Millennium Witch

Soon after, many details about meditation came to mind.

Yes, with no worries about survival, plenty of time, and nothing else to do, using meditation to improve her strength is undoubtedly the best idea for her to escape the ruined base.

"It's a bit slow, but it's okay. The last thing I lack right now is time," she said softly, then closed her eyes and entered a meditative state.

The room fell silent, with only a faint light still flowing rhythmically beneath the surface of the magic vine, as if it would never change.

……

In the boundless stillness and darkness, the world outside the ruins saw the sun rise and set, and before anyone knew it, a year had passed.

Over the course of the year, Yvette had fully adapted to life in the ruins base. She spent most of her time meditating, absorbing the magical elements floating in the air. In her spare time, she would wander around the different floors, tidy up, and sort the junk she found into three categories: useful, useless, and uncertain.

Sometimes, she would secretly open the small door to the exit of the water platform, but she would not go near the lake. She would just sit quietly at the door, looking at the clear blue sky or the starry sky outside, and then miss her loved ones on Earth.

Sometimes, she would sit on the steps inside the exit tunnel and read by the sunlight streaming in from outside. At first, it was "A Detailed Explanation of Inner and Outer Magic," and later it was "The Rune Siphon Effect," all of which were magic-related reference books that she found in the library.

The book "Detailed Explanation of Inner and Outer Magic" explains that on this planet called "Origin Star," the magic power of all magical creatures, including humans, is divided into two types: inner magic power stored within the body and outer magic power obtained by utilizing the external environment.

Therefore, the more internal magic power a spell relies on, the easier it is to control; conversely, the less internal magic power a spell relies on, the more unstable it becomes.

"The Rune Siphon Effect" is similar to gravity in the magical realm, explaining why magical elements on a planet do not leak into the universe by describing the attraction of a high-density rune magic field.

Well, they're all good books.

It's a bit difficult for beginners to understand; it took her several months, and she also learned some relatively rare proper nouns in the Black Tide language.

Then, when she finished reading the second book, "The Rune Siphon Effect," it happened to be an afternoon at the end of the first year.

In the winter chill, fine, still snowflakes fell like willow catkins, covering the originally black water platform with a layer of silver frost. The lake surface not far away was calm, the monsters seemed to be asleep, and only a few lonely bird calls echoed in the desolate and vast mountain basin.

Closing the book, Yvette stood at the doorway, lost in thought, until a snowflake landed on her nose, making her sneeze.

……

Due to wind pressure, the ventilation ducts often have cold air in winter. On the tenth basement level, Yvette collected all the small pieces of trash she could find that could block the wind and made a simple windproof and heat-insulating layer.

Having sought refuge here from the cold, Yvette was still wearing the same white dress and white tights she had worn a year ago.

She discovered that her skin was neither oily nor flaky, and her clothes were rarely dirty, so she rarely needed to wash them.

At this point, she had been cultivating for a year, so she planned to test her magic power in a while to see how her cultivation "success" was.

Recalling the data provided by the AI, the standard for an entry-level spellcaster is 10 mana points, and it takes more than seven years of training to use meditation.

So, in essence, the normal efficiency of meditation is 1.5 times per year?

Is this too slow?

but……

Even so, Yvette still harbored some unnecessary expectations.

Well, according to the calculation, it's 1.5 times the efficiency per year, but that's the meditation efficiency of an ordinary person. Is she an ordinary person? Absolutely not, right? Not only is she not, she might even be the chosen one!

What might be an inefficient meditation method for others, could it be different for her?

then……

She recited the beginner-level spell she had read in "Basic Theory of Magic," which was specifically for self-testing magic power. After waiting for a while, she was shocked to find that her test result was only slightly over two points. Considering that she didn't eat, drink, or go to work, and spent even more time cultivating every day, her actual efficiency was that of an ordinary person.

"So I was just a mortal after all..."

After waiting for so long, this was the result. Yvette was heartbroken and felt as if the world had turned gray.

Fortunately, she can still hold on.

For someone who seems to be immortal, there's nothing she can't overcome! What talent can't grant her, she'll make up for with hard work!

So, that's it.

Spring comes and autumn goes, time flows by, and five years have passed quietly in the daily meditation and research.

Over the past five years, in addition to meditating to enhance her magical power, Yvette also compiled a series of professional books related to magic that she had collected from various floors. Although most of the books touched on high-end fields and the content was so specialized that she was completely lost, she still managed to gain something from studying them diligently.

For example, you can obtain some simple rune arrangements from a case template, or learn the basic architecture and deduce simple rune formulas from it.

It is worth mentioning that chanting incantations is not actually a necessity for casting spells, and incantations are not even the same as runes.

In the study of the human civilization on the Origin Star—referred to as the "Origin Civilization"—the number of known runes alone exceeds ten thousand. These runes, when combined, can create "matter" and "elements" with vastly different properties.

