Chapter 110.2: Magic Kingdom
The Blue Sea government official questioning Lilith in the video felt terrible listening to this as well.
More than ten million lives. More than five hundred Floating Farmlands.
All destroyed at Kansidang’s hands.
He turned to his subordinate.
“Has Kansidang’s body been dealt with?”
“We cut off his head and threw it into the sea.”
The government official sighed regretfully.
What a shame. He really would have liked to whip the corpse.
After abandoning that thought, he turned back to Lilith.
“Let me make sure I understand this. You’re saying that the twenty-something people in your group came to a pirate conference attended by several million people, intending to assassinate Kansidang, who was being guarded inside the royal palace?”
The Blue Sea government official didn’t say anything else, but his expression practically had a single line written across it:
“Come on, show me whatever trump card you’ve got.”
Even the Blue Sea residents had gathered several million people before they felt comfortable entering the pirate conference.
He certainly didn’t believe that Lilith and her companions had infiltrated the pirate conference with nothing but sheer courage.
Lilith held out her hand. In her palm, a tiny scroll—so small that it was almost impossible to see—slowly rotated.
“My magical talent is the highest level, [Absolute Affinity], so I’m able to use a small amount of magic power to activate some of the magical products that remain.”
“Our original plan was to infiltrate the conference and assassinate Kansidang if we got the chance. If the assassination failed, we would awaken the Tudou, activate the bridges connecting the Tudou to the various Floating Farmlands, let the Tudou go on a killing spree throughout the pirate conference, and then use a magical teleportation scroll to escape.”
Lilith was completely straightforward about it.
Although the previous king had already been killed, in the eyes of the people of Lilith, all of this had ultimately originated with the royal family.
If she hadn’t possessed such an extraordinary magical talent, she wouldn’t have been chosen as the new queen in the first place.
The Blue Sea people present immediately wore expressions that seemed to say, “Now that’s more like it.”
Although Lilith had passed through the inspection machine before entering this room, when it came to magic…
It seemed perfectly normal that the machine couldn’t detect it.
Cheng Qisheng was also very interested in magic.
This was magic, after all!
Lilith’s magical talent, [Absolute Affinity], would have made her an absolute prodigy in her native world. She might even have been able to rise all the way to the level of a Saint Magus.
But after leaving the magical environment, her magic power was only enough to activate a scroll or conjure a few fireballs and water balls.
Cheng Qisheng couldn’t help feeling sorry for her.
What a waste!
With sufficient magic power, she could literally create a Floating Farmland by hand!
But soon, Cheng Qisheng perked up.
Because Lilith deliberately added:
“With my current magic power, there’s no way I could create a Floating Device. But wasn’t one of the Floating Farmlands damaged? If you give me enough time, I can slowly repair it.”
“I can also try using my magic to alter the properties of the floating mechanisms beneath the Floating Farmland, so that they can expand the farmland’s area after absorbing nuclear crystals.”
Lilith stared straight at the Blue Sea people in front of her.
“There are a lot of you. I’ll be very useful to you.”
Every Blue Sea person present immediately perked up.
Everyone knew that one of the Floating Farmlands had been damaged, but Lilith could actually repair it?!
“You mean you want to join us in the Blue Sea?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what I mean.”
Lilith readily admitted it. There was no point in testing the waters. People could easily reveal their true capabilities during intense combat.
And Lilith had watched the entire battle between the Blue Sea and the pirates earlier.
There had been servants in the royal palace. During the fighting, the Blue Sea people had deliberately avoided the servants and targeted only the pirates. They hadn’t set fire to the place, looted anything, or gotten carried away and started killing everyone in sight.
They were powerful, had clear objectives, and possessed their own principles. Yet when facing an enemy, they showed no mercy.
Most importantly, this was a major faction.
They had plenty of people, as well as logistical support and medical ships. Among the Blue Sea residents who remained active afterward, it was clear from their hair colors that many of them weren’t even the same species. That proved this faction was capable of accepting other races.
Moreover, these people could communicate seamlessly with others despite not sharing the same language. For Lilith, who would be joining them later, this was extremely important.
Lilith hadn’t managed to personally assassinate Kansidang, but she felt that simply meeting the Blue Sea people had already been her greatest gain.
She tried hard to remain calm, but the slight tremor in her voice still revealed her nervousness.
“I can tell that you place great importance on the Floating Farmlands. I can repair them and even expand them, so I hope to use my value in exchange for your help in finding the scattered survivors of Lilith and allowing everyone from the Kingdom of Lilith to join you.”
Whoa!
The Blue Sea people understood.
What she meant was—
She could not only help them repair and expand their Floating Farmlands, but also bring a large number of people into the Blue Sea.
Lilith didn’t know that even if she couldn’t repair the farmlands, the Blue Sea wouldn’t have refused her if she genuinely wanted to join them.
She was still trying to explain the advantages of the people of Lilith.
“Although the people of Lilith have lost their magic power now, we still possess magical bloodlines. As long as you give us enough time, people capable of wielding magic will appear again in the future, and they’ll be useful to you.”
