546: The Mystery of God's Stones

The Mystery of God's Stones

Anna's task was completely separated from everyone else's.2

She only began to practice using the Sigil of God's Will after everyone else was completely familiar with the entire hunting process.

Although Iffy could not comprehend what kind of ability the Sigil of God's Will possessed, she could observe that the witches were all extremely excited about the rehearsal that was about to happen.

Did they rarely get a chance to see Anna display her ability?

Iffy's curiosity grew.

She watched as Anna strolled towards the middle of the field carrying an odd-looking sheet of metal in her hands.

Anna did not look like a combat witch at all. Her calm expression resembled the crystal clear water of a lake. From her movements and gestures, it was evident that she had never been in a life-and-death battle before.

The sheet of metal she was carrying also puzzled Iffy greatly. It was only about the size of a palm and was perfectly flat on both sides. Glittering gemstones were embedded on it. In no way did it look like a weapon.

"Let the balloons fly." Agatha gestured towards the direction of the Misty Forest. After a short while, several colorful balloons emerged from the forest canopy and flew up high into the sky.

"Go! Shoot them down!" She shouted.

"Wait... this is probably too far." Iffy mused. "The distance from the field to the edge of the forest is at least 250 meters. How would Anna be able to shoot these things down without flying? Unless, she's also able to transcend the usual limits of ability, and deliver the effects of her magic power to the sky?"

Anna nodded at Agatha. She raised the sheet of metal and pointed it in the direction of the balloons.

Shortly, Iffy witnessed a scene that she could hardly believe...

The four gemstones emitted a dazzling light at the same time. In a split second, the sheet of metal turned to gold in color. Thunderous claps were heard from the clear sky, while rays of light weaved together in the clouds and spattered. It was as if a new sun was being formed in the heavens.

Her ability can actually manipulate the entire sky!?

Before the crowd could even exclaim in astonishment, a blinding beam of gold light burst out of Anna's hands directly toward the balloons. The light rays in the sky were also controlled, and immediately, numerous thunderbolts could be seen following along the trail of the golden light and violently sweeping through the locations of the targets. It all seemed like a punishment that only God could have ordained! To Iffy, it was as though the deafening roars came from right beside her ears, causing her brain to buzz for a long time. By the time the light rays disappeared, she had yet to recover fully.

What kind of amazing ability is this?

Iffy's body continued to quiver uncontrollably as she stared at the empty sky above the forest. "Even if all of the combat witches of the Bloodfang Association gathered together, they would not be able to handle such a force. Did she rely on her own abilities or that sheet of metal to be able to do this?"

In the face of a show of strength like this, it would not make a difference if the enemies were the wild beasts which Heidi Morgan mentioned or just a flock of sheep.

Iffy suddenly remembered His Majesty Roland's suggestion.

Is this... the power of the senior witches?

*******************

It turned out that it was also the first time that Roland witnessed a complete demonstration of the power of the Sigil of God's Will.

The initial light rays seemed to leave an invisible trail behind them, allowing the golden thunderbolts that followed behind to take the same path. Furthermore, the location of the first thunderbolt strike was situated at the edge of the forest. This probably meant that the user of the Sigil was able to control it such that it only split apart when near to the enemies.

Another thing that Roland observed about the light rays was that they were only about as thick as an arm when released, but they quickly expanded in the shape of a fan, and the eventual range of each ray was approximately 50 meters. During the age of cold weapons, this was undoubtedly considered an apocalyptic weapon of mass destruction.

"Are all of those light rays... created by magic power?" Roland looked at Nightingale.

"I guess, probably, yes." The latter hesitated for a bit before answering.

"Probably?"

"In the mist, I could indeed see the frenzied surge of magic power, but..." She revealed a puzzled look on her face. "Its color is different from any magic power that I know or have seen before."

"What color is it?"

"Black, or should I say, the color of no light." Nightingale frowned. "They looked like black holes formed by the God's Stone of Retaliation."

Roland shuddered. "How is it possible that the color of the magic power of the gold-glittering Sigil is black in the misty world? Does this mean that the characteristics of their magic power are the same or at least similar?" In his brief trance, Roland seemed to think of something. "There's a relationship between the God's Stones and Magic Stones." It seemed as if he was on the verge of an audacious theory.

After he returned to his office in the castle, he summoned Agatha in.

"How many times did your people research on the Sigil of God's Will?"

"Not many. I've already told you everything that we found out. After all, only our chiefs were able to activate this type of sigil. Because their magic powers were crucial to our battles, there wasn't much that could be spared for this kind of experiment." She then asked curiously, "What's the matter? Is something wrong?"

"You mentioned before that the Sigil was able to penetrate the defenses of the God's Stone of Retaliation, right?"

Agatha nodded. "Not all the time. It depends on the quality of the God's Stones."

"Have you never observed the characteristics of the Sigil of God's Will's magic power?" Roland asked softly. "In the Mist, the magical thunderbolts invoked by the Sigil are the same color as the God's Stone."

"No... we've certainly done this experiment before. It was necessary that we recorded the characteristics of the magic power. However, during the activation of the Sigil, the Stone of Measuring would lose its monitoring function. And because our chiefs could certainly not visit the Quest Society every day, we simply recorded the observed color as gold." Agatha blinked a few times. "Wait, are you saying that it has the same color as the interference area of the God's Stone?"

"Indeed," Roland replied unhurriedly. "I have a theory that the God's Stone of Retaliation does not create black holes that neutralize magic power, but instead, it contains a great amount of magic power such that it affects and nullifies the operation of magic in its vicinity. This is also why the Sigil of God's Will causes the Stone of Measuring to lose its effectiveness. It creates a similar interference area as the God's Stone of Retaliation within its range of influence, and therefore the Stone of Measuring did not have any effect."

"But the trainee who's responsible for observing magic power has explicitly said that..." Agatha suddenly paused halfway through her sentence.

"Her observation was obstructed by the dazzling light emitted by the Sigil, like shadows being covered by light." Roland quickly opined. "Whereas in Nightingale's misty world, only magic power possesses color. She can even stare directly at the sun without being affected. This is why you weren't able to make this discovery."

Observing magic power was a derivative skill of the witches. It was limited by the witches' individual visual level. Furthermore, observations done in the day and night would yield different conclusions. Sylvie could fully prove this point. With her Eye of Magic, she could discover magic activity performed several kilometers away. Her detection range was far superior to Nightingale's.

This was why the Quest Society heavily trusted the results tested by the Stone of Measuring. Its accuracy was independent of the person operating it and the environment it was operated in, and thus it provided an overall highly accurate assessment of the magic power involved. It was almost as good as being able to observe under Nightingale's Mist. Therefore, the Quest Society would only accept the conclusion of the observer when the Stone of Measuring was unable to operate.

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