Therefore, for beginners, just distinguishing these tens of thousands of runes is a major challenge.

Thus, in order to ensure that spells could be cast even without remembering the runes, "spells" were born.

It's somewhat like an encrypted translation of runes, with slight modifications to make the incantation smoother and easier to remember. If you know the rune's form, you can cast spells without chanting once you've thought of it in your mind. But if you don't know the rune, you can still cast magic by chanting this translated scale and using your mental power.

For Yvette, who was still a beginner, using spells was obviously much easier than memorizing tens of thousands of abstract symbols.

"The breath of cold mist, the weeping of spirits, the binding of blizzards, the guiding force of the mind, Niflheim, heed my command!"

Standing on the water platform, Yvette chanted a spell, her fair hand reaching forward in a grasping motion. Soon after, an ice crystal about one meter in diameter condensed on the metal wall in front of her.

After casting the spell, Yvette estimated the amount of magic power she had lost. She roughly determined that this simple "Frost Spell" had used up 3 points of magic power—and her current total magic power was only about 9 points. This small spell had used up one-third of it.

"There's too little magic..." she sighed.

The mage has been training for six years, and even with all his might, he can only use four small spells. This rate of growth is truly unsettling.

Luckily, she's incredibly resilient; most people would have died long ago.

With no other thoughts in mind, Yvette turned to leave.

But as she turned around, a glimpse of the ice crystals that had just been created on the wall made her pause slightly.

Whether it was her imagination or not, she felt that she looked a little older as the ice crystals refracted the light.

Chapter 8 Rune Spells

Yvette's fleeting glimpse was clearly not an illusion, because in the years that followed, she not only looked more youthful, but also grew taller from less than 1.5 meters to about 1.65 meters, a growth of more than ten centimeters.

With a perfect figure, pure white skin, gorgeous silver hair, and a magnificent face, anyone who sees her cannot help but exclaim that she is truly an unparalleled beauty.

However, this trend did not last.

Four years later, in the eleventh year after her transmigration, her development stopped, and for the next two or three decades, even without any changes in her lifestyle, she maintained the appearance of a 17-18 year old girl, without aging at all.

She couldn't understand why this was happening. It made her feel like a biological machine with a specific program implanted in it, with its functions and limits clearly defined in the program, which she had no control over at all.

Could it be that someone has performed rune compilation on my genes?

Whether it's the survival ability that resembles the Magic Light Vine, or the beauty characteristic of "freezing age" after a certain age, are they all predetermined?

Is it a hidden technology that Black Tower Pharmaceuticals has not yet made public?

Thinking of this, and considering the enclosed metal door leading to the more central area below the tenth basement level, she couldn't help but make some connections.

If one day we can open that door, perhaps all the questions will be answered.

……

Lead-gray clouds filled the sky, and scattered raindrops drifted down from beneath the thick cloud cover, creating ripples on the surface of the lake in the crater.

This is the 53rd year since she transmigrated. Yvette, whose magic power has surpassed 80 points, is at her desk in the study on the basement floor, dipping her brush in the sap of the Magic Light Vine and writing notes. A fire has been lit in the corner of the room by dried vines. It's cold and damp outside, but warm and cozy inside.

"Ice Spell C-9, tentatively named 'Frost Bullet.' I feel like I've reached my limit; the runes don't seem to offer any room for improvement..."

"Flame Spell B-5, tentatively named 'Flame Dance'. Experiments have shown that more logical symbols and operators can be added, and the process can continue to iterate..."

"Wind Technique A-7, tentatively named 'Windwalker'. The user experience is terrible; the feel is like bouncing on the moon, unpredictable and still needs optimization."

This is her own training notebook, recording the rune arrangements she deduced based on her understanding of magic.

In fact, she was only proficient in using these three spells.

It wasn't that she couldn't access the magical formulas left behind by the Origin Civilization, but rather that without exception, all those spells required being entered into a magic terminal to assist in casting. Otherwise, she couldn't even remember those tens of thousands of runes, let alone use them.

So after much thought, she could only draw inspiration and ideas from those rune sets to imitate them and create the magic she needed at the moment.

Finally, the three spells "Frost Bullet," "Flame Dance," and "Wind Walk" were created—a mix of plagiarism and originality.

"I feel like I can practice my skills against the fish monsters in the lake now."

As she made this judgment, her gaze swept across the lobby on the lower level, where a bunch of things that looked like surfboards were visible.

It was a magical device called a "flying board," which, as the name suggests, was a miniature vehicle that allowed people to float and fly at a height of about twenty meters.

At this moment, these flying boards were still in a state of depleted energy. Her magical "pressure" was insufficient to recharge them, and she was unsure whether they were broken or not, but they still gave her a glimmer of hope to escape her prison.

Afterwards, upon exiting the tunnel and arriving at the water platform, where she was greeted by the cool breeze and rain, Yvette noticed a huge dark shadow slowly passing by beneath the surface of the lake in the distance.

