Bustling.
Noisy.
Chaotic.
Allenson City today remains as prosperous as ever.
At the steel and gear-crafted city gates, merchants come and go in steam-powered magic carriages, their faces brimming with smiles and joy. The residents, too, chat with their families and friends as usual.
No one noticed.
Among the crowds entering and leaving Allenson City today, there wasn’t a single high noble.
To ordinary people, high nobles are incredibly rare, so even if they vanished, few would take notice.
Now, at this very moment.
This steam-powered city, standing tall in the northern part of the world.
Inside, only a large number of commoners and mid-level individuals, unqualified to know the truth, remain. The true elites have long since departed.
“I need… to buy what I need… quickly…”
In the sky above Allenson City.
Krisha no longer concealed herself, pushing her magic output to the limit as she cast a wind spell to fly faster, heading straight for the bustling market at the city center.
When she landed, she immediately drew gasps of surprise.
About Krisha.
About this girl with a lovely face.
The market vendors all knew she was connected to a formal mage, possibly as a relative or the mage’s personal maid.
It was precisely because of this ambiguous relationship that the witch had never been harassed.
But today.
Witnessing Krisha use magic firsthand.
The ordinary vendors in the market were utterly shocked, their eyes wide as they stared at Krisha holding her wand, their voices trembling.
“A mage, that child is actually a mage?!”
“Hiss… If I had known, I should have been more polite to her before.”
“Blessed be the Goddess of Harvest, this is truly unbelievable!”
People chattered away.
Some were envious, some jealous, and others completely dazed.
But soon.
As if in unison, everyone began showering Krisha with all kinds of praises, calling her beautiful, kind, and compassionate.
Some even boldly offered her free goods.
There were delicate mechanical pocket watches, crisp and fresh vegetables and fruits, and even outrageously gorgeous women’s clothing.
The vendors desperately.
Fought to be the first.
With fervent expressions.
Trying to force their best items into Krisha’s hands.
“…How dull.”
Krisha calmly watched the spectacle before her.
Was it because the thick steam from the machines no longer obscured everything?
For some reason, even though it was the same market, the same vendors, the same buildings, the ugliness and ferocity on people’s faces had become glaringly obvious.
Everyone crowded into the same space, flattering her to curry favor.
But.
Wasn’t this the very scene she had once longed for?
No one hitting her, no one spitting on her, everyone vying to be her friend, everyone eager to get close to her—wasn’t this the life she had dreamed of?
Why did it now fill her with such disgust?
“Ah, I see…”
Looking down at her delicate hands, then at the exquisite wand.
Krisha suddenly understood.
The people here, the surging crowd around her, didn’t like Krisha. They liked a beautiful female mage named “Krisha,” a mage with a bright future compared to ordinary people.
They didn’t like the witch, nor did they like Krisha herself.
From beginning to end.
The one who would extend a helping hand to the witch, who would embrace her like the sun, offering warmth and hope.
Was always that person.
Only him, just him, who didn’t care about getting his hands dirty, who would take the foul-smelling witch by the hand and gently lead her home.
“I need to finish Master’s task quickly,” Krisha thought, waving her wand and using wind magic to forcefully disperse the surrounding vendors.
Under the vendors’ fearful and cowering gazes, Krisha quickly identified various items.
Food.
Daily necessities.
Clothing and tools.
She swept them up with wind magic, sorted them into categories, and stored them all in her spatial ring.
The entire process took less than three minutes.
Magic was truly a convenient thing.
“Now I can go back.”
Krisha glanced at her spatial ring, sensing its fully packed interior, and nodded lightly before tossing out a bag of coins, distributing them among the vendors.
Equivalent exchange.
This was the first lesson Xu Xi had taught the witch.
The witch remembered it well.
“Wind spell, gather,” Krisha waved her wand without giving the vendors a chance to speak. The howling wind wrapped around her once more, carrying her back toward the courtyard.
She had completed her task quickly, the round trip taking less than ten minutes.
Perhaps she would earn her master’s praise?
With this thought in mind, Krisha increased her magic output, making the wind fiercer and her flight faster, eager to return to Xu Xi’s side.
But.
But why.
Did her chest feel so heavy?
“Whoosh—” The wind roared in the sky.
