“What way?! Tell me, quickly!” Lilith’s face lit up with joy, her cry sounding like someone who had found a path to survival at the edge of a cliff.
“The deity your… ‘friend’ worships must have defining characteristics, right? Like horns, a tail, things like that.” White Fish observed her frantic state with an amused air.
“The features are quite distinct,” Lilith nodded.
“Then it’s simple. Have your friend merge the image of the person she likes with the characteristics of that deity. If she bows and worships that fusion every day, she’ll be cured over time. It’s called Deconstructive Fideism. Have you heard of it?” Actually, it’s the first time I’ve heard of it, too, White Fish thought.
“Is that really okay? Merging the person I like with the deity I believe in? And then worshipping that every day?”
Wang Yue’s little horns and tail flickered through Lilith’s mind. Was she supposed to worship her demonized image every single day? That… that was way too embarrassing!
Just the thought of it made the tips of Lilith’s ears flush hot. She was so mortified she wanted to find a crack in the ground to crawl into.
“It’s best to worship every minute if possible. You can deepen the impression through certain behaviors—for instance, listening to what they say, acting obediently, doing cute things, not making unreasonable scenes… If doing it face-to-face is too embarrassing, you can draw it on paper, make little cards, and use them in private. The effect is basically the same…”
White Fish floated at the library entrance, watching the young gold-haired girl’s silhouette gradually recede into the distance. She let out a soft sigh.
Sigh, if it weren’t for those thousand portions of faith power…
A thousand portions…
A small cult only had twenty or thirty people. A thousand portions was the scale of a medium-to-large religious organization.
Forget tricking a little witch; she’d even be willing to trick a Hush-Name Witch for that—actually, scratch that. No messing with the Hush-Names.
Dormitory 203.
Lulu’anna wiped her hands with a wet towel and opened a box of 150 colored pencils. “Wang Yue’s base form with demonic features? Hey, doesn’t she already have those ‘Divine Grace’ horns and a tail?”
“Add some wings, claws, things like that. Make her look more like a demon,” Lilith requested of the artist.
“Be specific. Fleshy little wings or thin bat wings? And the claws? What style do you like? Cat paws? Raccoon fingers? Pig trotters? Puppy paws? What about clothes? Nude? Seductive? Casual? Formal dress?”
“Um…”
The more Lilith heard, the more excited she became. Her heart itched with anticipation, and she fell into a pit of indecision. After thinking for a long time, she said, “Then just draw a few different versions!”
“Greedy, aren’t we? How many?”
“Make them like a deck of playing cards. Fifty-four of them.”
“Are you a pervert?”
“As long as you draw them, I’ll pay whatever you want! Please!” Lilith was practically begging.
“Drawing them isn’t a problem. I happen to have a few blank cardistry decks lying around,” Lulu’anna accepted the commission.
Two days later, in Dormitory 203, Lilith took a deck of cardistry cards from Lulu’anna’s hand.
She pulled them out and performed a crisp pressure fan. The borders of the fifty-four demonized Wang Yue illustrations merged into a fluid, wedge-shaped pattern. Her fingers moved with nimble grace, performing a Pandora flourish.
“There’s a layer of transparent coating on the surface, so the art won’t smudge, but don’t play with them too often. They’ll get worn out,” Lulu’anna warned.
“I know,” Lilith said, carefully tucking them away. Suddenly remembering something, she added, “Just don’t tell Wang Yue!”
“Everyone already knows you’re a pervert. What’s left to hide?”
“Stop saying that!”
“Fine, fine.”
Lilith returned to her room and sprawled across her desk, humming a happy tune as she flipped through the cards one by one, unable to put them down.
The artwork was in an oil painting style, exquisite and beautiful. On the numbered cards, Wang Yue wore various beautiful dresses in elegant poses. On the face cards, the clothing began to thin out, becoming translucent and suggestive. By the time Lilith reached the Jokers…
She slammed the cards down and covered them, her face bright red. She breathed out sharply, her heart thumping against her ribs. She could never let Wang Yue see this deck. It was too shameful.
Quicksand Lowlands.
Wang Yue sneezed.
“Hmm… someone’s thinking about me.”
Wang Yue looked up at the bionic chameleon all-terrain vehicle—The Low-Crawler Colin—slowly taking shape in the center of the warehouse.
It was eight meters long, with its widest point being the “belly” at two point two meters. The tail was curled into a spiral, serving as a rear stabilizer and a cargo hold for supplies.
In the event of an emergency escape, it could perform an “autotomy” like a wall lizard—shedding its tail to discard the food lockers, water tanks, and luggage compartments. This would reduce its weight by at least half.
Ed-Bear was currently using its dozens of tentacles to finish the interior. This “Doctor Octopus” on steroids moved with incredible speed and precision, pasting leather, fixing furniture, installing lights, and applying inner-layer coatings.
The primary interior consisted of a cockpit at the bow, a soft leather sofa and beverage cabinet integrated into the belly hull, aviation seats fixed to the floor in the midsection, and a form-fitting double bed set into the rear well.
There were two main hatches—one at the left neck and one at the right rear—plus several secret exits, such as an ejection port at the top of the bow.
In the Evernight Realm, the usual modes of transport were riding lizards or traveling on foot.
Carriages were for witches who wanted to show off; they could only travel on paved roads and lacked practical utility. Moreover, horses required pure, toxin-free feed—usually beans and eggs. Keeping a horse was more expensive than keeping a human.
Lizards, however, could tolerate toxic feed, as they naturally ate poisonous insects and plants in the wild.
But whether it was lizards or running on two legs, it was exhausting work that inevitably involved sleeping unsheltered in the wild.
The Low-Crawler Colin was comparable to a private jet. It was immensely comfortable, capable of stealth operations, and could even duck into a Spatial Fold.
With this, moving between towns carried very little risk. Once inside a town, they would be essentially safe, protected by the local Explorers’ Guild branches and the Lantern-Bearers on watch.
Once Ed-Bear finished the interior, it began assembling the outer shell components and the pressurized lightweight fiber armor plates one by one.
Finally, it applied a layer of molecular coating made from transcendent materials. This coating was designed to bond with the Chameleon Key.
When the weekend arrived, Wang Yue and Lilith submitted their Shame-Death Test passing reports to the academy and registered their Extracurricular Practice Application Forms. With the official seal affixed, they were able to collect their temporary travel permits.
In the past, only upper-year witches could obtain permits to leave freely. Now, with the world growing more dangerous and crises looming, they were essentially being fast-tracked.
The two girls left the school through a side gate, walking down the mountain path until they reached the shifting sands of the ground.
“Should we go buy two lizards?” Lilith asked, glancing toward the Quicksand Lowlands.
“No need.”
Wang Yue snapped her fingers.
Under Lilith’s astonished gaze, the transparent air split open in the shape of a cabin door, and a warm yellow light spilled out from within.
“An… an invisible vehicle?!”
Lilith’s eyes sparkled like stars. She dashed to the hatch, reaching out to feel the shape of the craft.
“Where did you get something so cool?!” The young gold-haired girl’s voice was trembling.
“I built it,” Wang Yue replied from behind her.
Lilith stepped over the doorframe and poked her head inside, clicking her tongue in wonder. “It’s amazing! You’re a total genius! I love it so much!”
“Do you love me, or the car?”
“Both!”
