Su Mu chided coquettishly.
Seeing this, Tang Nai smiled faintly and said, “Hey, I’m trying to comfort you, and this is how you respond?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll make you happy.”
For some reason, she had just vaguely felt a faint tremor of a heartbeat coming from Tang Nai’s chest as they pressed against each other.
“I’d be a fool to believe you!” Su Mu said as she put Tang Nai down.
‘Would this doll-like girl, who often doesn’t connect emotionally with humans, also have warmth and a heartbeat?’
As the thought flashed through her mind, Su Mu laughed in spite of herself.
“Alright, I’ve decided.”
Hearing this, Tang Nai straightened her back and looked at Su Mu with a hint of curiosity.
Seeing Su Mu standing with her slender waist straight and her nose turned up in a confident manner, Tang Nai couldn’t help but want to tease her.
“I’ll take it one step at a time. First, I’ll rank up to B-rank.”
“From your tone, you’re not taking this seriously at all. Do you even have a plan?!”
“Nope!” Su Mu remained perfectly righteous as she spoke words that left the other speechless.
“I’ll give you a suggestion: why not try going into the Dream Worlds of the Great Witches?” Tang Nai said.
Being optimistic was good, but one still needed some foundation.
“Instead of causing trouble online to draw hate, you might as well go try your luck. What if you happen to catch a big fish too?”
“A Great Witch’s… Dream World?” Su Mu was slightly stunned.
“You are now barely able to create a conceptual body with a C-rank Magic Index to go fishing in those dreams.” Tang Nai let out a few terms that were both familiar and strange, leaving Su Mu looking confused.
Tang Nai then flashed a mischievous smile and asked, “Don’t you get it? It means I’m taking you to see the goldfish, little Su Mu… And what the heck is ‘fishing’ anyway?”
“Eww, your smile is gross… And by ‘fishing,’ I mean…”
In the end, she followed along.
The same unchanging pitch-black sky, the familiar dazzling neon lights, and the giant iron rod piercing the heavens — Naraku Tower.
This time, Su Mu did not take the elevator or the stairs.
Instead, she followed Tang Nai around to the back of the tower and entered through a hidden side door.
“The shortcut to the top of the tower is actually hidden in the back, but because this tower is so massive, almost no one thinks there’s anything behind it.”
As she spoke, Tang Nai reached out into a pitch-black shadow and pressed several times at random.
An ancient magic circle glowing with a faint blue light appeared beneath their feet.
Then, before Su Mu’s surprised eyes, it lifted her up.
“Hey, isn’t this shortcut a bit much?”
Su Mu was afraid of both heights and speed.
The wind blew fiercely against her face, and the force of the lift was so strong that her legs went weak.
She could only see the surrounding scenery blurred into a blur of speed.
Soon, she could no longer stand.
She fell backward onto her bottom, pressing herself flat against the stone slab engraved with the magic circle, not daring to move an inch.
“Look at you, such a coward.” Tang Nai laughed, resting her foot on Su Mu’s upturned bottom and lightly tapping it, making Su Mu’s cheeks flush with shame.
“What are you doing? I just… I just don’t understand this circle. Were the old-school Magical Girls so conservative? Why couldn’t they make an instant teleportation circle or something? How is this different from an elevator? Besides, it’s too fast.”
“That’s why it’s called a shortcut. Since you put it that way, let me ask you: why didn’t the people who developed elevators prioritize making them into teleportation circles?” Tang Nai retorted casually, the corners of her lips curling slightly.
“Is that the same thing? Do you think it’s realistic to create something like that with machinery in the real world?” Su Mu shouted back against the wind.
“Think about it. When you used to dream, weren’t you at most dreaming that you were flying? Even if the scenes occasionally shifted instantly, it was very difficult to pinpoint an exact location, right?”
Upon hearing this, Su Mu was slightly stunned, actually feeling somewhat convinced by Tang Nai.
“Is it really that difficult to create instant teleportation in a Dream World?”
Seeing Su Mu looking like she actually believed her, Tang Nai snickered.
She then ground her small foot against Su Mu’s bottom again.
The latter quickly turned around, covering her backside and glaring at Tang Nai in frustration.
“You actually believed me… As expected of you.” Su Mu looked at Tang Nai’s smile and sighed helplessly.
A moment later, the circle gradually slowed to a halt.
Su Mu managed to prop up her weak body and look around.
Unlike the Chessboard Hall from before, what appeared before her eyes was a different sight — a vast rooftop level with a sea of clouds.
Nearby was a set of stairs.
