"This seed… can it be planted inside a Reality Marble?" Louis muttered to himself.
Light flickered in his eyes—the visions of countless futures revealed by his Clairvoyance.
Every possible outcome played before him. Though the images weren't perfectly clear, he had seen all that he needed to confirm.
The seed's effect was extraordinary, almost miraculous. Louis was itching to plant it immediately.
A Reality Marble, in the Fate series, was a special ability: to unfold a unique world within a fixed area and drag enemies into it. (T/N: aka Domain Expansion)
Unless one had powers that specifically countered space and barriers, nothing could break through a Reality Marble.
However, once the Marble collapsed, anything not belonging to it would be expelled, returning to its original location. Nothing could truly remain behind.
Take Louis's Reality Marble, Avalon, the Ideal Land. It appeared to be a perfect pastoral paradise. He could even pluck flowers from it. But he couldn't plant anything inside.
Carrying farmland around wasn't so easy.
But this "Fast-Grown Yggdrasil Seed"… it seemed to have some mysterious property.
"So that's what it means to stabilize a space and make it real." Louis murmured.
With Clairvoyance, he could glimpse the truth of the future. The World Tree and dragon he had just seen were indeed destined to come.
And the setting in that vision—he could never mistake it. It was his Avalon.
"In that case, let's try it. No harm in planting."
Louis rose from the sofa. At once, a whirlwind of petals swept around him. In a blink, the scenery opened into clarity.
An endless sea of flowers stretched without end. In the far distance, a tall tower rose.
Louis gazed at it, faintly making out a figure atop it.
That tower was merely part of the Marble's "background." He had tested it before—no matter how far he walked, he could never reach it.
But it didn't matter. At least the tower added some variation to the boundless flower field.
Louis dug a small pit beneath his feet and tossed in the so-called Fast-Grown Seed of Yggdrasil. He was just about to cover it when the seed suddenly sprouted roots, drilling deep into the soil.
At that instant, everything around him shifted—becoming real. What was once a dreamlike illusion hardened into tangible substance.
The ground trembled beneath him, the peaceful garden disturbed by its uninvited guest.
The flower-covered earth split apart, thick roots bursting from the cracks.
Louis staggered as the quaking ground threw him off balance, astonishment written across his face.
In barely a few dozen seconds, the flower field within fifty meters around him had been torn up, overturned into a mass of dark roots sprawling like earth-dragons into the soil.
And yet—contrasting against those monstrous roots was a single, tiny sprout.
Louis's expression twisted strangely. He stepped quickly onto the roots, moving closer to examine it.
Nestled among the titanic root network, the seedling grew in their center—the focal point where all the nutrients flowed.
The sapling itself was textbook perfect, the very image of a freshly drawn plant shoot… except it was absurdly small.
The roots had exploded outward with the force of hollowing out the entire land—yet the sprout was just a fragile little sprig.
It was like staring at a fifteen-meter-tall musclebound giant… topped with the head of a normal-sized little girl.
The more Louis thought about it, the more unbearable it felt.
Louis grimaced and pulled his gaze away—if he kept staring, he was afraid he wouldn't be able to resist yanking the little sprout right out of the ground.
Who knew how long it would take before it grew up?
"Forget it. The sapling isn't the point—the Reality Marble is." Louis looked around. Aside from the scar left where the roots had plowed through, the sea of flowers hadn't changed much.
He thought for a moment, then released the Volumen Hydrargyrum in his hand.
The silvery liquid slid across the ground and condensed into a giant mercury sphere before him, awaiting his command.
But Louis didn't give any command. This was just a test.
He snapped his fingers, and a wind of petals rose, dispersing the Reality Marble.
Normally, with the collapse of the Marble, everything inside should have been expelled alongside him. Yet the Volumen Hydrargyrum was gone.
"It really did fix it in place…" Louis's eyes lit up as he re-opened the Marble.
Once again, he stood within Avalon, the Ideal Land—right atop the roots of the World Tree.
And there was the Volumen Hydrargyrum, still exactly where he had left it.
"Now I really do have a portable farm. A whole endless flower field, at that." Louis was delighted with the change.
This would make shady work far more convenient too. No need to toss corpses into the Black Lake and pollute the water—just dig a pit in here, bury them, and turn them into flower fertilizer!
"…No, no, bad thought. Sinful, sinful. How could I think of something like that?" Louis scratched his head, about to leave—when suddenly he whipped around, staring behind him.
The flower sea stretched on, swaying softly in the breeze. Nothing unusual at all.
"Strange." Louis stroked his chin. He could have sworn he'd just sensed something. But now—nothing.
His eyes flared like searchlights as he scanned the surroundings.
His Clairvoyance, able to peer into the future, swept outward, probing for any anomaly.
But he found nothing. Nothing now, nothing in the future.
"Must've been my imagination." Louis shrugged, took the Volumen Hydrargyrum, and left the Reality Marble.
The moment he disappeared, silence fell again. The flower sea stood serene, save for a wandering breeze from nowhere.
This place seemed untouched by the outside world, where blossoms never withered and even time itself had no hold.
Suddenly, a transparent figure appeared amidst the flowers.
It slowly approached the World Tree's sprout, extending a hand to gently stroke it.
The little sapling swayed joyfully, as if it had grown taller in that instant.
"Grow quickly… grow strong," the figure whispered—then dissolved into the breeze.
......
Back in the Room of Requirement, Louis pulled out a cauldron and resumed his study of dark-qi magic.
He had once dismissed it as short-sighted. But now that he had begun cultivating it in earnest, he realized how incredible qi-magic truly was.
Granted, compared to the magic of the Harry Potter world, qi-magic was more complex and cumbersome. But its versatility was unmatched—so long as the target was clear and preparations made, there was no problem it couldn't solve.
Simply put: Harry Potter's magic had a high floor but a limited ceiling, while qi-magic had a floor so low it scraped bedrock—but a ceiling so high it was boundless.
Studying it more could only bring benefits.
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