Chapter 30: Reserve Hidden Energy, Activate!
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【The curse transformed into power and surged into Vivian’s body.】
【In an instant, Immolate consumed every trace of the surrounding curse.】
【Such immense power had already far exceeded the limits of what Vivian’s body could withstand.】
【Scarlet blood seeped from her skin and poured from the seven orifices of her face.】
【Her body could burst apart from the pressure of that power at any moment.】
【She needed to release it.】
【Gritting her teeth against the pain, Vivian charged toward the white-robed mage.】
【The white-robed mage looked at the townspeople bathing in ghostly blue flames, then at Vivian, covered in blood as she rushed toward him. He gave a cold laugh. “For a mage, you are terribly inelegant.”】
【With that, he raised his staff.】
【The raging wind twisted and rose into a wall before Vivian.】
【Raw force tore the wind wall apart.】
【A flood of flames surged forward, transforming the remnants of the wind wall into new power.】
【Vivian grew faster and faster, charging straight at the white-robed mage like a wild bull.】
【The white-robed mage had perhaps realized that Vivian was already at the end of her strength and that the backlash from the flames was about to claim her life.】
【Confronted with Vivian, he remained utterly calm. With elegant composure, he recited incantations and raised one barrier after another before her.】
【At the same time, his offensive spells did not cease.】
【Wind blades, fireballs, lightning strikes...】
【Low-level spells that could be chanted rapidly fell upon Vivian with the precision of raindrops.】
【Immolate could only absorb a limited amount of offensive magic.】
【Vivian could do nothing but rely on the power produced by burning away the curse to smash through those spells by force.】
【Even so, she was already covered in wounds.】
【The clean and beautiful robes she had once worn were now reduced to rags. What they revealed was no longer smooth, snow-white skin, but blood-soaked wounds.】
【Even then, the white-robed mage gave Vivian no opening.】
【He floated through the air, retreating at almost the same speed as Vivian.】
【Defensive magic to obstruct her, quick-cast spells to wear her down, and constant movement to keep her at a distance.】
【This was the standard way for a mage to torture a warrior.】
【The white-robed mage clearly intended to torment Vivian to death.】
【Vivian naturally understood this tactic. It was, after all, a required lesson for every mage.】
【But she had no way to counter it.】
【She had to devote all her magic power to maintaining the state of Immolate.】
【Against a fourth-level mage, she had no room for even the slightest mistake.】
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【The white-robed mage still looked utterly relaxed.】
【Looking at Vivian, battered and utterly cornered, he shook his head. “How pitiful. For such a beautiful young mage to die in this manner.”】
【Vivian remained silent and ignited herself with the last of her magic power.】
【She charged toward the white-robed mage.】
【“It’s useless! You can’t even tou—”】
【Before the white-robed mage could finish speaking, an expression of terror suddenly appeared on his face.】
【In that instant, all the magic power in his body froze.】
【Vivian blurred forward and reached him.】
【Her wooden staff swung high into the air.】
【Crack!】
【With a sound like a watermelon bursting apart, the white-robed mage’s corpse collapsed limply to the ground.】
【Only then did the faint red glow around his body gradually fade.】
【Having just finished savoring the newly acquired remnant soul, you approached the white-robed mage with elegant steps.】
【“See? The old saying is true: villains die because they talk too much.”】
【After consuming the new remnant soul, your rank instantly surpassed that of the white-robed mage, allowing you to seize control of him in that fleeting instant.】
【Vivian also lived up to your expectations and seized the opportunity that lasted no more than a moment.】
【However, Vivian was already completely exhausted.】
【Leaning on her staff, she sank despondently to the ground.】
【Blood continued to flow from her wounds.】
【“I feel... as though I’m not going to make it out...”】
【The mages throughout the town had been drawn by the commotion and had already gathered nearby.】
【Yet, seeing the corpse of the white-robed mage lying motionless at the center, they still did not dare approach Vivian.】
【You looked at Vivian’s wretched appearance.】
【She had fought desperately to buy you time.】
【She certainly deserved a reward.】
Vivian was the sort of protagonist who always threw herself into danger when trouble arose!
Ron did not want her story to end here.
【“I’ll recite an incantation. Repeat it after me.” You sat on Vivian’s shoulder.】
【A complicated and awkward incantation flowed from your lips.】
【Vivian was already half-conscious, and in her dazed state, she followed you in reciting it.】
【As the enemies cautiously approached her, Vivian spoke the final line of the incantation:】
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【“Emergency reserve power, activate!”】
【As those words fell, a tremendous reserve of magic power surged out from somewhere within her body.】
【Vivian’s mind rapidly cleared as her magic power was restored.】
【She stared in shock at the changes taking place within her body.】
【The enemies were horrified by Vivian’s transformation.】
【Just as they prepared to flee, red light flashed, and their bodies were instantly immobilized.】
【Your lovely voice was as cold as the wind on a winter night. “Stop standing around, Vivian! Pick up your staff and smash their heads in!”】
Watching this scene, Ron felt an inexplicable sense of shame, mainly because of the phrase “Emergency reserve power.”
At the time, he had only been a middle-school student. Back then, setting such an incantation had seemed unbelievably cool to him.
Looking back now, it was embarrassingly childish—an absolute piece of black history.
The reason Vivian could erupt with power once more was actually very simple.
Ten years ago, when Ron first resonated with the world of magic, he conquered the world while simultaneously spreading magical education throughout his domain.
Every child of suitable age, rich or poor, was sent to the empire’s public schools to study magic.
At the time, magical cultivation was the exclusive preserve of a handful of powerful and privileged families. Each magical clan possessed its own unique method of cultivation.
Ron simply tore those families apart by force, gathered all their methods together, and simplified them into an entirely new system of magical cultivation.
With the unification of the empire, this method of cultivation naturally spread throughout the world as well.
Even today, it remained the primary path of cultivation for commoner mages. Even the cultivation methods of the aristocratic families had been optimized and revised on the basis of this system. After all, their original methods had long since been lost when Ron abolished them.
If you thought Ron had been doing something good, you were giving his younger self far too much credit.
He had possessed no lofty ideals back then. He had not even properly understood his moral education classes, let alone political theory.
From the moment he created it, Ron had embedded numerous backdoors into the system of magical cultivation he promoted.
For instance, half the magic power produced through cultivation was sealed within a mage’s body and could not be used.
Without the mages’ knowledge, Ron, as emperor, could access that power through a certain method and wield it as his own.
In other words, every mage who cultivated magic through this system became one of Ron’s magical batteries, granting him an inexhaustible supply of power. Naturally, in the later years, no one remained capable of making Ron draw upon that reserve.
The incantation Ron had taught Vivian was used to unlock this sealed magic power.
And that was not all. The universal cultivation system contained all sorts of other backdoors, enough to let Ron manipulate those mages at will.
Mages who cultivated through this method could never defy Ron, and therefore could never overthrow his rule.
Ron suddenly felt that he had been a terrible person.
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