Millennium Witch

It has a teacher backing it up!

"Hello... My name is Bingyu, and I come from the Sky Kingdom of Silver Mirror Continent. May I ask which kingdom you are from?" Seeing Abella approach, Bingyu blinked and asked curiously.

“I am not a mechanical puppet.” Abella looked at Bingyu with a playful smile. “I am a divine heir serving my master. Miss Bingyu, you can just call me Abella.”

"A divine heir?" Bingyu tilted her head in confusion.

“It means a higher stage of aberration,” Yvette explained.

Bingyu immediately showed a frightened expression and wanted to back away, but Abella walked over, took her hand, and said kindly, "Don't worry, we divine offspring are highly intelligent beings just like humans, and we are completely different from those brainless scum. We are partners now, and I won't hurt you. You can even think of me as a machine that looks like a human."

"Uh...uh...okay..." Looking at Abella's beautiful, almost human-like face and seemingly sincere expression, Bingyu nodded weakly. "You said it...then we're partners, you can't hurt me."

“Yes, I promise,” Abella said with a smile.

“Hypocritical,” Dugrabi muttered, scoffing.

Chapter 91 Another Year

After the simple onboarding process was completed, Yvette took some clothes from the car and had Abella change into them. Although she had her own black armor to cover her private parts, her dress was now tattered and looked rather undignified.

"It seems a little small..." Abella commented after putting on Yvette's clothes, but quickly realized something and said somewhat timidly, "I... I didn't mean to tease you..."

Yvette didn't understand, thinking to herself, "You're almost a head taller than me, so it's normal for your clothes not to fit."

She then started thinking that she should buy more clothes for her future trips to the dream world, and she might need to consider different body types... Hmm, she should also buy men's clothes, so that even if no one else needs them, she can wear them herself... She just wondered if there were any fitted suits suitable for someone who was 1.65 meters tall, and whether they would make her look too handsome and dashing...

After considering for a moment, Abella had changed her clothes. The casual attire instantly transformed the Spider Witch's aura. If she was an arrogant and aloof elegant beauty when they first met, and later a pitiful beggar girl when they met again by the sheep, then now she was a vibrant and youthful college student.

Yvette admired Abella for a moment, thinking she had the potential to be a dress-up doll, and then asked, "Can you drive?"

"I understand a little, Master," Abella said uncertainly.

“A little is enough.” Ivy nodded, not particularly concerned. Firstly, automatic cars are easy to learn to drive, almost like four-wheeled electric scooters, so there’s no need to suffer from the clutch. Secondly, in the post-apocalyptic world, there are hardly any traffic laws, so you can drive with peace of mind.

With Abella driving, she no longer has to sit in the driver's seat all the time. This extra time, whether used for meditation, continuing to design the "Grimoire of the Gale," or sleeping, will greatly relax her travel life.

……

The dragon moved about in the sky, stopping and starting, while the car stumbled and bumped on the ground.

After passing the Cux ruins and traveling eastward for more than two months, Abella's driving skills gradually improved after her early experience of driving the car into a ditch, and she was finally able to stop disturbing Yvette's afternoon nap.

As a result, life on the journey began to become more stable and comfortable.

Since Abella, like humans, needs three meals a day, the group would stop every so often to engage in activities such as hunting. Occasionally, Yvette would take the time to fish along the riverbanks they passed by—although what she often caught were mutants disguised as fish.

Dugrabi is still studying magic, mainly memorizing and practicing spells from the "Flame Magic Codex". Occasionally, when it encounters a powerful elite aberration, it immediately gets excited, howling and rushing forward to test its learning progress.

Bingyu was also very curious about the "Flame Magic Grimoire," but the mechanical puppet's body was different from that of a normal living being, making it difficult to become an elemental carrier and almost impossible to condense a magic core. Therefore, the path of mage cultivation was destined to be out of her reach.

If she wants to become stronger, she can only apply to the Holy Temple to participate in the cultivation assessment. Once she meets the requirements of the God of Grace, she will naturally receive enhancements in modification or equipment, thus gaining powerful combat abilities.

However, since she had applied once before the trip but failed, and the next application would involve a long wait, she probably wouldn't be able to become a combat expert for a long time.

During this slow-paced journey, Abella gradually regained some of her strength, reaching the level of a first-stage aberration, gaining the ability to summon a spider-leg spear from her body, and no longer having to worry about being humiliated by wild animals like sheep.