Krisha rode the gale, flying faster and faster as she approached the courtyard. She was almost there, so close, yet the unease in her heart grew stronger.
She clutched her chest, her eyes blank.
She didn’t understand, didn’t know why, but the weight in her heart was unbearable, and she instinctively sped up.
This familiar pain.
Made the witch panic.
“Return… return to Master’s side…”
“As long as Master is there, everything will be alright,” the witch, unable to comprehend what was happening, instinctively chose to rely on the person she trusted most.
Xu Xi, her master, her sun.
As long as she returned to Xu Xi, all her unease and pain would vanish. Krisha truly believed this.
Soon.
The rapidly flying Krisha caught sight of the familiar courtyard.
Just the thought of the man inside lessened the weight in her chest.
So, Krisha sped up, flying with a desperation she couldn’t explain, as if her life depended on it, even forgetting the caution Xu Xi had always taught her.
Faster.
Even faster.
Please, faster.
The witch frantically pushed her wind spell, and finally, she reached the vicinity of the courtyard.
But just then.
The sky darkened.
“BOOM!!!!!”
An unimaginable barrage of fireballs rained down from the sky, like thousands of falling meteors, suddenly appearing above Allenson City.
Roaring, raging, and destroying everything in their path.
And one of those blazing fireballs was headed straight for the courtyard Krisha was trying to reach.
“No, wait!… No, no… You can’t!”
Sensing something terrible, Krisha’s pupils contracted, and she let out a cry of panic she had never uttered before, her voice trembling.
The weight in her chest reached its peak at that moment.
world slacker. But a genius female disciple just had to get clingy, insisting that he take her as a disciple. Not only that, she was always making advances on him, thoroughly disrupting his peaceful slacker life...
his freshman year, Su Bai accidentally bound the "Indulgence Tycoon System." 【Sleeping in? Reward: +$1,000】 【Spent $288 at a street barbecue stall? Cashback: +$2,880】 【Dropped $14,396 on in-game skins? Special reward unlocked: A brand-new Porsche Panamera!】 Luxury cars, penthouses, corporate shares, financial empires… College life was all about living freely and doing whatever he pleased! … When the adorably naive academic genius faced family medical bills and financial struggles, Su Bai waved his hand dismissively: "Your future is on me." "Wuwu~ Big Brother is so good to me! I’ll become a scientist to repay you!" When the genius girl got bullied by a shady professor? Su Bai casually dropped a billion-dollar investment, forcing the university to grovel and beg for her return. A company’s funding chain collapsing? Su Bai smirked—cash was the one thing he’d never run out of. Years later, when people traced the rise of the AI prodigy beauty, who was the man behind her success? Not just that—Su Bai also became the tsundere campus belle’s unattainable dream, the contrast senior’s daily necessity, and the beautiful counselor’s emotional anchor…
. As long as he maintains the villain image and follows the plot to the grand finale, he can obtain generous rewards and return to the real world. So Gu Chen'an entered the role and began to act as a scumbag villain, but who would have expected that the female leads could hear his inner thoughts. Miss Su from the Su family was shocked: "I originally thought Gu Chen'an was a scumbag, but I didn't expect he turned out to be a gentleman! What? You said I have to call off the engagement? I definitely won't, I'll piss you off!" Bai Yuan Tian was dumbfounded: "Young Master Gu is usually unreasonable and a complete brat, but he actually calls me little sweetie in his heart? What, Young Master Gu even said he likes me?" As the female leads' images collapsed more and more, the plot also collapsed with it. Gu Chen'an looked at all this chaos. "Ladies, don't aggro me, if you keep this up the male lead really will stab me, I still need to survive to the grand finale!"
with Taming My Adopted Niece) (Multiple Heroines + Power Fantasy) Before transmigrating, Wang Jianqiang suffered greatly from novels with no female leads. Holding firm to the belief that "women only slow down my blade," he stubbornly maintained his virginity even after decades in the Sect of Dual Cultivation. In his twilight years, with his cultivation stagnant at the third level of Qi Refining, he finally succumbed and "rewarded" himself once—triggering the awakening of the Godly Cultivation System. From then on, he realized women might actually be his lucky stars on the path to immortality. Deciding to indulge freely and savor life, he found his ungrateful adopted niece knocking at his door...
