Millennium Witch

Book 3: Chapter 273: Authority

Solving the divine realm problem so easily left Yvette with a sudden, massive sense of emptiness—like winning a lottery jackpot. Without the grind and struggle, there wasn’t much feeling of “earned” success.Even so, the corners of her mouth still curled up unconsciously. Then, with her back to Shuanghua, she said in an offhand, casual tone, “All right, it’s done.”

Shuanghua stared at her in a daze.

She had just felt as if her own divine realm had been damaged a little, but the extent of the damage was so small she wasn’t sure if it was just her imagination.

She asked, “Grandmaster, you mean…”

“The divine realm—I already have one,” Yvette said.

The next second, a soft white sphere of light radiated out from her as the center, expanding rapidly. Shuanghua’s pupils tightened slightly, but she didn’t resist. She let herself be drawn into the light and found that she had entered a pure white world.

A divine realm.

A tiny, tiny divine realm, with a radius that might not even reach ten meters.

Shuanghua had never seen a divine realm this small. When her own had just been born, its radius had started at at least a hundred meters, then slowly expanded to over ten kilometers. This one was practically just a room. But remembering what Grandmaster had said earlier, she formed a few guesses and hesitantly asked, “Honored Grandmaster, did you just break through?”

Yvette put away her smugness and calmly shook her head.

She had created this independent little space using her mimicking ability. Calling it a divine realm was probably acceptable, since the shell of its walls was made of the same stuff, but in terms of realm… it didn’t really count as a breakthrough.

“I studied your divine realm, then made a copy. Just like yours, it can function as an independent space. Since you’re a genuine divine-realm powerhouse, help me take a look—what am I still missing?” Yvette asked.

Shuanghua no longer had any idea how many times she’d been shocked today.

She had never heard of a divine realm being copied.

Even if it were her well-read senior sister Tertia standing here instead of her, she would definitely be stunned, right?

She mulled it over for a long time, then asked, “Grandmaster, do you have a Saint Core… or an ‘Authority’?”

“No,” Yvette said. “What is an ‘Authority’?”

Shuanghua hesitated for a moment, then suddenly raised her hand and opened a blue circular doorway, gesturing with her fingers.

The next second, from beneath the misty waters of a hot spring somewhere in the Snowwind Divine Realm, a slender, long magic staff tipped with a snowflake-shaped blue-white crystal shot up, sending water spraying in all directions. In an instant, it passed through the blue doorway above and dropped into Shuanghua’s hand.

Shuanghua stroked the beautiful, otherworldly staff, then handed it to Yvette. “Grandmaster, this is my Authority. I call it the Snow Emperor Staff.”

The moment Yvette took the blue-and-white staff, she could instantly feel that she had gained control over a certain little world. Needless to say, it had to be control over the Snowwind Divine Realm.

Besides that, faint motes of light flickered along the dark teal shaft and the snowflake-shaped crystal floating at the tip, like scattered stardust. Only with careful scrutiny could you tell that each light mote was an intricately delicate rune structure—even Yvette found them exquisite to the extreme.

She figured these rune structures had to be Shuanghua’s Snowwind divine arts. Part of them were familiar runes from the field of elemental magic that she recognized, and the rest were completely unknown. The mix of known and unknown runes meant that even as a master of rune compilation, she had no way to imitate them—unless she devoured and deconstructed the Snow Emperor Staff itself. But that would inevitably cause irreversible, massive harm to Shuanghua.

It was only after Shuanghua’s explanation that Yvette learned that during the Saint Realm, the Saint Core and the mana core were more or less the same thing. But after entering the divine realm, the core would separate from the body and, under the influence of one’s divine arts, take on a concrete form outside the body, becoming a kind of materialized concept.

It was called an “Authority” because it was the key to controlling the domain and wielding divine arts. In terms of control over the domain and the effectiveness of divine arts, the Authority surpassed the wielder themselves.

In other words, if one’s Authority were taken, a divine-realm powerhouse would lose more than half of their strength. Its importance went without saying.

Beyond that, the expansion of the divine realm also required the Authority.

Using the divine realm as a receiver, the Authority could draw in magical elements from the outside world and extract from that immense quantity a trace of a very special power, called “divine power.” This was the primary material used to develop and expand the divine realm.

