Chapter 463: 80. Ideal Nation
“Asuka, look at the flashlight. Yes, that’s right, um, very good, Mr. Tang Zeming. Based on the previous observations and tests, it seems that Asuka is recovering well. You are very attentive and considerate in your care.”
“Namo Amitabha, thank you, doctor. It’s all your and Asuka’s efforts. I’ve only provided a bit of advice.”
“I see. It seems this is also a blessing from the Buddha. Asuka, your bipolar disorder has shown signs of recovery. If you don’t have any episodes in the coming period, you can go back to school.”
“Namo Amitabha. However, Asuka hasn’t been to school for a long time due to her illness. I wonder if going back to school will worsen her condition?”
“Hmm, there is indeed this possibility, but Asuka can’t stay in the temple forever, right? So, Asuka, you need to work hard. Mr. Tang Zeming is very worried about you. You can do it, don’t let down the Buddha’s expectations.”
The light of the flashlight gradually dimmed, but in front of Tang Zeming Asuka, there were no doctors in white coats or her father in a cassock. Instead, she still dully exhibited the tatami-strewn room she lived in.
“Knock, knock. Knock. Knock.”
The only difference was that the small TV playing Tokyo TV’s “Neon Genesis Evangelion” seemed to have lost signal, with the screen filled with static and accompanied by a noisy “shh” sound.
Still, the small table in front of her was spread with today’s assignments, seemingly resting underneath the Buddhist scriptures she had lazily not copied.
She appeared like a doll, staring blankly at the flickering static screen, when the sound of the wooden fish like a machine echoed from outside her room.
“All conditioned phenomena are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, and a shadow.”
“Like a dew or a flash of lightning, one should contemplate them like this.”
This was
The Heart Sutra.
Tang Zeming Asuka dumbly turned her head towards the tightly closed sliding door, tilting her head, and once again saw the figure outside the door that looked like her father dressed in a cassock, as if he was kneeling outside.
“…Dad?”
She dazedly spoke, then slowly reached out her hand towards the closed door. However, just as her hand had extended halfway, the shadow of her father outside wobbled slightly, and then her father’s gentle voice came through,
“Asuka.”
“Don’t open the door.”
“Hahaha.”
“Mr. Fisher!”
Tang Zeming Asuka sat up, drenched in cold sweat, her memories frozen in her mind at the last moment with Fisher wanting to throw both herself and Mr. Mikhail out.
For some reason, as she thought about it, her eyes grew moist, and tears streamed down her cheeks until they gathered at her chin.
“Are you okay?”
Tang Zeming Asuka rubbed her eyes and looked up, only to see the expressionless Neceria staring at her, and she immediately grabbed Neceria’s hand, hurriedly asking,
“Miss Neceria, where is Mr. Fisher?! Weren’t we just grabbed by some Duke of Peach? Where are we now? Is Mr. Fisher okay? Where did Mr. Mikhail’s head and Gouwen and Archangel Hela go?!”
This series of rapid-fire questions made Neceria’s brain momentarily crash; she could not respond to the questions in an orderly manner as if she were startled by the overly agitated Tang Zeming Asuka.
But fortunately, just when Tang Zeming Asuka was about to ask again, a white robe suddenly flew over from behind, completely covering her head.
“Who is it?”
“It’s me, Fisher.”
“Mr. Fisher?!”
Tang Zeming Asuka froze, taking down the cloth that had been thrown over her head, turning to look behind her, and indeed saw the living Fisher standing there with his arms crossed.
“You’re okay? Wuwuwu.”
“Yeah, we managed to escape, and we have returned to the Holy Realm. However, Hela and Mikhail were heavily injured; Hela’s halo has broken and needs to rest for a while the next day. As for Mikhail…”
Fisher began to recount what had just happened when he and Gouwen sent the two patients to others, his expression becoming somewhat strange,
“Mikhail’s situation is a bit odd; Raphael doesn’t like the things implanted inside him and wants to remove them all before treating him, but Gouwen believes those things are deeply connected to him and cannot be removed, leading to an argument between the two.”
“Eh?”
When they went up, Gouwen had insisted on leeching Raphael’s healing techniques, but they hadn’t even lasted a quarter of an hour before quarreling. It was hard to say what kind of learning this constituted. Of course, it was also possible that their medical skills grew amid the conflict.
“Then isn’t Mr. Mikhail still unhealed?”
“That’s not the case,” Fisher sat on the edge of the Moon Boat, shrugging and said, “As they were treating Mikhail, suddenly Michael appeared, wordlessly taking Mikhail back to the Fifth Day. Gouwen is currently with Mikhail; he should be able to heal him. By the way, aren’t you going to put on your clothes? You’re only wearing a little bear outfit.”
Upon hearing this, Tang Zeming Asuka’s face turned red, and she hurriedly wrapped the white robe Fisher had just thrown over her around herself, pouting at Fisher and complained,
“Mr. Fisher, h—”
“What does that mean?”