“And there’s something else. A large number of Tudou have lost their enchanted crystals and can no longer function normally. As long as you provide me with enough materials and time, I can slowly manufacture new enchanted crystals and get the Tudou working for you. You’ve seen them before, so you should know how much work they could save you.”
The Blue Sea people thought about those five-meter-tall Tudou, their bodies hard all over and looking like enormous chunks of iron.
Whoa~
They were even wondering whether they should just keep quiet for a while. Maybe Lilith would reveal even more good news if they waited.
And she did.
“I have one more piece of information that you may be interested in. There’s a middle-aged woman from another faction beside me. She possesses an extraordinary ability and somehow infiltrated my side without anyone knowing why.”
“I believe she was sent by Kansidang, so I deliberately brought her with me and discussed some false plans in front of her. It wasn’t surprising that Kansidang managed to discover our identities. If you hadn’t appeared, my next step would have been to use this scroll to teleport directly to Kansidang.”
She held up the tiny scroll in her hand, which was smaller than her little finger.
“It can support five teleportations.”
Cheng Qisheng raised an eyebrow when she heard this.
She didn’t think someone with Kansidang’s personality would plant a spy in the Kingdom of Lilith.
An individual with an extraordinary ability—that meant an ability user.
And then there was the world quest: take Lilith away.
Could this person be a resident of another Safe City?
Cheng Qisheng decided to wait for the results of the Blue Sea’s interrogation.
For now, there was only one thing she wanted to know.
“You said you can repair and expand the floating mechanisms of the Floating Farmlands. Can you also improve other floating devices, turning them from single-use devices into permanent ones? For example, a floating device capable of supporting an entire city?”
The Blue Sea government official, having received the divine oracle, immediately grew serious and looked at Lilith.
Lilith instinctively became serious as well under his gaze.
“A floating city? I can’t say for certain. I’ve never studied anything like that.”
The Kingdom of Lilith had long since stopped teaching magic. Many magical items existed only in fairy tales, and when Lilith was a child, she had heard bedtime stories about floating cities.
The reason she knew how to repair Floating Farmlands was because they were fundamental to the survival of the Kingdom of Lilith. The methods for repairing them had always been passed down through the generations; they simply hadn’t had enough magic power to carry out the repairs.
But living on a Floating Farmland was different from living in a Floating City.
A Floating Farmland was essentially farmland, with people simply building houses on top of it.
A Floating City, on the other hand, was a complete city—a whole city that floated in the air.
At this point, she couldn’t even be certain whether Floating Cities had really existed in the history of the Kingdom of Lilith or were merely the stuff of stories.
Lilith thought for a moment, then added:
“You can search Kansidang’s treasury and see if you can find any magical books from our kingdom. If there are any, I might be able to find information about the mechanisms used in Floating Cities.”
The Blue Sea residents immediately exclaimed:
“Search! We’ll find them for you right now!”
Kansidang’s treasury was enormous, and there was even an inventory. All they needed was to find a Green Billow Star resident who could go through the list and check whether there were any magical books.
Yuan Moshu, who was summoned for the task: “……”
Even now, he was still somewhat dazed.
You guys… No, wait—we actually took over Kansidang’s domain just like that?
This was the legendary Pirate King of Green Billow Star!
Yuan Moshu hadn’t participated in the battle itself.
After joining the Blue Sea, he had only known that something like this was happening. Neither the Stretch-and-Yawn nor the Inkshadow had infiltrated the pirate conference, so they had timed their arrival to provide support.
But as soon as they arrived, they were told it was already over.
Jinfan Gang had just been lamenting over missing the chance to fight, while Yuan Moshu remained completely dazed.
He felt that ever since he had met the Blue Sea people, he had been shocked by something new every single day.
And now came something even more astonishing.
He had to find the magical books among this densely packed inventory list.
“Wait, what? Magic?!”
What other surprises does the Blue Sea have waiting for him?!
At that moment, Yuan Moshu was immensely grateful to the person who had originally leaked information about him to the Blue Sea.
Thank you! You gave me the chance to join the Blue Sea!
Half a year ago, he had still been running for his life from pirates.
Now, he was standing inside the treasury of the Pirate King.
The more Yuan Moshu thought about it, the happier he became. He practically went through the inventory list with blissful enthusiasm.
Kansidang had done countless terrible things.
But at least he had done one thing that wasn’t quite so terrible: he had preserved some of the magical books.
Some of the books had been destroyed in the chaos back then, while others had fallen into the sea. But the ones that remained were still enough to fill an entire room.
When Lilith saw the room full of magical books, her eyes immediately reddened, and tears of excitement welled up.
How could she not be excited?
She was the only surviving person of Lilith who still possessed magical power. There was no one left who could teach her magic, so she had been forced to teach herself using the dozen or so magical books that had been taken with them when they escaped.
She had read those books over and over again so many times that she could practically recite them from memory.
Now, seeing so many magical books right in front of her was, to Lilith, no different from seeing a mountain of bread.
“Oh my goodness! You really found them?! I could spend the rest of my life reading here!”
The guard who had accompanied Lilith had never been the studious type when he was in school. Seeing the way Lilith gazed at the books as though they were some great Creator God, he suddenly felt that she really was a cultured person.