By gaining insight into nature and deepening one’s understanding of their divine arts, the Authority’s production efficiency would increase, and the divine realm’s expansion would naturally speed up.

But even after more than four hundred years of cultivation, with guidance personally designated by the Legendary Mage and top-tier talent, Shuanghua’s current understanding of the Snowwind divine arts could only yield an output of about 20 standard mana units’ worth of divine power per month. It could hardly be called fast.

In other words, if you converted her ten-plus-kilometer-radius Snowwind Divine Realm entirely into divine power, it wouldn’t exceed 100,000 points.

After listening to Shuanghua’s explanation, Yvette—who had just been quite disappointed at not having an Authority—felt much better.

If she wasn’t mistaken, Aberrant Mana and divine power were almost interchangeable, at most differing in purity.

She might not be able to actively generate Aberrant Mana, but with the Land of Finality as a massive “farm,” she could go harvest Blacktide Continent and Jadeite Continent once every ten years and easily clear a baseline income of several tens of thousands. Meanwhile, at Shuanghua’s current rate, she was only getting around 240 points a year.

Looked at that way, the Authority’s production efficiency was, for her, just a bit of icing on the cake—barely better than nothing.

Its main function still lay in spatial storage, acting as a temporary refuge, and providing combat buffs.

Thinking of combat buffs, Yvette felt that even though she didn’t have an Authority, she did have one edge that a normal divine realm couldn’t compare to, namely—

She could create multiple divine realms.

And each divine realm could be built into whatever environment she needed.

With that, her use of divine realms should be much more flexible than that of a typical divine-realm powerhouse.

After this cross-generation conversation—crammed full of information—came to an end, Yvette and Shuanghua returned to the warm, cozy indoor room of the hot spring courtyard at Snowmist Lodge.

By now, it was already late. Stars were scattered thick across the sky, like a handful of crushed mirrors flung onto the night.

Because she was worried and concerned about the possibility that Rosalyn and the Witch of Finality were imprisoned somewhere deep within the Snowfields, Yvette pushed the matter of constructing divine realms to the back burner for now. She decided to rest for a few days, digest and sort through the intel she already had, then head straight for the War of Divine Judgment ruins deep in the Snowfields.

Sitting behind the black ebony table, Shuanghua took the initiative to pour her Grandmaster a fresh cup of tea, then said in an emotionless voice, “Grandmaster—please, you must be very careful around the True Gods.”

“I know,” Yvette said.

She was wary of the True Gods as well. Fortunately, she now had the Witch of Finality as a false banner. As long as she didn’t reveal her true strength, the True Gods probably wouldn’t dare rashly start a war with her.

After thinking for a moment, she asked again, “Is there any way to fight against the True Gods?”

Shuanghua gave a slight shake of her head, but after hesitating for a moment, it was as if she’d recalled something extremely important, and she added, “Senior Sister said the divine race all need faith. A divine being without faith will end up like an Eldritch God—falling into madness.”

“Fall into madness…” Yvette froze slightly. She had guessed that faith was important to the gods—that was one of the motives behind her developing the Silver Witch Church—but this part about falling into madness still took her by surprise.

It made her think of that drug the Holy Spirit Sect made using faith-element, the so-called “Requiem Elixir,” which could treat cyber psychosis caused by research into necromancy. It had a strangely similar flavor to the idea of the gods relying on faith to avoid madness.

Could it be that so-called Eldritch contamination was just a kind of cyber psychosis passed on to believers during the process of a will descending?

Either way, developing a church was definitely the right move—Yvette said, “I’ll spread faith on the Eastern Continent and compete with the gods for followers. I may end up needing your help with that—whether in the Snow Country or elsewhere.”

It wasn’t convenient for her to show too much of her strength, lest people realize she wasn’t actually the Witch of Finality. Now that she had a divine-realm Shuanghua, if Shuanghua stood out front, many things would become much easier.

And once she and Shuanghua had built mutual trust, wouldn’t the Academy of Truth—especially the current dean, Tertia—also be able to step up and endorse the Silver Witch Church?

As long as no war between gods broke out, when it came to competition at the believer level, she was very confident she could hold her own against those traditional churches with all the reward mechanics granted by the Apostle system.

“I’ll do my best, Honored Grandmaster,” Shuanghua said, nodding solemnly.