter whose side you're on, now, get out of my sight immediately."

Golden Ruler Eric's expression hardened. The Border Duke, as a veteran legendary limit knight, put a lot of pressure on him. If he hadn't also advanced to the legendary limit, he wouldn't have had the courage to stand up and block the way.

However, now that things have come to this, he has no room for retreat...

Seeing Golden Law Words Eric standing silently in place, the last trace of a smile on the border duke's face vanished completely. He walked forward step by step, each step seemingly landing on Eric's heart, making his heart beat faster and faster.

When only three steps remained between them, Eric could no longer hold on and had to step aside, breathing heavily.

"The gap between legendary limits is much larger than you can imagine."