Witch Training Manual: My Water Magic Is Wrong

Wayne waited outside the cave for about half an hour.

There was no movement inside, and he didn't urge them. After the water magic healing, the body needs time to stabilize, and disturbing it at this time could easily cause problems.

Soon, a voice came from inside.

"Come in."

Wayne entered the cave.

Tessa had changed into clean clothes and was sitting on a flat rock. Her hair was tied up again, making her look much fresher. The blush on her face had completely faded, and apart from her slightly dry lips, she was barely recognizable as the disheveled woman she had been before.

She glanced at Wayne and said.

"Please sit down."

The panel popped up quietly.

Tessa's Current Status

[Status: Curse removed, stamina mostly restored.]

[Note: She never expected to meet you here. Because of you, and because of the salvation offered by water magic, she just gave thanks to the goddess once again.]

[Note 2: The moment she saw you, she knew she wouldn't have another chance to hold onto you after you left. Ideally, she'd like you to stay with her for a year or two.]

[Note: She just activated a magical barrier around herself, thinking she was being discreet. But she overlooked the fact that you have a control panel.]

After Wayne sat down, Tessa spoke first.

"You haven't changed at all, you seem... even younger?"

Wayne thought about it and realized that Tessa was right; he seemed to look exactly like that when she first met him.

Wayne smiled and said.

"To be precise, I haven't always looked like this. Something changed after I came here."

"misfortune?"

"To make a long story short, the rules of this city gave me a new identity, and my body shrank accordingly. The appearance you see now is the result after I recovered some of my strength. Once I fully recover, I should be able to return to my original form."

Tessa nodded thoughtfully and didn't ask any more questions.

Wayne looked at Tessa and asked.

"But what are you doing here?"

Tessa paused for a moment before slowly speaking, "I came down here mainly to see if there's any chance. After all, this place is a divine tomb. Even a tiny remnant left behind by the gods is a rare opportunity for everyone. If we're lucky, we might be able to obtain their inheritance."

"You, a saintess, also lack opportunities?"

Tessa was taken aback by these words: "...I'm not after the Holy Light. The legacy of a god isn't limited to the Holy Light. What if it's a magic-based god? I can't rely on the Holy Light for my entire life."

Wayne didn't refute it; the reason sounded reasonable, even though the timing of her appearance in this city was rather coincidental.

"And what about you?" Tessa countered, "What brought you here?"

"The Tree of Eternal Sleep".

Tessa paused for a moment, then frowned slightly.

"The Tree of Eternal Slumber?"

"Yes. I received a mission to retrieve a runaway forbidden object, and the clues point to this city. And all the clues eventually converge on the same thing: the Tree of Eternal Slumber. I came down here to find it."

"If you came for the Tree of Eternal Slumber, then you don't need to come."

Wayne raised an eyebrow: "What do you mean?"

"The Tree of Eternal Sleep is no longer the Tree of Eternal Sleep. To be precise, it has become the cradle of the gods."

Wayne's heart sank, and he pressed for an answer.

"Who is that deity below?"

"Seraphis, the god of dreams. The one who 'sleeps beneath the earth and in the dreams of all beings.'"

Tessa leaned against the wall and continued telling the story.

"Seraphis chose to rest here not because of the auspicious feng shui. He was suppressing the abyss god Anubidi. This battle lasted for countless years, until the two became inseparable, one entity."

Wayne frowned slightly: "You mean, the divine corpse lying down there isn't purely Serafis anymore?"

Tessa nodded.

"So what the Divine Servant Team wants to awaken isn't a sleeping god at all, but two monsters entangled together. If they succeed, then this abyss passage will be completely activated."

Wayne muttered to himself.

"No wonder Renn said the gods have gone mad."

Tessa stood up, her tone crisp.

"I have to go. I have to stop them, or we'll all die here."

"I'll go too."

Tessa glanced at him.

"You don't actually need to get involved in this."

Wayne made up an excuse: "I also wanted to see what gods look like, and I heard the voice of a god."

Tessa nodded and didn't ask any further questions. As for Wayne's mention of the divine voice, she simply took it as a priest's catchphrase.

The two left the cave and continued their exploration.

The further down you go, the denser the forest of Devil Fruits becomes. The dark purple fruits hang from the branches like countless closed eyes, pulsating slightly in the dim light. The entire forest is eerily quiet, without even a breeze.

But neither of them stopped.

Wayne followed Tessa, his gaze sweeping over their surroundings, and asked in a low voice, "Shouldn't we dispose of these fruits?"

Tessa said without turning her head, "We can't handle it all. They're part of this space anyway. As long as the root problem isn't solved, they'll just grow back even if we burn them all. Instead of wasting time here, we should address the source directly."

After passing through the last grove of fruit trees, the space before them suddenly opened up. It was a vast underground space, with a dome so high that its end could not be seen.

Countless luminous minerals are embedded in the rock wall, casting a cold, starry light that illuminates everything below.

From the moment one steps into this space, corpses begin to appear. First, there are a few scattered ones, then large swathes, densely covering the ground beneath one's feet.

There were all sorts of corpses.

The servants of the gods, clad in greyish-white robes, lay dead in pools of blood, weapons in hand; the warriors of the Black Hand cleaved their axe blades into the chests of their enemies; and the corpses of demons lay, their skin greyish-black, their joints bent backward, their deaths contorted in agony; the bodies of the demons were towering, their bone armor shattered, their chests pierced.

They even saw races that did not belong to this city: adventurers dressed in exotic clothing and warriors wearing papal armor whose units were no longer recognizable.

All are dead.

He died here.

Tessa seemed unsurprised.

She took the initiative to introduce herself to Wayne.

"Some of the corpses you see are people I brought in. However, some seem to have been dead for a long time, and most of them died in battle. I suspect that some kind of cycle of killing was taking place here long before I arrived."

Wayne couldn't help but glance at Tessa again.

He hadn't expected this woman to be so accurate. He had only learned the inside story of the trial from Rein's own confession, yet she, a woman, had pieced together most of the truth through her own observations.

The words had barely left his mouth when hurried footsteps sounded from ahead...