The Cornflower Witch Chapter 219

Golden wind violets drifted, losing their color in the breeze.

The great serpent moved through the boundless sea of clouds, its spine gently rising and falling, and the Fourth Continent, carried on its back, slowly descended from high above.

Turbulent gales rose from the edge of the continent, with the most massive and violent currents surging over the high mountains in the northwest corner, sweeping south. Wherever they passed, grass and leaves tumbled, great trees swayed, and even the beasts racing through the forest halted their steps, listening to the incessant clamor of the wind.

Farmers in the fields paused their work in the wind, holding onto their straw hats that threatened to fly off, and looked up. In the distant castle, soldiers emerged from the towers, striking iron bells, their clear sound echoing through the town.

‘The Aurora Wind Season has faded, the Storm Season has arrived.’

Knowing the Storm Season was coming, people reinforced their doors and windows and houses, preparing for the gales and heavy rains. The Orange-Red Tee Cavalry wolves that once roamed the mountains disappeared. Their aspects either faded, their fur turning common gray-brown, or their strength waned, leading them to be no match for their opponents in subsequent struggles, their throats easily bitten and their lives extinguished in the grasslands.

Dandelions, imbued with a faint ‘Sky’ aspect in the wind, all bloomed, their white seeds scattering into the wind and soaring into the sky. They would travel with the wind to various places, even crossing the sea of clouds to reach distant foreign continents. Antelopes ran and leaped across the grasslands and mountains, their speed growing ever swifter, even able to jump several meters high. No longer could hunters keep up with them. During this season, they would breed in large numbers, and their fur would turn gray-white. Thus, people referred to this period as the ‘Wind Antelope Festival,’ a joyous time for grazing with abundant grass and livestock.

;

Dark Mist Mountains, Lantern Town.

Hylial, dressed in a white dress, stood on the town’s tower, gazing at the swirling air currents at the edge of the firmament. They occasionally split the perpetually overcast dark clouds, allowing fragmented light to break through.

“The Storm Season is coming, Lia.” Glen and several other first-term students climbed the stairs and came up behind Hylial.

“Mm,” the girl softly nodded, then asked, “How are the wind-resistant measures at the outpost progressing?”

“The craftsmen have reinforced the structure; overall, it’s not a big problem,” Rachel replied. Then, Glen, the scholar beside her, added a few more lines. “When our town was first built, the strong winds of the Dark Mist Mountains were taken into account, so the building standards were quite high. The biggest impact, I’d say, will be on the transport teams. It will become difficult. Previously, they made round trips about once a month, but now it might be two to three months. During the storm-ravaged season, it might even be half a year between trips.”

“Is that so…” Hylial pondered the implications of this situation. “How are the supplies stockpiled? How long can we last if the transport teams can’t come?”

“We have ample food, water, and most other things; we can even produce a surplus. But we might face shortages of certain items like salt, fuel, and forging materials.”

“Actually, the danger isn’t for us, but for those frontline outposts and strongholds deep within the Dark Mist Mountains. Every time the wind season changes, the environment of the Shadow World also shifts. The surface continent sinks, and the Shadow World touches deeper abysses. At that time, new resources will emerge, but more monsters will also fall into the Shadow World from the Twilight Sea.”

“So, the defense system also needs to be reinforced,” Hylial thought, imagining what would happen if monsters attacked the town.

“Precisely.”

“First, inspect all the buildings in the town to see if they can be further reinforced. Then, we can think of ways to strengthen the town’s defensive capabilities.”

“Yes.” After everyone responded, they gradually left.

Silence returned to the tower. Hylial looked at the rolling clouds in the sky, her finger lightly raised, and a virtual card appeared. ‘Autumn Garden (Basic Stage)’. On the card, a circular open space built with mossy stones and water channels, covered with soft soil, beckoned. The stone bricks inside were neatly laid, and clear water flowed gently through the channels. In a little while, about two more weeks, she could proceed to the second step: transplanting plants.

…

In the following days, the heavy clouds in the sky continued to roll, until one day, the dark clouds suddenly descended, and heavy rain began to fall. Bean-sized raindrops incessantly pounded against the window glass, leaving faint watermarks that then converged into the ditches on the ground. These raindrops contained distorting and polluted toxins, making the glass increasingly fragile, and the sewage worsened the environment.

If it continued like this, Hylial worried the greenhouse glass might not hold up much longer. To prevent extensive glass damage, the students in the town used bundles of harvested stalks to cover the surface of the greenhouse, guiding the water runoff along the stalks to minimize erosion of the glass. To ensure the stalks didn’t rot, get soaked, or become ineffective, the students had to replace them daily.

The heavy rain lasted for five days before gradually weakening and dissipating. Afterward, Hylial and the others inventoried the glass damaged by erosion, patching up the greenhouse’s leaks to restore it.

“This is just the beginning of the Storm Season; there will be more and more heavy rains to come,” many students worried.

“That means we either close the greenhouse, or we find better resistant materials,” Hylial analyzed. “Higher-grade glass…” Unfortunately, her current energy was focused on constructing the core garden, leaving her no time or energy to research the ratios of glass spiritual liquid. “We can only ask for help from other organizations within the association. If they are willing to help, paying some compensation would be worth it.”

“I’ll write a letter to report to the association’s superiors right away,” the scholar next to her nodded.

A week later, Hylial’s ‘Autumn Garden’ was ready for its first phase, and she began transplanting plants. The first plant, of course, was her favorite and most compatible, the ‘Cornflower’. Numerous cornflower seeds were scattered around the outside of the water channel, sprouting and growing, then sending out tender green shoots. Subsequently, these cornflowers covered the area around the water channel and gradually bloomed. Blue flowers of varying shades unfurled, emanating a faint, clear aroma, adding a touch of vitality to the card’s surface.

“It’s not that difficult,” Hylial thought. Feeling that the cornflowers were stable, she added a second type of plant, a third, and a fourth. When she added the sixth plant, ‘Golden Pear,’ she began to feel some difficulty, because adding each plant meant adding another variable to the environment, doubling the difficulty. If the difficulty for adding cornflowers was 1, it was now 32.

The girl lightly pressed the card, feeling the subtle changes within, then re-entered the seventh plant, ‘White Camellia.’ The seventh took a little more time, the eighth was fine, the ninth was a bit tricky and required more time, the tenth was a bit problematic, and the eleventh required thoughtful planning to create space for various plants. For the twelfth, after another period of planning, she found a suitable opportunity and placed the ‘Purple Jellyfish Mushroom’ inside. This mushroom, with its ‘mycelial’ aspect, quietly grew in a moss-covered corner.

“This should be done,” Hylial sighed in relief, looking at the planted garden. This was only two months after she began constructing her core ability card.