Proving one's status starting with magical girls

Heavy clouds hung over the city center.

The area around the once bustling venue in the city center is now a scene of utter devastation.

One cordon after another was set up, and rescue workers in yellow jumpsuits searched the ruins without stopping. Outside the cordon, dozens of armed personnel in full blue-black special operations uniforms and carrying live ammunition were on guard around the cordon.

The area was packed with parked cars, and crowds surged forward, only to be kept out by the police cordon.

The center of the battlefield was in complete disarray. Led by armed personnel, seven or eight uniformed individuals stopped there.

"Phew...it's really cold." A woman hugged her shoulders, looking somewhat uncomfortable.

"That's amazing. If that person wasn't lying, it should have been about half an hour... but these ice crystals show absolutely no sign of melting."

"Plus the eyewitness accounts, she annihilated the inferior beast in one strike—is she a dazzling magical girl?"

A man squatted down, looked at the ice marks on the ground, and said in a somewhat amazed tone.

"How is it? Do you have any relevant records?" A tall woman with a beautiful face, but whose slender eyebrows hinted at a hint of fatigue, asked her subordinate in a low voice.

"...Section Chief, we couldn't find it. Headquarters compared the data we sent with the data and said that there are no known magical girls that match it."

"Including unregistered ones?"

"Including those that are not registered."

Listening to her subordinate's report, the tall woman rubbed her forehead, feeling a headache coming on.

"A newly emerged dazzling magical girl..."

Normally, the tall woman would be overjoyed upon hearing this news, since the strength of a magical girl truly affects the safety of the entire city.

The stronger the magical girl, the safer the city.

Not to mention that she's a powerful magical girl of the "shining" level, which is extremely rare even in the whole world.

But at that moment, she couldn't feel happy.

"...Why did it have to be at this time?" she sighed, then turned and asked.

"Have you found the purple peony yet?"

"Not yet... This monstrous beast damaged the underground fiber optic cables when it emerged from underground, rendering almost all the nearby surveillance cameras ineffective."

A thin man wearing glasses held a tablet.

The tall woman frowned.

"Didn't the survivor say she was rescued by a high school girl? We can't find her either?"

"...We couldn't pinpoint her location. The scene was chaotic, and we couldn't determine which way the girl ran."

The tall woman frowned even more deeply, and she spoke in a low, forceful voice.

"This is the city center. The exhibition is packed with people, and there must be other witnesses there. Go find them along the way!"

Upon hearing her words, the bespectacled man responded meekly.

"Section Chief, we've sent out all our field agents to search, and we should have news by tomorrow at the latest..."

Upon hearing this, the tall woman took a deep breath, feeling her blood pressure spike rapidly.

"Tomorrow..." she managed to squeeze out two words, her tone chillingly cold.

The tall woman stood still and scanned the room, her icy gaze sending a chill down everyone's spine.

"Even a pig would see something was wrong with this attack, heh heh, tomorrow... that's a magical girl, a magical girl of the 'Bright' level!"

She glanced at the time on her phone; it was exactly six in the afternoon. She chuckled.

"What is tomorrow? Midnight is tomorrow, 6 a.m. tomorrow is tomorrow, and 6 p.m. tomorrow is also tomorrow."

"If it's early morning, then it's six hours later; if it's afternoon, then it's twenty-four hours later!"

"You know, once a magical girl disintegrates, she can't transform for 24 hours!"

"Twenty-four hours! The kids who just ran have already reached the suburbs, the adults have taken public transportation to the capital, and the Archangels have even crossed the rift to the Magic World! I can't control what happens in the Magic World, but do you know what the consequences will be if the Archangels find Purple Oyster before us?"

"If they control Purple Osmanthus, and a senior, bright-level magical girl falls into corruption, what harm would that bring to the Party and the country, and to all of humanity?!"

The tall woman spoke through gritted teeth, while the others fell silent, and the bespectacled man broke out in a cold sweat.

"Section Chief, I... I was wrong..."

"Wrong? You committed a crime!"

"Immediately! Right now! Receive the Magic Countermeasures Mobile Unit! Send out the entire First and Second Units to find him! Search every inch of the place! He must be found alive or dead!"

"What about incandescent?"

"Miss Bai Chi left five minutes ago, saying she was going to find Zi Mu..."

"Heh, even a fifteen-year-old high school student knows what's important and what's urgent. You adults aren't even as good as children!"

"What are you all standing there for! Go find someone!"

As her roar subsided, everyone scattered like birds and beasts.

The tall woman was furious, her chest heaving. She held one hand to her forehead, her eyes glancing at the ice crystals on the ground through her fingers.

"At this time... it just so happens to be this time."

If possible, the woman would rather let that beast continue to wreak havoc, so that at least the situation could be stabilized when the countermeasures team arrives in half an hour.

But now everything is different.

Recalling the message sent from headquarters, the woman hesitated for a moment before touching the necklace on her chest.

"If that time really comes..."

"Section Chief! Good news!"

Just then, a voice interrupted her thoughts, causing her to turn her head with a cold look in her eyes.