Although she still harbored thoughts of revenge, she had to admit that she found this kind of travel experience quite interesting.

First, her master's control over her was not strong; he didn't even require her to stay. She could leave whenever she wanted. This great degree of freedom made her less anxious to leave.

Secondly, the master is a top-tier powerhouse below the monarch. With her protecting him, he doesn't have to worry about being caught by some indiscriminate killers and becoming nourishment for the mother nest.

Finally, the master would teach the black dragon some unique and ingenious magic, along with corresponding hidden techniques. Although she wasn't a student, she could eavesdrop, and that's how she mastered many magical spells she had never understood before.

Fortunately, as a fifth-stage lord, although she no longer has the aberration factor, her magic core is still there, and she has a total of more than 3000 magic points, making her the person with the most magic points in the entire room. If she learns more magic, she can make full use of this advantage.

Incidentally, Yvette's total magic power only recently broke through to 2400 points.

He could easily defeat the Spider Witch at her peak with his magic alone, but his total magic power was actually less than hers.

As expected, mana and combat power are not the same thing.

……

Another year has passed in the blink of an eye on this long journey.

Over the course of the year, Yvette gradually stopped meditating and practicing. Apart from her important task of compiling the "Grimoire of Gale," she spent most of her time taking afternoon naps.

This wasn't because she was lazy, but rather due to two special circumstances.

Firstly, due to the "rune siphon effect," even without meditation, her body would spontaneously absorb runes, essentially leveling up while offline. Furthermore, because this leveling speed was close to her body's limit in processing runes, the difference between meditation and not meditating became negligible.

For example, even if she just lazes around every month, she can steadily increase her total magic power by 3 to 4 points, which adds up to about 42 points a year. 500 years ago, when she first transmigrated, she worked diligently for a whole year, but her increase was only 1 to 2 points – a significant difference.

Secondly, she increasingly felt the importance of mental strength. For a nature mage, mental strength is not only the soul itself, but can also be compared to the rune point cache in a magic terminal. The higher the mental strength, the larger the scale of the spells that can be cast instantly.

Given that the magic terminal will inevitably break down someday, striving to improve mental strength may be a better way to enhance combat power.

……

Meanwhile, the strength of Dugrabi and Abella also increased rapidly during this year.

Thanks to Yvette's unabashed magic lessons, Abella actually learned quite a bit of fire magic from her master, and its practical application far exceeded the spider leg spears she could currently summon.

Just then, Dugrabi needed a sparring partner, so every time after lunch, while Yvette napped in the car, Dugrabi and Abella would spar using fire magic in an open space.

Although in almost every situation, Dugrabi, with his "Flame Magic Grimoire" and more tricks, had an absolute advantage, Abella, as a fifth-stage lord with outstanding combat talent, often managed to fight Dugrabi to a standstill by using her few basic spells and her exaggerated total magic power of 3000 points, employing a strategy of attrition.

It's just that she can't read the Radiant Language; otherwise, if she had borrowed the handwritten copy of the "Flame Magic Codex" from Bingyu, Dugrabi might not have been a match for her.

Chapter 92 The Submerged City

The following year, in the height of summer, one morning.

Lazily opening her eyes from the bed, Yvette raised her arm, twisted her body on the not-so-spacious bed, and stretched languidly.

She half-opened her eyes and looked out the window. What came into view was a sky that looked like it had been painted by a god.

The clouds maintained the posture of a whale leaping out of the sea, their fluffy edges displaying a translucent porcelain white color.

The azure sky was so pure it made one's eyes water. The blue flowed down from the dome, spreading out near the distant horizon and turning into a watercolor-like light blue.

This is what summer should feel like... Listening to the cicadas chirping outside and feeling the cool air conditioning in the car, she felt a little relieved. She thought of a summer vacation many, many years ago, when she was still a teenager, enjoying a carefree life in her room with the air conditioning on, watching anime, and eating iced watermelon.

She was only a teenager at the time, without worries or anxieties, and full of expectations for the future. She never imagined that years later, the same cicada chirping would chase after the tail of her little electric scooter, rushing about on the hot streets, never able to stop for a moment.

Without realizing it, she felt a little nostalgic. She looked down and saw a beautiful woman with dark hair sleeping on a makeshift bed in the narrow aisle, her head resting on her little leather boots.

