“Two tents, you mean?”
Miss Felianna looked at her two students, her expression at this moment becoming richer, no longer that terrifying numbness.
Xia De looked at Miss Felianna’s face. Even though her lips were pale and her complexion was terrible at this moment, that unique charm was something ordinary people could never possess.
“In my era, I paid a bottle of merman’s elixir of immortality to find the Guiding Light Hermitage, and then obtained incomplete ritual data. This is an extremely dangerous God Summoning ritual. You forgot one thing; in fact, the ritual has already begun.”
The firelight illuminated the faces of the four “people.” Xia De’s slow and deep voice was still asking questions. The crackling bonfire made everyone’s shadows sway. The four people were in four directions, three dark shadows extending into the distance. Only the Giant Tree Witch’s shadow under the tree was cast onto the trunk of the tall ancient tree:
“Miss Felianna, you said you lost a large batch of ritual materials. Can you confirm that the materials were lost, and not already consumed?”
The Witch could not answer; her memory here also began to become chaotic.
“Miss Felianna, you said the ritual requires Witches with the power of nature, time, and space to participate. You prepared powerful relics to replace the Witches, but the power of the relics was absorbed by the forest. May I ask, are you sure the power of the relics was absorbed, and not that the ritual has already begun?”
They still could not answer.
“Who?”
Miss Felianna’s lips moved.
“It certainly isn’t you. You are a truly existing person; there is no doubt about that. I once suspected this lady.”
Xia De pointed to the Moon Witch, who looked at him with slight confusion.
It was as if Xia De’s arrival brought new strength to the Witches. With his words, their numb souls began to regain vitality.
“I suspected you because the ritual requires a Witch with natural power, and the existence of the Giant Tree Witch is reasonable. But later, I asked about something, and she told me that the position of the original Library librarian, like us, belonged to the Moon. From your era to ours, most librarians are Moon Witches.”
Xia De looked at the Giant Tree Witch. She sat under the tree trunk, looking at Xia De with a serene smile.
Xia De bowed slightly in respect:
“The ritual is divided into two parts. The first part accounts for eighty percent, using the ritual to summon the God. If one only wants to meet the God and has no other purpose, the ritual only proceeds to this point, and then the God can be sent away.”
Miss Felianna and the Moon Witch looked together at the “Witch” under the tree. She gently took off her hood. Her light green long hair swayed slightly with the night wind in the forest. There were some golden scars on her hair, and those marks were exceptionally bright.
“The ritual—contacting the yaobian gate—is a direct summoning of a God, without needing to prepare a human body as a vessel for the Saint. This leads to a very terrible outcome if one forgets to send the God away, ending the first step, and also does not continue to the second step of the ritual.”
It’s not that the God cannot leave on Its own, but rather the special nature of this ritual. Mortals who summon a great one must send the great one away; this is the most basic covenant of this ritual. Only by proceeding to the second stage of the ritual can the entire ritual be completed, allowing the God to stay and leave at will.
He nodded again to the “Giant Tree Witch”:
“Good evening, Giant Tree Witch, or rather, Princess Tavel, or the Old God—yaobian gate.”
Its current form of existence is very special. The reason It has not harmed mortals by Its appearance is because the true God is not the Witch image before them, but the giant tree behind her, or within that tree.
This can be understood from “Kiss of the Tree.”
Miss Felianna’s group actually consisted only of her and the Moon Witch. They broke into the Thousand Tree Forest and performed the ritual, but after summoning the God, due to this forest, they forgot what they had done.
The God was under this tree, by this bonfire, accompanying them, and using Its body to open up this clearing in the forest. It did not remind them of what had already happened, but silently helped them survive in this dangerous place. Perhaps this is because a God should be so, or simply wanted to find some fun.
If the human form of the God’s incarnation wasn’t pretty, this should actually be considered a horror story.
But this also explains Xia De’s other questions, such as the Giant Tree Witch hardly speaking and rarely participating in conversations. Also, last time before he left, the three Witches informed him of the God’s story through chanting, directly granting him the spell 【Door Key】.
This is completely unreasonable. No matter how powerful the Witches are, they are still just Witches. Even holding a relic, there is no reason for them to directly grant Xia De power. Xia De originally thought he was lucky and sensitive to the power of the yaobian gate. Now that he thinks about it, the real reason is that the God personally told Its own story.
This is just like the 【The Innocent Creator】 back then, who, by telling Its own story, allowed Xia De to obtain the spell 【False Immortality】.
“Good evening, man from the future.”
The God responded softly. As the golden light marks appeared on Its light green hair, Xia De could no longer look directly at It.
However, he was very glad that this time he was not called “child from the future.”
“So everything is clear, Miss Felianna. You have completed the first part of the ritual, and now the second part is missing.”
Xia De shook the “Delarion Ancient Fairy Tales Collection” in his hand:
“‘Kiss of the Tree’ is the second step of the ritual.”
The Moon Witch was terrified to be sitting opposite a God, stunned and at a loss. Miss Felianna, like Xia De, respectfully greeted the God, then quietly moved closer to her student.
Xia De opened the book to the chapter on “Kiss of the Tree”:
“My version of the story is very interesting: Princess Tavel coexists with the ancient tree, finally entering the gate on the tree trunk and gaining the power of the ancient tree. The ritual is already very clear; we need to let the Princess enter this great tree to complete the final God Summoning ritual.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Miss Felianna said hesitantly; she seemed to recall something.
“But I am very curious, excuse me, Old God, may I ask, if the story of ‘Kiss of the Tree’ is a ritual, is it also a story you experienced? Is the ancient tree in the story that granted Princess Tavel power the Father of Infinite Trees?”
Xia De maintained a questioning expression. The God smiled and looked at him. The wind blew through the clearing, and the tree canopy rustled overhead. It was extremely quiet here, so much so that when the “Witch” under the tree spoke, her serene voice almost merged into the quiet night:
“Your real question should be, am I a mortal who became a God.”
He looked at Her, he looked at her, she looked at her, she looked at him.
The Moon Witch looked at Xia De in shock. Miss Felianna shook her head and closed her eyes. Xia De did not get an answer from the founder of the academy’s expression. The God watched all of this.
The Witch’s song seemed to still echo here.
“Please softly call our names, please ask your doubts~”
It was She singing softly in his ear.