Even with the use of the translation artifact, the meaning of that last letter wasn’t accurately translated, leaving Fisher in a fog.
“No, it’s nothing!”
Tang Zeming Asuka quickly shook her head, swiftly put on the white robe, and as she dressed, she found her body bruised all over. Not having gone through systematic training, she seemed delicate; even though she did not directly suffer any attacks, she felt severely injured, and even standing up brought noticeable pain.
Her expression twitched, but she still walked down the Moon Boat, asking Fisher,
“So what are we doing next, Mr. Fisher? By the way, don’t we already know the whereabouts of the World Tree’s tear drops? Can’t we go tell Archangel Pandora about it? She said she could tell me how to go home!”
Fisher noticed the corners of her mouth twitching from pain. He beckoned Tang Zeming Asuka, signifying for her to come over. However, he also remembered that no one from the Creation Society had managed to leave this world, prompting him to remind her,
“Always be cautious, don’t hold too high hopes. That way, even if your wish is unfulfilled in the end, you won’t be too disappointed, and you might gain something else. Come here, you’re also injured; although not seriously, you’re too fragile to walk smoothly. I’ll engrave a bit of healing magic for you, and we can consider it a class.”
Tang Zeming Asuka obediently walked over, somewhat unsure why Fisher suddenly told her not to have too high expectations.
Does Fisher sense that he doesn’t want me to go back?
Deeply affected by shoujo manga, Tang Zeming Asuka’s mind began to wander. The keywords of the plot were probably “the abstinent, icy magical teacher and his silly magical student in a forbidden romance.” If detailed further, it might be something like “the taciturn him wanting to retain yet being unable, expressing a desire to get close but awkwardly acting in the opposite direction.”
Hmph, such a tsundere, Mr. Fisher! But for me, an experienced modern person, your little awkward tactics are outdated. Let’s let the new age Japanese high school girl simply handle you. Ah, pain pain pain!
Fisher saw her standing next to him, continuously “hee hee heeing” with a silly smile and thought she might have hit her head, so like a modern person fixing a TV, he expressionlessly tapped her head to wake her from her little world and said flatly,
“Did you get hit in the head or something? Why are you laughing? Pay attention to how I engrave magic, especially healing magic.”
“Oh, sorry, Mr. Fisher.”
Tang Zeming Asuka embarrassingly covered her head and lowered her head, focusing on Fisher etching the magic, also asking about the situation after she had fainted and how they returned safely to the Holy Realm in the end.
Neceria, on the other hand, did not want to participate in this classroom that felt like a celestial script at all; she alone flapped her wings to the cloud top, gazing down at the laboring slaves in the sea of clouds, not knowing what exactly she was thinking.
“Mr. Fisher, I’ve wanted to say before, magic seems so versatile; it can consider all uses, whether for healing, tracking, or combat. If we develop magic further, won’t we no longer need doctors?”
Fisher responded while engraving the magic,
“Magic is not an all-purpose tool. There are few universal items in this world that can do everything. The healing magic I’m engraving now actually works by promoting blood circulation and enhancing the body’s self-healing abilities; it’s not like a divine blessing or restoring a person’s vitality completely. The creator of this magic was both a great doctor and an exquisite magician, thus giving rise to this magic.
“You must remember, no matter how convenient something is, you must always consider its downside. If you casually give up on fundamental research for its convenience, that would essentially be losing sight of the main point, contradicting the essential principles of rigorous magic construction. So, in the future, whether you study or use any magic, you must grasp the line between [use] and [abuse]. Once this point becomes blurred, that originally convenient tool could instantly transform into a terrifying demon.”
Fisher suddenly recalled the “panacea” he had seen in Erwind’s memories and the demons spawned from the abuse of the panacea, hence he particularly reminded Tang Zeming Asuka of this point.
In his youth, he had also distanced himself from reality and obsessively explored the mysteries of magic in hopes of achieving the wonderful vision of a universal tool. However, upon later reflection, he found that magicians who held such thoughts mostly ended badly.
Tang Zeming Asuka nodded in a somewhat understanding manner, focusing seriously on watching Fisher finish engraving the healing magic. Afterwards, Fisher expressionlessly stuck a leaf onto Tang Zeming Asuka’s head.
She froze for a second, then both hands shot up straight, bouncing in place.
Fisher patted her head again, expressionless, and said,
“I suspect you might really be knocked silly by the Duke of Peach; ever since you woke up, you’ve been acting weird.”
“No! No! This is a zombie! I saw it on TV, Chinese zombies! I didn’t get silly!”
She covered her head, feeling wronged as tears welled up; it seemed her thought processes and her teacher from this other world didn’t connect at all. She merely felt that Mr. Fisher had put a talisman on a zombie.