"This mutant is a bit smaller, let's look for that one..."

The thought flashed through her mind, Yvette raised her right hand, made a "pistol" gesture, pointed her index finger underwater, and gently tapped the "trigger" with her thumb.

The next second, as 2 points of magic power were depleted, a translucent light shot out from her fingertip, plunged into the water dozens of meters away, and exploded into a beautiful ice flower!

—Frostbolt, a magical spell she's refined over a decade, is simple yet powerful. With just 2 points of mana input, it delivers three to four times the single-target damage of a similar spell, "Ice Cone," making its mana cost ratio utterly superior!

Of course, as introductory-level magical knowledge from the origin civilization, "Ice Cone" isn't a very practical spell; it's more about being simple and easy to remember, with only 20 runes. In contrast, "Frost Bolt" has over 300 runes. Aside from Yvette, most people wouldn't bother memorizing them; they'd simply copy and paste them into a magic terminal.

However, for a spellcaster with limited resources, using magic does not necessarily require reciting the entire set of runes in one's mind.

As long as the two conditions of "completely memorizing the rune sequence" and "extensive practice until a cross-memory of the body, spirit, and memory body is formed" are met, it can be transformed into a special "feeling".

Then, by connecting that feeling with your thoughts, magic can be cast instantly, as if it were an instinct etched into your genes.

……

Compared to the monster that terrified her when she first arrived 53 years ago, the mutated creature now is much smaller, only two meters long.

Enraged by Yvette, it immediately approached, and before even reaching the shore, its head eagerly split into four parts, revealing the chrysanthemum-shaped mouthparts in the center, showing its eagerness for the hunt.

As Yvette retreated, she used her thumb to feed more frost bullets into the opponent's deformed mouthparts.

However, the accuracy was slightly problematic; most of the frost bullets failed to hit the bullseye and ended up in some strange places.

Hmm, aim practice should also be put on the agenda... She secretly made a mental note of this.

Soon, accompanied by a roar, within seconds the ferocious fish-monster rushed onto the metal platform and wriggled toward Yvette like a crazed seal.

Seeing this, Yvette cast the "Windwalking" spell on herself, and with just a slight step back, she created a distance of more than ten meters.

Then she immediately used the third spell, Flame Dance.

In an instant, about twenty meters directly in front, a magical ring with classical patterns appeared on the ground. Blazing flames rose from it in the form of a tornado, engulfing the fish monster that was just climbing over it!

The fish-monster's agonizing screams filled the air, followed by the smell of burning. Although it wasn't directly burned to death by the fire tornado that rose from the ground, the burning effect still caused great damage.

Seeing this, Yvette did not choose to press her advantage. Instead, she retreated directly back into the tunnel entrance and skillfully locked the door from the inside.

—More than 20 Frost Bolts, each costing 2 points of mana. Add to that the 20 points from Flame Dance and the 6 points from Wind Walk, and her mana bar of over 80 points was already less than a quarter, exceeding the danger threshold.

Meanwhile, on the surrounding lake, many bizarre aquatic mutants, drawn by the fighting and the aroma of meat, accelerated their approach. Therefore, from any perspective, she saw no need to linger in the battle.

In any case, she has already received important practical feedback and had her first combat experience. There will be plenty of time to hunt in the future, so there is no need to rush.

Chapter 9 A Hundred Years

After her first combat experience, she became addicted, and every month thereafter, Yvette would "fish" two or three times on the water platform.

Although she only ever tried it out briefly, striking twice and then running away, it did help her adapt to the feeling of combat much better. She was no longer as flustered and clumsy as she was in the early days, often launching her frost into ridiculously inaccurate directions.

She also discovered the king hidden there, a mutated giant snake with rotting scales, a body length of over thirty meters, and a single eye on its forehead.

The appearance of this "One-Eyed Serpent King" greatly disrupted Yvette's escape plan, because its existence meant that if she wanted to leave using the "flying board" in the future, Yvette would have to be strong enough to face an attack from a giant beast in the lake.

This is putting a lot of pressure on her right now.

……

Soon, another 20 years have passed.

At this point, a full 73 years had passed since Yvette traveled from the past.

Because of the threat from the "One-Eyed Serpent King," she reduced the frequency of going to the water platform to avoid being instantly killed by the terrifying giant mouth that leaps out of the lake.

He also worked harder in his cultivation, and finally on this morning, he accumulated 100 points of magic power and compressed a small magic core into his body.

According to the "rune siphon effect" theory, a high-density magic core will naturally attract surrounding magical elements. And indeed, this was the case; her cultivation efficiency significantly improved, increasing her magic power by 2.5 points per year. At this rate, she could gain 250 magic points in just a hundred years—at that point, she might be qualified to rival that snake king.

Hmm, nothing much.

……