At the moment, people were sparsely walking up, all of them looking solemn and silent, exactly the same as when Su Mu first arrived.
“Hey, don’t you think it’s eerie to face a group of people who don’t even dare to speak every day?”
Su Mu nudged Tang Nai lightly with her elbow, only to have the latter pinch her lower back.
“That’s because you don’t know how annoying these people can be when they do talk. Look, the one on the far left and the one in the middle — those two have been hating each other for a long time.”
Tang Nai pointed.
Su Mu looked over and realized she was right.
Although the two were occasionally gazing at the distant sea of clouds, most of the time they were glaring at each other like mortal enemies.
“The one on the left specifically brought a token last time she went to a Secret Realm to unlock certain hidden areas within a Witch’s dream. She bet all the Magic Power of her five conceptual bodies just to ensure nothing went wrong. But just as she finally broke the seal and was about to explore, she was ‘possessed’ by the one in the middle. The culprit used one of my gadgets, and the victim just collapsed right there. Not only was her Magic Power completely drained, but the token was wasted too.”
Su Mu let out a soft hiss.
“Since then, every time the one in the middle enters a Dream World, she gets stalked by her rival. If she’s caught, she gets kicked right out. Over time, she’s built up quite a grudge too. If I didn’t keep an eye on things, they’d start fighting right now.”
“That really is tragic.” Su Mu was clearly more interested in the “possession” Tang Nai mentioned.
“What do you mean by ‘possession,’ and what kind of gadgets can make that happen?”
“Substances that can disrupt Magic Power balance. As long as you catch someone off guard, hide in a sinister corner, wait for them to get distracted, find the weak point in their magic defense, and pounce to grab their ankles, you can render them powerless in a very short time. Then, you can do whatever you want…” Tang Nai spoke with deep meaning, looking at Su Mu as if intentionally guiding her.
However, Su Mu did not get excited; instead, she thought of many drawbacks.
“Once you’re sensed, wouldn’t you just be a lamb to the slaughter? And if they appear in a team, wouldn’t things get messy? For someone like you who hasn’t reached B-rank yet, this is a very good opportunity to punch above your weight. If you’re willing, I can get you some even more effective little gadgets.”
Hearing this, Su Mu’s brows furrowed slightly.
After a moment, she had an idea, “No rush. I’m planning to call Ye Wanqing too. You can tell me more about it then.”
The rules of exploration in a Witch’s dream were very simple.
If you didn’t encounter anyone, you would sense Magic Power normally, look for Dreamswimming Fish, and then call it a day when you felt you had enough, returning to the exit to wait for the fish to pick you up.
If you encountered others, you could choose to attack without explanation, seizing the other person’s Magic Power, or you could form a temporary alliance.
It was possible to become teammates later, but entrusting trust to a stranger was very dangerous.
At the very least, Su Mu found it hard to trust anyone; after all, it wasn’t difficult to stab a “teammate” in the back.
Backstabbing was common; even in games, many people did it for a bit of cheap in-game currency.
In the face of tangible Magic Power gains, such trust became fragile and thin.
After all, for the sake of money, don’t many people frequently break the law?
The loser has no right to talk about trust; they can only lie on the ground and suffer the consequences.
However, the gap between the strong and the weak in the Dream World was significant.
Many times, when encountering a powerful enemy that couldn’t be fought, one would have no choice but to use every means possible to diffuse the other’s hostility.
Some Magical Girls with good conditions would even choose to sell themselves.
This trick was tried and true; after all, the service of a Magical Girl had an excellent reputation.
Everyone who used it spoke highly of it…
Su Mu would certainly not choose that.
However, if she encountered someone with too large a power gap and was captured, or put in a position like “possession” where she lost the ability to resist, she would face the same risks.
If you met someone straightforward, they would just kill you, and you’d go home to start over, set back only for a short while.
But if you encountered a truly powerful Witch, they wouldn’t let a Magical Girl go so easily.
Violating the body was considered a light sentence; some would directly carve a Sigil on the Magical Girl, mold their bodies, and carve a shared-perception Sigil as well.
They would make 100 or 1,000 copies to sell.
Within nine days, that Magical Girl would fall into corruption.
Just thinking about it made one’s skin crawl.
“A little gadget to sense danger.” Tang Nai flicked her slender finger, and Su Mu felt something dangerous wrap around her.
“Sigh, you don’t need to worry. I’ll put a bomb on you. If someone tries to bully you like that, just trigger the bomb and blow yourself up along with them.”
“Hey, give me a warning before you do that! I have a bad feeling about this!”
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