Release That Witch

It was also mentioned in the letter that Tilly was trying to translate the characters and intended to see if the Witch Cooperation Association had any idea.     

Roland decided to reply the letter with the updates about the demon and Holy City of Taquila along with the picture of restored scene Soraya drew, which might help her on her translation. The information like this was not supposed to be hidden. If they could figure out the misfortune 400 years ago sooner, they would cope preparation sooner and might discover the weakness of the church. If the church had nothing to hide, they would not have tried so hard to cover the history.     

There was apparently something they were trying very hard to hide.     

Other than that, it was best to send someone to check on the stone tower in Misty Forest. The remainings of Seawindshire in the Eastern Region were sealed by the church and the island of the Fjords was submerged in the sea throughout the year, and there was almost nothing left other than the books in the secret chamber. Perhaps, there would be some information which was hidden deep inside of Misty Forest which was very inaccessible that even the church had a hard time reaching.     

However, Roland was worried about the demon reported by Lightning, the task could only be carried out by the witch. However, it would be very difficult for Roland to accept if any one of the witches were injured. He kept reconsidering and finally decided to wait for the army to be equipped with the new generation of firearms before heading into the forest along with the witches in order to deal with the possibility to encounter the demon.     

Roland suppressed the insecurities in his heart and forced a smile. "I understand what happened to Tilly. I'll reply to her letter and explain to her. Let's complete the ability test first."     

Afterall, it was the right thing to do to expand and strengthen the ability during the peaceful time. In this case, he at least had the battle force when the inevitable battle approached.     

…     

The test site was set outside the town's city wall. Roland had even transferred the First Army to isolate the surroundings to prevent the refugees to enter the test site by mistake.     

Lotus was the first to accept the test.     

Her age was closed to Nightingale's, looking extremely lovely with her short curly hair and like a pretty daughter from a moderate family from her features. She was not very tall, only around one and a half meters with a petite body. She looked like a little girl who was yet to go through her puberty with a feeling of soft and weak as compared to Nightingale who had a taller build, but her ability was strong that she could easily change the terrain within five meters beneath her feet.     

The description stated in the letter was far less shocking than seeing it in real life. During the test, Lotus made the land beside her raised like an earth pillar which was almost seven to eight meters through the sky, and the towering earth pillar collapsed due to the structural instability.     

According to her, the looser the ground was, the lesser magic consumed to transform it. However, similarly, if the land quality was too bad, the buildings and walls formed would be extremely weak. It would be hard to create anything decent if the main component of the ground was gravel. Apparently, she could only change the terrain without changing the material of the earth. Of course, this problem could be solved by expanding the scope and thickness of growth.     

Roland even asked her to demonstrate the construction of a house; however, the soil in the Western Region was obviously not as compact as that of Sleeping Island. The soil house that was raised from the ground collapsed several times when it was left with spaces for windows and doors, and the wall thickness was finally increased to half a meter. The completed house was as simple as a cave-dwelling, and it could only use for basic living as it was a lot worse than the compact brick house with a regular layout.     

Nonetheless, the cave dwelling was still better than a wooden shed with air leaking everywhere, at least the house could be easily warmed up with a brazier and a heatable adobe in the winter. If there were not sufficient brick houses built before the Months of Demons arrived, the house could be used to make up the number.     

The last step was a comprehensive test — Lotus' ability belonged to the typical summoning type without any derivative skill. During the casting process, it was very susceptible to the impact of the God's Stone of Retaliation due to the shaping of terrain could only be effective within five meters. However, the land she had formed would not retreat after that.     

"What's the level of her magic power?" Roland asked.     

"It's a brown cyclone with an extremely dense center, and she's at a pretty good level compared to the other witches," Nightingale contemplated and said, "It's closer to Leaf's level."     

"What about the speed of consumption?"     

"It's fine to raise the ground surface." She looked down at a raised stone wall at the foot of North Slope Mountain. "It could probably only last for two or four hours to transform the rocks as the magic power descends quickly."     

Roland nodded. Leaf's magic power was the third strongest in the Witch Union after Anna and Soraya, and having enough of magic power was the premise of the continuity to perform—of course, there would have no problem to last an entire day for Nightingale and Lightning who had a low consumption ability.     

After the information was recorded in a book, he began to test the second witches.     

"Who's next?"     

"Me, me, me!" Honey raised her hand.     

Roland tilted his lips and said, "In this case, show me your ability."     

Honey's height was similar to Lotus, not tall and in fact a little shorter than Lotus. She just passed her adulthood last year, and she appeared to be very lively. Her fluffy brown hair curled up like a twist and her skin was darker while a chain of beast's tooth was strung around her neck, wrist, and ankle.     

Her main ability was "Beast Tongue", which could be applied to the animals within the range of effect. The animals tamed by magic power would execute the instructions given by her but the instructions should not exceed the animal's ability. After the task was completed, the animals would be released or she would relieve the animals.     

Other than that, Honey also had a very interesting derivative ability—Animal Messenger. She could pass the taming command through the messenger animal to the target animal—for example, summoning a bird to search for a more powerful animal to come around to serve her. It could be an old cat or a ferocious goshawk, but the final result was full of uncertainty and the process was totally uncontrollable.     

However, both the main ability and the derivative skill would be affected by the God's Stone of Retaliation, especially Animal Messenger as the command could be easily erased by the God's Stone of Retaliation and free the animal. In addition, the bigger the animal was to tame, the more magic power it consumed as she mentioned that she could summon up to dozens of birds but she could only control around two to three cows.     

The third witch to accept the test was Evelyn. About 25 or 26 years old, she sounded particularly cordial with the standard accent of the king's city.     

Tilly's list noted that she could transform the low-quality ale into alcohol with totally different style and taste as long as she tried it before—Roland's initial purpose was obvious for this witch, which was for the purification of alcohol. Since she could transform the watery ale into the delicious wine or fruit wine, it should not be a problem to transform it into white liquor.     

Rolland had carefully prepared a few bottle of packaged alcohol with a concentration of 50% to 95% for this. Although the alcohol was a little spicy, it should not be a problem to take only one or two sips of it. The key was to persuade her that the transparent liquid that burnt the throat was indeed a type of liquor.     

However, it was not a good place for wine tasting under the scorching sun without any delicious side dishes, ice cubes, and crystal wine glass. It would be mistaken as poison if he directly took the strong smell white liquor out here. He planned to have a subtle influence during the dinner instead, thus, he simply skipped to the next witch after asking Evelyn a few questions.     

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