Two weeks passed. The Bo City catastrophe finally ended. As I now know, Tang Yue brought not just two high-level mages but also ten Intermediate Tier ones to help on the front line.
Total live losses in Bo City: 832 people, mostly mages who died in battle. Tang Yue prepared a proper evacuation after all.
832 people... A lot or little? On one hand, a tragic number. On the other, compared to canon—forty thousand dead, a third of the population, the rest fleeing to forget the nightmare as a bad dream... China deemed current losses acceptable. The whole world did... Including me.
After all, even in Jinlin city, with prior monster attack warning and rushed evacuation, about five hundred died.
And here a planned Black Church terror attack. Now all China thinks Bo City was kissed by the goddess of luck!
Internet full of posts about people planning to move to Bo. Since it withstood the wolf tribe attack, thinned their numbers decently, no new assault soon, city relatively safe.
Bo will quickly replenish civilian and mage losses, maybe even grow stronger. I consider that result worthy. Could it be better? Probably. But I gave 100%, barely resting, so find another altruist for better; I'm satisfied.
What didn't change from canon: our grade's students flunked university admissions. City chaos dragged on, we missed normal intake.
There's special admission for top talents, but from our class, only me and Mo Fan have a shot. Me due to Intermediate Tier, him for dual-element natural talent.
He doesn't even know about it, and my public power won't impress enough. So yeah, no one got in; wait for next year. Heh, remembered my budget med school attempt.
As I recall, I have a couple months before Tang Yue calls me to catch the criminal, and I'll use them well. Though first, find new housing...
Mu Zhuoyun was indeed one of the high-level mages who drove off the wolf. He also got injured—lost a finger on his right hand. No money left for Parthenon treatment, where they can regrow limbs or body parts. So his mood's foul.
With his adopted son missing, me praised by military for city aid... And our not-best relations post-duel... He kicked me out of the clan. I just accepted and left.
Well, what? Clan gives no perks beyond housing. Why stay? Just trouble. Renting an apartment was easy; now time for self-boosting.
First, awaken a new element post-Intermediate Tier breakthrough. And do it incognito—if it's weak on beginner/Intermediate levels, I can replace it with one of my current ones as second official element.
I didn't think too hard about it. Since the tragedy of Bo City was now in the past, I simply shifted to a parallel world at the start of the catastrophe.
Appearing near the Magical Awakening building, I glanced at the Winged Wolf around which Zhang Kong's figure was circling and went inside.
The building was empty, and after going to the right room, I simply placed my hand on the stone on the pedestal.
I wasn't afraid of awakening an elemental type. In my previous life, my only elemental was light, and even that didn't fully fit the category. As I recalled, Mu Bai only had ice among elementals. I hoped something from dimensional magic would awaken.
Diving into the spiritual world, I saw light-silver magical dust forming. Summon Element—this was the best option for my situation. I couldn't help but smile. Apparently, my affinity for dimensions was indeed strong.
Canceling the spell, I found myself back in my rented apartment. Now, time to deal with the ice Spiritual Seed.
I had a few options here:
First—don't absorb the Spiritual Seed right now, since almost all of them carry impurities from other elements, which would prevent me from absorbing a Heavenly Seed of ice later, as it contains no such impurities and rejects them.
Second—absorb a Spiritual Seed with a good accompanying effect, and later a Soul Seed too, forming a solid combo. But the path to a Heavenly Seed would be closed.
Third—find Yu Shishi. Not only could this girl create Heavenly Seeds, but she could make them progressively improvable. So, she might craft a Spiritual Seed as a base for a Heavenly one and strengthen it as my cultivation advanced. The problem? I only knew where to find her in the future. I had no info on her current location.
After pondering for a couple more hours which option to pick, inspiration struck.
Though people hadn't yet learned to detect impurities of other elements in Spiritual Seeds—which enabled the accompanying effects—they knew Heavenly Seeds had none. And considering seeds develop gradually...
Not wanting to lose the thought, I dove into the internet, searching for the world's most powerful ice mages throughout history and what they were famous for.
Three hours later, I found the right person: Mu Bu Hai—founder of the Mu Clan, who 856 years ago discovered a large Heavenly Seed on Luyashan mountain and absorbed it, becoming the strongest ice mage of his era.
This was largely thanks to his seed's simple yet highly effective Forbidden Domain rule—Indestructible Ice. Meaning, while the Forbidden Domain rule was active, all ice he created was indestructible. His greatest feat was killing a low-rank Junior Emperor alongside another spell mage. He simply encased the enemy in indestructible ice and let the second mage end his life.
As I thought, people love bragging about past deeds. What good is telling folks that nearly a thousand years ago, a large Heavenly Seed was on Luyashan? The seed's long gone. They hush up secrets that still matter. But for me, this was treasure.
My new plan was simple as a yuan coin. I'd absorb that Heavenly Seed when its development peaked at the Spiritual Seed stage. Later, I'd absorb it again, but at the next rank up.
That way, at High Tier, I'd have a large Heavenly Seed, and ice would remain useful at my current level. Shame about no accompanying effects, but I was willing to sacrifice that for such a powerful Forbidden Domain rule down the line.
Now I needed to prepare well and pinpoint when the seed peaked at Spiritual rank. I'd have to dig into specialized literature and hop realities to confirm the timing. Plus, get element detectors. But it was worth it.