Then, after waiting for more than half an hour, seeing that Abella still showed no signs of waking up, she couldn't help but stretch out her foot, hesitated for a moment, and then pulled her foot back, instead reaching out to gently stroke the other person's hair.

There was no other way; the RV space was limited, and the boots had been requisitioned. Without waking the maid, she couldn't get out of bed to put on her shoes.

"Hmm... Is it dawn yet... Good morning, Master..." Abella yawned and sat up.

It's clear that the year-long apocalyptic journey has made the spider witch much more relaxed. In the first few months, she was always highly vigilant while sleeping, waking up at the slightest sound to investigate. Now it's different; Yvette suspects that even if she stepped on Yvette's head, Yvette wouldn't feel a thing.

After putting on her boots and getting out of the car, Yvette woke up the fast-sleeping Black Dragon and Ice Rain on the roof, grilled some fish she had caught by the stream the day before for breakfast, and then prepared to set off for her next destination.

Over the course of more than a year, judging from the map, Yvette and her team did not travel a long distance in a straight line.

On the one hand, the RV often traveled along winding curves because it got lost and took detours. On the other hand, it passed through two puppet kingdoms along the way and stayed there for two or three months at a time.

While staying at the previous Puppet Kingdom, Yvette learned about "Miss Bellflower from Cux" and discovered that she had gone to a Puppet Kingdom called "Water Tower Kingdom".

This is certainly good news, since we promised to deliver the message for the copper sheet, and it would be best to complete it as soon as possible.

So, after obtaining the approximate location of the Water Tower Kingdom, Yvette instructed Abella to speed up while driving to ensure the mission could be completed as soon as possible.

……

According to the electronic map, the location of the Water Tower Kingdom has entered the territory of the Rusty Bone Free State, and is located in a small fifth-tier city called "Fusjiang".

Based on Yvette's experience exploring other ruined cities over the past year, unless such a small, fifth-tier city, like Cux, harbors a mysterious underground cavern that attracts "extraterrestrial demons" to occupy it, the profits are generally very low. At most, she can earn 1000 to 2000 points of aberrant magic power, which is not enough to keep her there for long.

However, when Yvette activated the RV's levitation mode and flew over a mountain range, she was surprised to see what Fusjiang looked like.

This place has been transformed into a ruined city submerged by water.

Looking down from afar, the entire Fus River resembles a water city built on a large lake, its surface as bright as a mirror, reflecting the clouds and the sky. Tilted, rusty signal towers, along with the spires of countless skyscrapers, pierce the water's surface, like a steel forest suspended in the air.

The underwater street is about ten meters deep. The former asphalt road is now overgrown with aquatic plants, and schools of fish dart among them. At a bend in the river, a paulownia tree growing on the edge of a building sways in the breeze, its pale purple flowers drifting down and being swept by the eddies through the half-buried bus carriage. The seats are covered in moss, and fluorescent green spores drift with the current, looking like a flowing constellation from a distance.

Inside the cockpit, Ice Rain and Abella were quickly captivated by the rare and beautiful scenery, while Yvette swiftly detached herself and turned her gaze to the mountains beside her.

According to the map, Fusi River was originally a city downstream of a lake, with a well-known freshwater lake on Kuroshio Island upstream. If the dam had not been maintained for hundreds of years, it would be reasonable for floods to have swept down and submerged the city.

She then noticed that there appeared to be many artificial bridges made of wood and steel between the buildings in the city.

This couldn't have been made by humans, so it must have been made by the local golems. If nothing unexpected happens, the Water Tower Kingdom will be the only golem settlement she's seen so far that dares to build its kingdom within the ruins of a human city.

A moment later, the RV and the black dragon entered the city and parked on the roof of a ruined building with a relatively intact load-bearing structure.

Yvette got out of the car and waited for a while. Then she saw two puppets walking across a small bridge made of alloy plates in the distance. The one in the lead was a young puppet who looked very much like a human. He walked over and said, "I am Ed, the governor of the Water Tower Kingdom. This is my adjutant, Comet. And who are our guests..."

Then, noticing the three men's unfathomable "cultivation realm," the young man paused slightly before changing his question: "Are you all the esteemed ones of divine grace?"

“No, not at all.” Yvette shook her head and said politely, “We are travelers on the continent. May I ask if you have a lady here named ‘Windbell’ from the city of Cooks in the northwest?”

“There is indeed such a lady…” Ed nodded in surprise.

