"Reed, I heard you created your own magic spell. Would you like to show us?" Nicola suddenly asked as the dinner was winding down.
"No!" As expected, Reed decisively rejected her request.
"I'm busy! I still have a lot to do. I need to go back to the library to read books."
Nicola didn't seem discouraged and tried again, "Or how about we spar for a bit?"
"I heard from Cyra that although you only have two wings, your strength is quite formidable that even she can't beat you. And now I have six wings, so I should be able to match you, right?"
"The strength of six wings is decent..." After all, it was two whole ranks higher. Reed had to admit Nicola had a point and her tone softened a little.
"But in Edenmere, angels with six wings are not hard to find. Your conditions don't seem to be enough..."
"What do you mean?" Nicola leaned back slightly, seeming to understand what Reed meant.
"That's right. Like I said earlier, I want to research that sword you have for a few days. That should be fine, right?" Reed didn't hesitate to make her demand again.
"No way!" Nicola rejected it without a thought. The secrets hidden within the Condensation Sword were too many, even herself didn't fully understand them. Moreover, it involved time. Even if Reed was a genius, Nicola worried something may go wrong during research.
"It doesn't have to be the sword..." Seeing Nicola's firm refusal, Reed was taken aback. Nicola made the sword, yet she was guarding it so closely. But Reed didn't want to obsess over it and made another request, "Then you'll have to voluntarily assist me in my research for a few days. That should be acceptable, right?"
As expected, it was the same request. She had mentioned it earlier in the library too, but Nicola skirted past it then. Bringing up the old request now and using her self-created magic as leverage.
"You won't dissect me for research, right?" Although Reed was a classmate, Nicola still couldn't fully trust her and cautiously asked.
"Of course not! I'm not a medical researcher. I'm just curious why you're an angel yet can control the wind element." Reed explained matter-of-factly. As expected of the aloof girl, if I were doubted like this, I would surely loudly protest.
"So does that mean if you were a medical researcher, you might dissect me?" Hearing that, Nicola didn't feel relieved at all but even more apprehensive.
"You're deliberately exaggerating. I don't want to dwell on such meaningless talk." Reed focused on her food and soup after saying that, indicating she would ignore such talk.
"I... " Nicola let out an embarrassed laugh, momentarily forgetting Reed's personality wouldn't entertain such joking around. Nicola decided to be serious again and asked, "Then tell me, why do you want to research me? What exactly do you want me to do?"
"You already have six wings, don't you know some basic common sense of this world?" Reed asked seriously.
"Since you can control an element, that means you can sense it and use corresponding elemental magic. That is called elemental affinity. And now as an angel, you being able to control the wind element is very abnormal. Normally, you shouldn't be able to have wind elemental affinity at all."
"Oh right! Lady Elara was just talking about related stuff earlier!" Cyra suddenly recalled, slapping her thigh.
"But that was about Feliciana, suspecting she has water elemental affinity because her wings turned blue. And it likely has to do with our souls that crossed over!"
"Wings turned blue? Souls?" Reed glanced at me, her sharp eyes making me break into a cold sweat.
"Seems like you two have many hidden secrets..."
"No way! We came over from Earth together! We know everything about each other, what secrets could there be?" I quickly explained, not wanting her to misunderstand we were hiding anything. Our experiences in the Dark Continent were too long and messy, and not suitable to elaborate on now.
But she was the top student who read many magic books, likely having some insights in this area. So I simply explained again the part about my wings turning blue.
"So the initial suspicion is it's related to our souls, since our souls are from different worlds. We plan to ask the Sages' Council for help after staying in Edenmere for a while, to see if they can provide an answer."
I'm increasingly certain of this now. From the elemental affinity perspective, Nicola's situation is indeed similar to mine – possessing elemental affinities angels normally shouldn't have. And the only commonality between us is being Crossers. Although Cyra and Reed haven't shown any abnormalities yet, the 50% "onset rate" is telling.
"I see. Our crossing over indeed proves the existence of souls. Such matters are truly hard to say since souls are not well understood..." Reed nodded in agreement after listening.
"But my research will continue. Or Feliciana, why don't you participate too? It's simple. I just need you two to manipulate some elements or use some non-light elemental magic for my reference. Here, basically all angels and light elves can only use light elemental magic. You two anomalies are quite rare."
"just use Nicola. She alone should be enough!" Seeing she wanted to pull me in too, I decisively sold out my teammate and pushed Nicola to the forefront.
"I've only confirmed I can sense water element, haven't even manipulated water before, much less used water magic."
"Hey! Don't be so heartless!" Nicola smiled wryly in protest, but she didn't mind. Between us two, she was indeed more suitable, plus she already agreed earlier.
"You made another factual mistake. Direct manipulation is much harder than using magic. Most people simply cannot directly control elements. Magic is an indirect way of controlling elements."
Reed meticulously corrected me, "Nicola skipping the magic step and directly controlling the wind element means she has surpassed most mages in this world."
"Awesome! I bow down to you!" Hearing that, Cyra instantly gave Nicola a thumbs up.
"I didn't believe you earlier when you said you were hacking. Turns out I greatly underestimated you. You didn't just hack normally but have some ultimate premium customized hacks for top game streamers!"
"But I still don't like using magic. I prefer to kill with weapons!" Nicola shook her head.
"Even when playing games, I only ever choose warrior or physical attack type classes, never magic casters!"
"That's quite a waste..." I said enviously. Although I rarely played games on Earth, I still loved magic casters very much. If I played games, I would pick ranged attack classes like mages.
"In any case, just come to the library every day to assist my research, okay? At least a week. How about it?" Reed didn't care whether Nicola liked magic or not, that wasn't her concern.
"Okay, hope it doesn't take up too much of my time." After thinking about it, Nicola agreed to the conditions.
"I'll try..." Reed nodded. Seeing Nicola agree, she suddenly stood up from her chair and spread her wings behind her back. It was my first time seeing her angel form.
"Then I'll fulfill my promise and teach you all the magic I created – Five Lights and Ten Colors."
She likely named it herself, I could feel the strong Earth characteristics. But it felt a little weird in this magical world.
"No need for a spar. I could have taught this magic to you all without any conditions. But to get Nicola to cooperate with my research, I had to use it as a bargaining chip."
She specially explained so we wouldn't misunderstand.
"It's fine. I didn't want to learn it anyway, just wanted to see it." Nicola was nonchalant. We were classmates after all. The earlier negotiation was just an after-dinner amusement. Helping a classmate a little without endangering lives, she didn't mind.
"I want to learn! Teach me!" Cyra pleaded eagerly.
"You can come find me in the library after class tomorrow." Reed agreed without hesitation.
"I'll only demonstrate now for these two."
"You're casting it right here in this room?" I looked around. The room wasn't big. Although I heard this new magic was something like illusion magic, I still worriedly asked,
"It won't blow up, right?"
"It won't. Most of this magic's energy output is converted into light, so it won't affect reality at all."
Right after she finished speaking, I felt the people and the entire room around me start warping and spinning rapidly. All the colors visible to the naked eye were churned into a vortex within moments.
Next, countless piercing bright lights appeared, flickering at high frequency as they joined the spinning fray.
Then all sorts of illusions emerged, one moment morphing into a massive lump of meat squirming ceaselessly, another moment becoming dense agoraphobia holes that induced intense discomfort... Simply conjuring up whatever was most nauseating.