Walking into the backyard of North Slope Mountain against the howling north wind and falling snow, Lucia closed the wooden door to block out the cold.
Since winter had come, a wooden shed had been built above the yard. Although it affected the lighting, it could at least prevent the snow from burying the place.
A bonfire was burning on one side of the yard. Standing at the door, Lucia could feel the heat from the flames. She took off her gloves and put her cold hands to the bonfire to absorb its warmth.
"Are you cold?" Anna, who was standing in front of the workbench, turned her head and said, "Come here. I'll warm you up."
"Ah... thank you." Lucia trotted to her, and then her whole body was surrounded by a ball of warm green fire. She felt comfortable and soft from head to toe, as if she was soaking in a bath in the castle.
"What a convenient ability..." Lucia thought enviously. She had never been afraid of the cold.
"Is it warm now?"
"Yes!" She nodded hard. "What are you making?"
"No, some parts of a new gun." Anna picked up a slender steel pipe with a piston in the middle and pulled it back and forth. "His Highness said he wasn't sure if he could make it on the first try, so he had to try again and again."
These parts were shiny and smooth, obviously made of the best steel and carefully cut by Blackfire. Before coming to the town, Lucia would never have thought that the surface of iron could be made as smooth as glass. It was like a work of art.
Thinking of this, she could not help but raise the corner of her mouth. His Highness Roland and Anna had both said that without high-quality materials, no matter how precise the processing method was, the finished product would only be full of holes.
"Didn't His Highness come with you?" Anna withdrew her green fire.
"He said he had something to deal with and would come later. He asked me to familiarize myself with my new ability." Lucia curled her lips.
"What did your ability become after your evolution?" She asked with great interest. "I don't think anyone in the Witch Union could have caused a bigger sensation than you when you became an adult."
Lucia touched her head in embarrassment. "If it weren't for you and Lady Spear, I'm afraid I wouldn't have made it to the last moment."
"You've already thanked me. You don't have to keep it in your heart." Anna waved her hand. "Show me your new ability."
Lucia nodded and began to drive the magic power in her body. The strange feeling from that night came back to her again. The outline of everything became no longer familiar and continuous, but divided into many small squares, which gathered together according to the color, forming patches of color. But this time, she did not feel the pain of the magic backlash, so she could calm down and carefully examine each square.
She picked up a part that Anna had processed. The previously smooth grayish-white surface had become bumpy. Surrounded by magic power, the spots on the surface were clearly visible. There were about seven or eight colors, the largest of which was cyan. There was no pattern to their arrangement at all, as if a painter had accidentally spilled a pile of paint on the ground. The only difference was that they had clear boundaries and did not encroach on each other.
These weren't the tiny particles His Highness had mentioned. Lucia realized that if they were really the foundation of all things, then these "cubes" and "spots" were too big.
Above the particles, there was a larger classification, which was called the elements.
Particles combined into larger balls according to different rules. These balls had different structures, so they reacted with completely different properties.
Back in Valencia, she was still confused about her ability and did not understand its specific functions. But now, she could clearly understand the concept of elements. According to His Highness' description and classification, what she had observed should be these things.
After telling Anna what she had seen and what she thought, she thought for a while and said, "This may be a branch of ability."
"Branch... ability?"
"That's a rare talent." Anna laughed. "Only a small number of adult witches in the Witch Union have it. According to Ms. Agatha, it seems that it only appears on the Day of Adulthood. Once you miss it, you won't be able to get it again. I think it's closely related to a witch's main ability, or it can be said to supplement and strengthen the main ability. For example, Soroya's magic pen, without it, she would need to mix the paint first before she could paint. The same is true for Teacher Scroll's Book of Magic. She once told me that before she became a minor, although she could quickly memorize most of the books she read, she couldn't share the contents of the books with others because she had no money to buy a pen and paper. "
She paused for a moment before continuing, "And your main ability is decomposition and restoration, so I'm guessing that these blocks of color may be guiding you to precisely separate a certain type of element. Perhaps you can give it a try and see if you can separate a certain color block?"
Lucia nodded and once again used her ability on a piece of pig iron ingot next to the work table. Different from the previous decomposition, this time she carefully let her magic power bundle into thin threads to pull those cyan cubes.
This process was much more difficult than she had imagined. She had never manipulated her magic power so meticulously, but Lucia was also very happy. Compared to before she became an adult, she could now feel the existence of magic power more clearly, as if it had become her fingers or even an extension of her consciousness.
As more and more fine threads stuck to the color cubes, the cubes finally loosened and were pulled out of the iron ingot. The remaining color cubes suddenly changed. The original clear border trembled, and then the whole iron ingot collapsed and curled into a yellowish-green crystal the size of half a fingernail, with a square iron cube next to it.
Lucia withdrew her ability and wiped the fine sweat on her forehead. She noticed that the color of the two cubes was different under the magic vision and normal vision. The previous cyan color cubes had become silver-white, which was the common luster of pure iron. The latter was still colorful, but if she didn't use her ability, it looked like a clean gem.
"What's this?" She gently pinched the small crystal. Compared to the iron ingot, its size was insignificant, but it looked much more beautiful.
"This may be a compound of other elements in pig iron." Anna's eyes sparkled. "I'm not sure, but I can do a small experiment to verify it. If it's true, do you know what it means? You can separate a part of an element from a complete object, and the remaining elements won't turn into a pool of sand, but recombine according to the conditions of the lost element … Any useless inferior material can be reborn in your hands. "
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