She vowed that if this person didn't bring her the information she wanted, she would make sure he got out of the countermeasures department the next day, using the excuse that he stepped into the office with his left foot first.

Despite his superior's unfriendly gaze, this member of the countermeasures department had no choice but to grit his teeth and continue speaking.

"Uh... Section Chief, we've found Miss Purple Mu..."

The tall woman was taken aback for a moment, then a look of joy appeared on her face.

"Lead the way! And tell me how you found her."

The two walked quickly toward the edge of the cordon, ignoring the noisy reporters and flashing lights around them, and made their way to a temporary tactical command vehicle guarded by tactical armed soldiers.

When the armed soldiers saw them coming, they first saluted and then made way for them.

The countermeasures officer walked ahead, leading the tall woman to a military ambulance.

The black-haired girl lay quietly on the makeshift stretcher with her eyes closed. Her delicate face resembled that of a sleeping beauty. The medical staff around her were constantly busy measuring various data.

"This is what the man in the countermeasures department said."

"At the time, a colleague was conducting field investigations nearby when he saw a girl carrying her over her back. She looked like she was struggling."

"Because the identity of Magic Purple Peony was kept secret from the field colleagues, that colleague went up to help. After the girl learned that he was from the Countermeasures Section, she said that she was injured and needed help, and that's how we ended up here."

After hearing this, the tall woman remained silent for a long time before finally speaking.

"Where is the girl who delivered the purple peony?"

"I've left."

"Why didn't you stop them?"

"Because the identity of the magical purple peony had not been confirmed at the time, the field colleagues thought it was just an ordinary wounded person nearby, so they did not stop it..."

The woman closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"...characteristics".

"She was about fifteen or sixteen years old, with a ponytail, and looked rather thin. She was probably a high school student from the neighborhood... However, my field colleague said that the girl's eyes were very special. He said her eyes were dazzling... as if they were full of vitality and hope."

"...You're just spouting nonsense, is there anything else?"

"Oh, right, and this too. That girl told us to return this to Magic Purple Oyster, saying it was a very important thing and that we must keep it safe."

As the man from the countermeasures department spoke, he took something out of his bag, and the woman's pupils constricted the moment she saw it.

A seed of hope lay quietly in his palm.

"The girl also said..."

"...What?"

"She said... she didn't want to take away the miracles that belong to magical girls from her."

……

When I got off the bus, it was already quite late. Night had enveloped the earth, and the streetlights cast a dim yellow glow. Several moths were attracted by the light and fluttered under the lampshades.

Normally, taking public transportation home wouldn't take me this late.

However, a wild animal attack occurred in the city center today, and traffic was temporarily suspended for several hours. By the time traffic resumed, it was almost evening.

The girl with the ponytail walked briskly down a deserted suburban street, a smile playing on her lips, seemingly in a very good mood.

"Have you thought it through?"

A sound came from the mirror in the pocket of her clothes, but the girl was not surprised at all, and simply hummed in response.

"I've made up my mind."

"...Do you know that the seed of transformation contains an extremely rare gold element? It is because of this that magical girls can communicate with heaven and earth and transform into magical girls."

"If you possess that golden essence, your path of cultivation will be unobstructed before you even begin to seek the gold, allowing you to directly reach the pinnacle of supernatural powers... And isn't your wish, my disciple, to become a magical girl?"

"I know you have little interest in cultivation, but isn't becoming a magical girl your life's ambition? Keep that golden essence; you can use it to transform into a magical girl in the future, save the world, and uphold humanity."

"If we give up this transformation seed today, we may not have the same luck in the future... After all, this thing is so rare that it is extremely difficult to find even in the golden age of immortals."

The voice in the mirror was alarmist, like a stern parent telling their child, "If you don't seize this opportunity now, you won't get into college!"

However, even though the voice in the mirror spoke so seriously, the girl didn't feel that she had done anything wrong at all, and just said leisurely.

"Master, although I don't know what the metal element is, I understand that you are doing this for my own good."

"But no matter what, that seed used for transformation isn't mine."

The girl put her hands behind her head, looked at the night sky, and whispered.

"Besides, I've already transformed into a magical girl. Even though it was you, Master, who helped me transform, it still counts as a transformation."

"I'm already very satisfied with what I've achieved."

"It would be too selfish to take away her transformation seed as well."

As she spoke, she lowered her head again, her faded canvas shoes lightly kicking the tiny pebbles beneath her feet, and whispered...

"Ever since I can remember, everyone around me has been talking about magical girls. They say... magical girls are children who bring hope and miracles."

"At that time, I wondered, if magical girls bring us hope, then who will bring us miracles?"

"Now I know, it's a seed, the seed that magical girls use to transform."

"Because the seed brought a miracle, the magical girl brought us hope."

She said this with a relaxed tone.

"Then how could I possibly take away the magical girl's miracle from her?"

After hearing the girl's words, the voice in the mirror fell silent, and only the girl's monotonous footsteps could be heard on the deserted street.

After a long while, the girl suddenly stopped and then said softly.

"Master, I've figured it out, I want to cultivate immortality."

"I want to fight alongside magical girls, I want to become a magical girl again..."

"I want to... bring miracles to magical girls."