But just at that moment, she was surprised to find that her wounds were almost healed; at least they didn’t hurt anymore while practicing being a zombie.
“Hey, it really doesn’t hurt now. Mr. Fisher, are we going to wait here for Hela and Gouwen to come back?”
“No, we’re going to see Pandora first; she’s currently on the First Day. You come with me.”
Fisher stood up, looking towards the direction Remiel had pointed out to him before leaving, and said so.
Neceria stayed behind to watch their Moon Boat, while Fisher and Tang Zeming Asuka walked along the clouds in the sky downward, heading to the place Remiel mentioned.
The clouds here were soft, looking like cotton candy while also being elastic, making Fisher curious about how an angel like Remiel would think to design such a thing for the First Day.
The farther down they went, the more the traces of the mortal world thickened; everywhere were slaves transporting magic materials, working in disciplined groups led by higher-level slaves. Above them were certainly angels supervising, but the angels in the mortal world were other angels descended from the divine wheel. If it weren’t for this system, that group of angels obsessed with forging would not want to come down and deal with other lives.
Of course, they were still willing to come down to select materials for forging.
Fisher and Tang Zeming Asuka passed through the group of hardworking slaves and finally reached the edge of the First Day, where they saw a tall, massive lighthouse wrapped in clouds.
The area around the lighthouse was devoid of any clouds; from there, one could easily see the vast ocean below, as well as the deep universe above.
Pandora was waiting for them there.
Fisher led the somewhat fearful Tang Zeming Asuka up the cloud steps winding around the lighthouse. When they reached the entrance at the top of the lighthouse, Pandora’s voice floated from inside.
“Could you help me bring some materials from the entrance?”
Tang Zeming Asuka seemed inherently afraid of Pandora; ever since arriving, she had hidden behind Fisher, allowing him to lead her into the spacious lighthouse, where she saw the angel Pandora with her eyes covered by fabric.
She stood before a pile of magic materials, seemingly searching for items she could use for forging. After picking through them for a long time, she still didn’t leave behind any usable materials. Fisher glanced at the entrance and saw a wooden basket with several broken peach branches in it. Just seeing those peach branches made Fisher nauseous, as they clearly bore the Duke of Peach’s power.
Fisher frowned and picked up the basket, walking over to Pandora and handing it to her. Surprisingly, she warmly said “thank you,” and then she touched the peach branches in the basket and said,
“I have no eyes; although I can see through others’ desires, I am mostly a blind person. Therefore, many things require the assistance of others. This was brought to me by Remiel. I want to verify whether the relics joined with the World Tree’s tears will blossom with consciousness. Thus, I was looking for branches containing the power of the World Tree’s destiny, but I haven’t seen the key to blossoming consciousness from the powers of the elf race.”
She did not turn her head; of course, with sightless eyes, there was no need to specifically look at Fisher behind her. However, the suspicion raised a towering fire within Fisher, yet that oppressive feeling quickly vanished. He saw Pandora turn around and smile as she said,
“Don’t be nervous; I’m not doubting you. I know you are speaking the truth. Only by joining the World Tree’s tears can one forge a relic with consciousness. I’m just considering the specific principles of it. By the way, I heard from Remiel that Hela not only actively chose her gender during this trip but also bravely blocked the Duke of Peach’s attack for you, sustaining serious injuries and is currently receiving treatment on the Second Day. Frankly, that surprises me because for someone as harsh as Hela, she rarely does such things.”
Tang Zeming Asuka behind him glanced at him, and Fisher remained silent for a moment, not expressing his true thoughts; instead, he stubbornly retorted,
“There were two other people with me; she did it for us, perhaps not for me specifically.”
“Haha, you’re not wrong to think so. Now, let’s talk about the information regarding the World Tree’s tears.”
Upon hearing Pandora’s inquiry, Fisher relayed the information he had obtained from Jianmu Palace, especially that not only the World Tree’s tears had been stolen but also the loom of fate.
After hearing this, Pandora paused for a moment and suddenly said,
“Margaret. I’ve heard that name before.”
“You’ve heard of it?”
“Yeah, I often walk in the mortal world under the alias ’Pandora’ to gather quality forging materials. A few months ago, I encountered a burgeoning settlement at the southernmost part of the Dragon Continent, where many subhumans and humans of different races lived. There were no slaves or classes, accommodating many weaker races. You must understand, in such a brutal land as the Dragon Continent, this was very rare.
“At that time, I just passed casually, thinking it was a fleeting dream, as the name of that place was ‘Ideal Nation,’ but I heard the name ‘Margaret‘ from the desires of the residents there.”
Fisher did not expect that the one who stole the loom of fate, the Trans, had not quietly disappeared but audaciously established a new nation all the way from the Tree Continent to the southern end of the Dragon Continent.
“Ideal Nation, huh.”
Please support by voting, tipping, and showing support; it means a lot to me!
Thank you very much for your support!
(End of this chapter)