“We agree to your request. Our people will search for the scattered survivors of Lilith. Until you accept faith in our great Creator God, you may only live in the outer city as outer-city residents and receive the benefits available to them. However, in consideration of our talent recruitment policy, you and your people can receive three hundred inner-city resident quotas.”
“Now I’ll explain the differences between the benefits for outer-city and inner-city residents. If you really can modify the Floating Devices, we’ll provide additional benefits based on your contributions.”
Lilith found this all very novel.
This was the first time she’d encountered a faction with such a well-developed system and such clearly defined regulations.
Being designated as an outer-city resident was within her expectations. She had already guessed that the Blue Sea worshipped a god.
After all, during the battle with the pirates, she had seen many Blue Sea people suddenly become excited in the middle of fighting and shout in unison:
“We thank our great God!”
The first time they shouted it, it had startled the people of Lilith. They had thought Kansidang had used some powerful cursed item that had driven all the Blue Sea people insane at once.
Then they discovered that after thanking their god, the Blue Sea people simply went right back to fighting the pirates as they had been before. If anything, they seemed to be hitting even harder.
The guard happily explained:
“That is a blessing from our God. Sometimes, our God bestows blessings upon us on the battlefield, protecting us so that we can successfully complete the battle and cut down our enemies.”
Lilith: “Ohhh, I see. Thank you, great God.”
She didn’t actually believe in gods. The teacher who had raised her had told her that the people of Lilith had once worshipped gods as well.
Like most humans in the magical world, they had worshipped the God of Light. There were many temples of the God of Light throughout the kingdom, with bishops sent from the Temple of Light.
They would bless the people and could also use the power of light to heal injuries and illnesses. As a result, everyone throughout the Kingdom of Lilith had been unwavering in their faith in the God of Light.
Then, for no apparent reason, the entire Kingdom of Lilith—including its territory and its people—had fallen into this domain, with a deadly ocean beneath them.
If not for the Floating Farmlands of the Kingdom of Lilith, and the fact that many people still possessed magical power at the time, they would never have survived.
At that time, everyone in the Kingdom of Lilith prayed for salvation from the God of Light. The bishops of the temples prayed as well, hoping that the God of Light would return them to their original world.
But no one received a response.
It was as though the Kingdom of Lilith had been abandoned by the God of Light.
As generation after generation passed and the original believers grew old and died, no one believed in gods anymore.
As a new-generation Lilithian who had never worshipped any god, Lilith cautiously refrained from revealing her true thoughts in front of the theocratic Blue Sea.
The environment on Green Billow Star was deteriorating rapidly. In fact, even if Kansidang hadn’t attacked them, the Kingdom of Lilith wouldn’t have been able to hold on much longer.
She desperately needed a powerful faction to ensure that more people of Lilith could survive.
So what if it meant worshipping a god? She could simply pretend, along with her people, that they already had faith.
As Lilith listened to the benefits provided to residents of the Blue Sea’s outer city, she suddenly interrupted in shock.
“I’m sorry, did you say that outer-city residents in the Blue Sea can eat plain dry bread every day, as long as they work normally?”
The Blue Sea guard: “Uh… Outer-city residents generally eat brown rice. Of course, dry bread is also one of the available food options. If you want to eat it, then yes, you can have it every day.”
Lilith’s breathing quickened.
“You also provide water? Everyone gets enough fresh water to drink every day?”
The Blue Sea guard: “Yes. Don’t get the wrong idea, though. You need points to pay for it.”
Seeing Lilith’s reaction, he was genuinely worried that she might think the food and water were free, only to experience a huge psychological gap after entering the city.
“I know, I know you need points. But based on roughly how many points you said we could earn, doesn’t that mean that after working for just one day, the points we earn would be enough to exchange for that much fresh water?”
Not only that, but even after paying for housing, food, and fresh water, she could still have some points left over.
“Is this real? Are you sure everything you’re telling me is true?”
“God! This is all too wonderful!”
Lilith instantly showed tremendous interest in becoming a believer.
She hoped the guard would tell her more legends about the Blue Sea’s Great Creator God.
If you asked a Blue Sea resident about anything else, they might not bother opening their mouths.
But if you asked them about the Great Creator God, you could grab practically any Blue Sea resident at random, and they would happily talk about Him for at least an entire day.
“Our God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light in the world.”
“When the world was destroyed, our God bestowed Her grace…”
While searching through the books for anything related to floating devices, Lilith listened to an entire barrage of legends about the Great Creator God.
The world being destroyed and the gods bestowing their grace—this actually fit Green Billow Star’s circumstances quite well.
After all, hadn’t the world been destroyed?
If there really were gods, and they really could bestow divine grace, then why were the people of the Blue Sea still drifting across the ocean?
Lilith complained inwardly, but at the same time, she committed all these stories to memory. She planned to teach them to her own people later and have them recite them every day so they could integrate into the Blue Sea as quickly as possible.
The benefits of being an outer-city resident were already this good. If all the people of Lilith could become inner-city residents, wouldn’t that mean everyone could eat vegetables?
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