Chapter 485 485 Ember Too
Chapter 485 485 Ember Too
The most remarkable thing began to happen as the mass of advancements took over the park. The Familiars, drawn along by their Witch’s growth, began to advance as well. For most of them, it was an unnoticeable change, and their growth would come more slowly, but for others, the change was immediate and shocking.
Ember grew from a Collie-sized Hellhound to a monstrous creature twice the size of Pup, standing well over 170cm at the shoulders, with flames licking off the end of his tail as he happily swished it back and forth through the air.
Two of the Pixies seemed to be glowing more brightly, but Wolfe was too far away to see how the small creatures had changed, and his attention was drawn by one of the Flame Winged Sparrows that seemed to have undergone an Evolution when it was forced into the Second Rank, a feat that none of its species had accomplished in living memory.
The Sparrow had grown into a huge bird of prey, with a wingspan of three metres and ashy black feathers that seemed to leave a trail of smoke as it flew through the air.
It had become a strong Rank Two creature, so it was most likely Mio’s Familiar, as she was the only one with a Flame Winged Sparrow among the Pentacle group, as far as Wolfe recalled.
Once Wolfe had recovered his breath and some of his stored mana, he gestured the next witch in line forward to begin the process again.
She was on the stronger end of Rank One already, and there was a chance that Wolfe was going to cause even more breakthroughs, so he started out gently, allowing himself some time to get mana stored to help reform her aura.
Her mana veins were still pliable with youth, and the influx of attuned mana for her aura caused the predicted surge, collapsing and solidifying her aura but causing the woman to pass out with the sensation. Her vivid green eyes rolled back in her head an instant before she collapsed, and Wolfe caught her before gesturing to the waiting staff to take her from his arms.
“Alright, from this point forward, everyone will either be sitting or have an assistant to catch them. I suspect that most of you will pass out from the forced gains, and we don’t want anyone getting hurt.” Wolfe instructed the Witches, waiting for their turn.
The line dutifully took a seat where they were, and Wolfe sighed, realizing that his misunderstood instructions meant he would have to come to them. Not that it was a long walk, only one step between every other Witch since they were sitting so close together, but still, he would have to be the one standing all night.
They had come up with a very good system, though. Once they were seated, the next witch in line snuggled up close behind them with her legs on top of theirs so that everyone had a body pressed against their front and back.
Even if they fell asleep in this position while they were waiting, nobody would be able to go anywhere.
“Now that’s teamwork. It’s good to see that the Witches are all working together and not freaking out.” One of the maintenance workers who had come to help out noted.
There was a good chance that was what was happening everywhere else. Only they knew what the message was actually about, so the Covens would have to go on the vague wording of the foreign message or the intercepted communications after Wolfe informed all the villages of the Frozen Wastes of what was happening.
He was expecting the Witches from Myrrh Coven to be here in the morning, as they would have heard his broadcast directly and would have questions, so Wolfe activated a [Refreshing] Charm that was sitting on a nearby vendor stall. A night’s use wouldn’t hurt it, and once he deactivated it, it would be as good as new for the buyer, so no harm, no foul.
It would keep him awake through the mental exhaustion of this slow walk through the Witches, though. It was going to be a real bonding experience for everyone; he realized as he began to work on three of them at a time, allowing him to take full steps between each process.
The actual Coven Armies did similar things, putting recruits through hardships and embarrassment to help them bond as one cohesive unit. It certainly wasn’t anything like this, but the sentiment was the same, and the end result should be similar.
The seventh Witch that he got to also broke through to the Second Rank, nearly dragging a Witch in the next group to the brink before Wolfe even got started on her.
That advancement triggered another, and Wolfe realized that the overflowing mana and sense of attunement that came with the advancements were actually helping the Witches advance as fast or faster than his mana influx was.
They weren’t just having their auras forced through to the next level. They were gaining an understanding of what it meant to be a Rank Two Witch on their own, and their bodies were naturally advancing.
He was going to have to make this a regular occurrence so that they could help the rest of the Witches advance, interspersing a few who were very close to the brink through the lines so that the feeling was constant as Wolfe worked on their auras.
Hopefully, there wouldn’t be any side effects from doing it like this and having the Witches grow so quickly. It didn’t seem like it, but Wolfe had absolutely zero knowledge of what the later Ranks would require, so there was no way for him to know if this process would have a downside to them later in life.
What it had done by the time that morning rolled around was to give them over a hundred new Rank Two Witches, many of them with somewhat unstable auras and a massive mana hangover but advanced nonetheless.
In all, nearly one in five had advanced to the Second Rank with this effort, and the others had all shown immense progress. Without a doubt, Forest Grove was now the power hub of the Continent, and Wolfe could only hope that it was enough.