“My name is Yvette Loshivia. When we passed through Kux, we were asked to deliver a letter to Miss Bellflower. We hope you can pass it on.” Yvette took out the letter and intended to hand it to the young puppet in front of her.

The mission seemed to be over at this point, but she soon saw Ed shake his head and say, "I'm sorry, we can't do it."

He paused, then explained regretfully, "During an attack by mutated creatures a long time ago, Miss Bellflower was caught in the crossfire and died unexpectedly. After the Holy Temple's gracious angels diagnosed her, they told us that her spirit had dissipated, and even if her mental core was repaired, she would no longer be the same person she was before. So we buried her together in the back mountain."

Chapter 93 Equipment Development

Upon hearing this, Yvette let out a soft "Ah," surprised by the outcome. Bingyu, standing beside her, couldn't help but ask, "Mr. Ed, how long ago was this?"

“It’s been at least ten years, hasn’t it?” Ed thought for a moment and said, “The mutated creatures deep in the mountains often come to this ‘Fus River’ and the surrounding area to forage. Although we are hiding on the ‘water tower,’ we can’t stay here forever, otherwise how can we cultivate? Accidents can easily happen during this process.”

Has he really been gone for ten years?

Yvette was somewhat speechless, but quickly realized that given the situation of the machine race, this should be an easy thing to happen.

After all, their communication channels were primitive and closed, they had no stable messengers and could only rely on manual delivery. Moreover, they were naturally long-lived and lacked sensitivity to the passage of time...

Hmm, how come this situation is so similar to my own in every way?

But mechanical parts also age, while her vitality is endless and never-ending, showing no signs of weakening. From this perspective, if she were to encounter a similar situation, she might be in more serious condition than the mechanical race.

However, it should be alright. Since his apprentices have already broken through the theoretical lifespan limit as understood by the Origin Civilization, they can't be viewed with common sense...

She silently dismissed those annoying longevity-related conjectures, composed herself, and said, "Mr. Ed, would you please take us to Miss Bellflower's grave? Since we couldn't communicate while she was alive, I would like to bury Mr. Copperplate's letter with her."

"Huh, you mean the sender's name is Copper Skin?" Ed asked in surprise.

"Well, what happened?"

Ed and his adjutant walked ahead, leading the way as they spoke: "I remember Miss Bellflower once told us that she ran away from home after a big fight with her lover, whose name, I think, was Copperskin..."

"what?"

This time, apart from Abella, Yvette, Ice Rain, and even Dugrabi were all stunned. They all simultaneously conjured up the image of Mr. Copper in their minds—a body made of tin canopy, a round head, and a face with no features other than two glowing round eyes. He looked like a dull, silly little robot with a very serious personality…

What's going on? You, with your thick eyebrows and big eyes, actually have a relationship? You even argue with your partner? And you even secretly keep it a secret from everyone?

Yvette suddenly felt that the machine race didn't seem as honest and simple as they appeared.

Having mastered even concealment, shouldn't the next step be to master the core human skill of lying?

……

The cemetery of the Water Tower Kingdom is located in a wilderness outside the city. There are small mounds of earth everywhere with sticks stuck in them, which are probably simple cenotaphs built by humans. Different cenotaphs are also equipped with different small ornaments to confirm their identity.

Miss Bellflower's cenotaph was covered with small blue-purple flowers, making it easy to spot. After burying the letter in the mound, Yvette's mission to deliver the letter was complete, but there was a slight regret, as it hadn't actually reached the recipient.

Meanwhile, Ice Rain and Dugrabi, who were on the sidelines, were ruining the atmosphere by gossiping the whole time, speculating about how Copper Skin and Bellflower had fallen for each other, and who had pursued whom first.

Just as the two were arguing about this, Abella suddenly spoke up and said, "They are not in a romantic relationship."

After the two looked over, and even the master glanced at her, she smiled slightly and said, "It should be Miss Bellflower's unrequited love, but Mr. Copper didn't understand it. And perhaps there were some disagreements involved, such as whether to move the kingdom from Cux. In short, she got angry and chose to leave."

"How do you know? You clearly don't recognize copper sheets either," Dugrabi said skeptically.

Yvette immediately realized: "You read the letter?"

“Yes.” Abella wasn’t ashamed at all; in fact, she seemed a little proud.

“Miss Abella, how rude of you! How could you peek at someone else’s letter?” Bingyu said immediately.