Chapter 250 Origin Element
"Hey! I'm a witch, not an artificer! This is the best I could do! Besides, other than me, no one here knows how to make the artifact used to test the Origin Element, right?" Envy quips and then pouts at Daniel before flashing a smug smile.
Daniel looks at Envy's smug face and lets out a small smile, commenting.
"You seem to be in a good mood."
"Huh?"
"I said you seem to be in a good mood lately." Daniel repeats, then continues. "I never saw you smile like that or tease other people. Sure, when I first met you, you smiled, but your smile back then seemed to hide some guilt or regret. It wasn't a smile that came from your heart." Daniel comments.
"Ehhhh?" Envy drags her voice with a teasing smile. "Is this the start of a conversation where you're about to date Koyuki or Greed? Commenting on women's smiles like that. Are you planning to court me like those two?" Envy teases as if she knows where this is going.
"No… I'm just saying, you're different from those two. You've lived far longer than them, so I bet I couldn't figure you out that easily. Even right now, I still can't completely figure you out. The only thing I've figured out is that you seem to be happy. Is it because you dropped those responsibilities in the Hightower? Hmmm… I wonder…" Daniel answers with a smile. Maybe he cares a little bit for Envy, but it's still not to the point of Koyuki or Greed.
Hearing Daniel's guess about her, Envy went silent. She pondered upon what Daniel just said, then nodded.
"Maybe you're right, but let's not care about that for now." Envy wanted to cut off the conversation but then little Sylvana chimes in.
"Papa papa, Are you going to make aunt Envy into another mama? That's good! Aunt Envy is very good at cooking, I don't want to eat instant noodles anymore. When I'm with big sister Michaela, she always makes instant noodles, since it's the only thing she can make that didn't make a mess in the kitchen." Little Sylvana asks, then she pouts when telling Daniel about how bad Michaela's cooking was.
"Er… sweety let's wait for mama Koyuki to come back first, okay?" Daniel pats his little princess's head, then dismisses the notion. He then looks at Envy, who's blushing and trying to look to the side as she didn't dare to look at Daniel directly into his eyes.
"Cough.. hm… A… Anyway…. Right now…" Envy faking her cough dismissing her embarrassment then asks Daniel, who's sitting on the sofa with his little daughter. "I want to test Sylvy's Origin Element. Do you know what an Origin Element is? And how does it works?"
"No… I have some idea of what it is, but to know exactly what it does. No, I don't," said Daniel.
"I see…" Envy nods in understanding, then continues. "Let Sylvy try checking her Origin Element first. I'll tell you, this Origin Element detector is just an artifact I made with my limited knowledge about artifacts. So, it can only check one Origin Element in a person's body, and it's not as precise as the one in the Hightower." Envy explains.
"That's okay, as long as it doesn't do any harm." Daniel said, then let Sylvana begin checking her Origin Element.
"Well, let's check it out. Sylvy, my dear, place your hand on the orb." Envy instructs.
Sylvana nods and places her hand on the orb as Envy instructed. Then, the green light shines within the orb, and the characters on the board move on their own, rearranging themselves into a word.
'Flora' is what the word on the board displays.
"God… this is beyond my expectation," Envy utters in disbelief after seeing the word on the board.
"What is it? Is it impressive?" inquires Daniel.
"Well… Yes, it's impressive. You see, the Hightower database records a lot of data about rare and powerful Origin Elements. While the Origin Element alone does not guarantee the mage's strength, the rarer ones tend to have more uses and open more opportunities for the mages.
For example, in Sylvana's case, if her Origin Element is just 'Plant,' then that means she could only use magic that controls or manipulates plants. And by plant, it means 'a living thing that grows in the earth, in water, or on other plants, usually has a stem, leaves, roots, and flowers, and produces seeds.' She could only be better at using magic to manipulate the things that we perceive as plants." Envy explains, then waits for Daniel to digest.
"You mean… The difference is that flora means the entire species of flora, even the bacteria or virus that fall under the category of flora would be within the scope, Is that right?" Daniel asks, as he starts to catch on to the point of things.
"That's right! And I can tell you that, in the Curtained world, there are a lot of subjects that make use of flora as the base of the subject and knowledge. Such as alchemy, magic crafting, magic engineering. Modern magic makes use of a lot of flora since it's easy to control and easy to find. If we train Sylvy well, in the future, she can dominate more than half of the mages in the Curtained World! No one would dare to mess with her!" Envy explains about Sylvana's future prospects.
"So powerful!" Daniel exclaims, then turns toward his daughter.
"Sweetie, do you want to be a mage? You don't need to be a combat mage that fights other people. You can make use of your power to grow various magical plants and be an alchemist," Daniel suggests to his little princess.
"Papa… I want to fight. I want to help Mama, protect Mama from any bad men who are going to harm her," Sylvana answers innocently.
Hearing that, Daniel lets out a sigh before patting his daughter's head. He wants to always protect his daughter, but it seems that she has her own aspirations.
[Well… at least I'll protect her until she grows up.] Daniel thinks to himself.
"Now that we've checked Sylvana's Origin Element, let's check yours," Envy says, then turns toward Daniel, who is patting his daughter's head.
"That's fine; I want to know myself. What kind of Origin Element do I have?" Daniel says before placing his hand on the orb.
The orb then glows white, black, red, blue, and green. It's rapidly changing between these 5 colors; one time it's red, then it's black, then white. There's no clear pattern. Then, the characters on the board begin to change and converge; it seems to want to change into a word but then disperse. The first character that repeatedly rearranges itself non-stop is 'C' and 'R'.
Seeing this, Envy touches the board and chants some unknown spell; then the rearranging stops, and the 'C' character starts to arrange itself at the front. In a moment, the characters arrange themselves into a word.
'Creation.'
"Creation!? No wonder you're very good at inventing things and creating artifacts! But… Why is it 5 colors? I don't get it. The usual creation should be white. Then… the repeatedly changing of the first alphabet. You should have two Origin Elements. If you were born in a mage family, you would have been hailed as a once-in-a-century genius! No, considering that you have creation as one of the Origin Elements, you should be a one-in-a-millennium genius!!" Envy said, smiling after seeing Daniel's result.
"Whoa! Is it that impressive?" Daniel utters, surprised at the high praise Envy gave him. He feels a little bit good after knowing that he's not useless.
The thing he fears the most is that he'll find out that, other than the card power that mysteriously appeared, he would be useless. If one day he were to lose those powers, he would be completely useless.
Now that he knows about this, his insecurity vanishes, and he is a lot more at ease. He has creation, which means he could still maintain his skill as a good artificer even when the Keeper somehow takes the power back.
Daniel knows that the Keeper has told him many times until he starts getting a little bit annoyed that all of the cards in the shop and the actualization are his power. But why did it suddenly appear? Why did the Keeper come with the shop? That's a sign of higher beings taking pity on him and granting him power.
Daniel still holds some reserve and room for disappointment when something goes wrong. He is always prepared for the worst-case scenario, the scenario that he's afraid of the most. That's why he usually keeps a cool head when something unexpected happens. Even when he met Satan, he would still keep his cool and can pummel him to the ground.
"How can I check my second Origin Element? Your artifact seems to only be able to display one." Daniel inquired.
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