Release That Witch

After Barov took his leave, Roland put the chart of census into the drawer. He turned to look at Nightingale and wanted to ask what had happened to her, yet after hesitating for a moment, he did not say anything.     

He might know the answer, and yet he dared not to say out because of the embarrassment as well as the possibility of guessing wrong. Instead, he said, "Next is to visit the North Slope Mine."     

"Want to see the changes of Soraya's new ability?" Though Nightingale was acting a little strange now, her manner looked just as usual. She took off the hood and laughed. "Let's go."     

[Perhaps I'm thinking too much,] Roland thought while watching the witch walk towards him.     

The sky journey of the hot air balloon that day had affected more than one person.     

Roland had not expected that Soraya had become the second witch whose power had changed qualitatively.     

In fact, even Soraya herself did not expect the change.     

Roland found out about it by accident yesterday.     

Since the hot air balloon was given to Anna as a gift, it was laid in the courtyard. Someone who wanted to fly and enjoy the view would just call for Anna and Lightning. Until the day before yesterday when it rained, Roland remembered that cane-weaved gondola would be softened and peeled if it was soaked by water, moreover, it would lose part of ductility even after being dried. Hence, he was about to take it back into the castle.     

He was meant to order the aiders to do it, but when he reconsidered it that the hot air balloon was a gift for Anna, and the components like the cord and the gasbag were fragile, he decided to take it in by himself. When he met with Hummingbird in the courtyard and was about to work on it, what he saw in the gondola surprised him.     

The inner wall of the gondola was covered with drawings. They were of an aerial view of Border Town. Unlike the two-dimensional picture she had painted before, it seemed the paintings had a stereoscopic sensation. Regardless of the falling raindrops, Roland moved closer to have a clear look before discovering that for the first time, her painting had "thickness".     

It was not surprising for a painting to have a thickness, and theoretically, any real paintings should have thickness because the pigments themselves had thickness. In oil painting, painters would even use the thickness of the pigments. With pens, brushes, or scrapers, they could create uneven texture, and through varied color layers, they could strengthen the texture as well as improve the presentation of the picture.     

But Soraya was different, for her drawings were not created with pens and pigments but the magic power.     

That was why the thickness created by the magic power was particularly strange.     

He remembered that when he touched the raised trees gently with bare hands, it was like scratching the branches and leaves which were not hard solid but slightly softer jelly. And when he touched the ground, it felt more solid as if he was touching a stone.     

It was incredible.     

Moreover, as the raindrops ran down along the painting, they were kept away from the canes.     

As soon as he got back to the castle, he called for Soraya. At the same time, Nightingale also confirmed the speculation. When she observed Soraya in the Mist, the magic power in her body had changed from the initial state of the golden gas swirl to the new state of a condensed and constantly rotating ribbon.     

...     

When they stepped into the compound of the military factory, Anna was smiling and greeted them by giving Roland a big hug.     

Since they had opened their relationship, she behaved much more intimately when staying with Roland. Roland rubbed her head pleasantly and the silver hair clip on her hair was glittering in the sun.     

Yet, he caught a glimpse of Soraya who was meant to walk over to greet him but held back bewilderingly. In the end, she looked away, her face blushed, pretending that she did not see anything.     

"Ahem," Nightingale pulled Soraya back to the table and asked loudly on purpose, "You've painted all of these?"     

Roland shook his head while laughing, and he let go of Anna and walked towards the table along with her.     

The table was covered with Soraya's paintings, and they were the views of what could be seen in the compound. The only difference among these paintings was the thickness. Some paintings extended just one millimeter high above the paper, while others extended near three centimeters high. This was the training that Roland had made her practice in the morning in order to test how thick the 'pigments' created by magic power could be.     

"This is the thickest one?" Roland reached his fingers to touch the painting that extended three centimeters high above the paper. It seemed that the pigments of the enchanting blue sky were too soft so that he could not sense any texture, however, when he moved his fingers to the wall of the compound, he felt the gravel-like friction at once.     

It seemed that as he had guessed, a picture painted with the Magic Pen not only had the same shape and color the real objects but also the feel.     

"It could be thicker, but it consumes much more power when it goes beyond this thickness." Soraya pointed to a brown protrusion on the table. "I meant to draw a tree on the wall, yet when I just finished the trunk, it had cost me half of my magic power."     

"You've painted this thing?" Roland reached his hand to measure its extended height above the paper. To his surprise, the thickness was up to 10 centimeters. "I thought it was a real bark standing here."     

Though as Roland had said, it looked like a bark, but its bonding with the surface of the table was exceedingly strong. He picked the bark up, which did not separate from the table, even when the legs of the table were above the ground.     

Nightingale unsheathed the dagger to cut it. It took her a long time to cut a small hole at the bottom of the bark. "As if it was embedded in the table."     

In the end, it was Anna who cut the bark off. As the thread formed by Blackfire swept over the table, the pigments emitted a white smoke before the bark fell down. The cut was neat but not smooth and had black scorched marks. When Roland picked up the fallen pigments and held it in his hand, it felt much lighter than he had expected.     

"Why did you suddenly think of changing your painting style?... No, I mean, how did you decide to fill the painting with thickness?" he asked.     

"I think probably because it was the first time I saw such a landscape," said Soraya, recalling. "When I was overlooking the earth, I felt that the paintings I made before—the 'photo works' that, like you had said, were almost able to rival the real scenery were not truly real. Especially when I painted the scenery in the gondola, this feeling grew stronger." she paused and slowed down, "The top of the tree is peaky and waves with the wind. The height of hills varies, some high, some low, like the undulating chest. The river is embedded in the earth, and there are vessels traveling over it. This is the scenery I've seen, not a thin plane of things. So I want to make the picture more real that it could stand up like the magnificent scenery. But I failed several times... When in slight frustration, I suddenly remembered the small ball you had said."     

"The small ball?" Roland said, raising his eyebrow.     

"Well." she nodded with some sort of embarrassment. "It's the knowledge that you've taught us, and I thought since everything was made of small balls, shouldn't the painting be the same? I tried more times, imagining that the painting made by Magic Pen was colorful balls, which were overlapping each other until they formed pieces of colors. And then... the picture suddenly squirmed. The green forest uplifted, and the dark green river sank down. The whole painting became what you've seen now. The change had startled me and Anna a lot, and I wouldn't view it as an evolution of my ability unless you mentioned it to me."     

"I see."     

"But compared to Anna's Blackfire, my new ability seems useless except for making the paintings more vivid." Soraya stuck her tongue out.     

"No... How could it be?" Roland shook his head. "In my eyes, it's not just a simple painting."     

It would be completely wasteful if she only used the ability to paint. He remembered the scene that the raindrops ran down along the surface of the gondola and was kept away from the cane. Rather than treating it as pigments, he would view it as a "coating" that was made of the magic power.