A Villainess Should Be Strong

After the short conversation, the Ruler left without much thought. It went back to the upper realms to perform its detestable duties.

Estelle shook her head, her thoughts still chaotic at how ridiculous the current situation.

It turned out that she was a Constellation Leader all along? If so, why would her colleagues not notify her of the matter? Did they not know?

Estelle's main suspicion fell onto Heine. She had met the former Fae King back when he was still the reigning monarch. He had the connection to the Spirit Tree. She didn't believe that the Spirit Tree told him nothing about her identity.

Estelle had an internal debate. As she progressed, why did it seem like everything was a big, concealed lie?

No matter how she tried to downplay the matter, it was as if the world itself lied to her without end. Estelle couldn't bear the thought. She was first shocked with the casual attitude Heine put on when she revealed that she was a reincarnated person.

Heine was strange. Suspicious. Glaringly so. And the thing was, he didn't even bother to put up an act to cover his strangeness.

He was always transparent in certain matters he helped Estelle with. Without his aid, Estelle's progress would've been so much slower.

As much as he hated to admit it, her current achievements would only be possible with the help of everyone she was indebted to.

Without them, she was bound to fail. It never struck her how imbalanced of a person she was.

She was strong, yet weak. In face of the countless truths and lies spreading across the world's horizon, she was powerless. With only her astounding power as a weapon, she wouldn't fare that well.

There were actually so many things she didn't know. So many things that her colleagues knew due to their boundless experience.

Estelle knew that she wasn't entitled to every knowledge that existed outside of her viewpoints, but she truly desired to know more.

She thought that since she was once an adult, that status would also work the same way inside this new world she was pushed into.

She underestimated just to what extent a fantasy world could go to. Ultimately, fantasy was fantasy. Nothing would be certain.

She had made a terrible mistake in thinking that she would be alright on her own.

One of her questions were unlocked. She received an answer. In terms of being alone or together, she had to stay with people that could guide her until she could fly on her own. That was for certain.

[How did I not realize it until now?] Estelle was baffled. It caught her off guard. Just how much did learn in a decade's worth of living?

Paying a trip to Eterna opened her eyes. In her eyes, knowledge was now placed at a very high standing in terms of power. She was in awe at the Ruler.

At the same time, she was displeased at how things turned out to be.

Estelle was in a bad mood over the revelation, but she decided to focus on her primary training.

Trying to reach the goal, Estelle straightened up her posture as she calmed herself down. In order to achieve perfect focus, she had to stay calm and collected.

Pushing away all the negative thoughts, Estelle controlled herself as she embodied the feeling of healing herself.

Ultimately, the combination magic she created wasn't a healing magic. The way they worked was different, but the concept was similar.

Healing magic was different from regenerative magic. To 'heal' wasn't the same with 'regenerate'.

When you heal someone, you are not speeding up their recovery rate, nor are you replacing the wound with new elements.

To heal was to alleviate the target's unwell condition. Healing was mostly directed at sickness instead of injuries, whereas regenerative or recovery magic worked for general ailments as a whole. Regenerating an ailment meant that the problem was being repaired.

Healing was different.

The two terms were very closely related to each other. Even their benefits and uses could freely interchange.

Although people used to general term 'heal' when speaking about curing without caring about the difference, Estelle was mindful of this discrepancy now that she was asked to ponder upon the connection between healing magic and her soul's problems.

"Healing.. huh," Estelle pouted as she fiddled around with her magic, wondering how she could maximize her progress. "Healing, healing, healing.."

Estelle repeated the word so many times that she was starting to get sick of it. Healing her soul.

To alleviate the cause. Restore the prime condition before the ailment's coverage hit. How would she do that?

To start off with a bang, Estelle began to churn out the combination magic element. She wanted to test out if she could just directly apply the element to her body.

It was straightforward thinking. Before moving on to complex solutions, she decided to go and approach the matter from a narrow spectrum.

Her speed was gradually increasing the more she mustered up the magic. In minutes, the combination magic was back on her palm.

[Healing.] Estelle envisioned performing a self healing session on the nonexistent wound. On a deeper level, she cared and tended to her soul, hoping to recover her soul power that way.

Like a warm ray of light, she cast her combination magic upon her limb. From there, she closed her eyes and tried to feel a difference.

Estelle obviously knew how precious the soul digits were, and she wasn't expecting direct improvements this early into her trials.

As long as she was able to feel even the slightest bit of change, she would be satisfied. The Ruler had conveyed to her that she shouldn't be too stressed. That the matter was hard to achieve and not meant to spedrun through.

As a competitive person, Estelle was never satisfied with normal results and desired more. Part of her determination sourced from her wish to stand on top of others, as she always believed herself to be more superior than others.

Perhaps that ego had now disappeared ever since people around her knocked some sense into her head. Reminded her that there was always a greater person beyond yourself. Thanks to that, she was able to prevent so many negative results.

Estelle continued her application for minutes. The magic covered up her left arm, which was one of the main contributors to the element of nothingness inside her.

Estelle wondered. If her limbs were restored, if her head was restored, then there wouldn't be anymore elements of nothingness to use, wouldn't there?

Estelle relied on her own elements to muster up the combination magic. She drew nothingness out of herself, so if that same resource depleted, how would she fare from there?

However, her current state was still full with nothingness. Her 'value' of nothingness was currently higher than it should be.

She had much resources to work with.

She searched, and searched, but no results came up. She longed to feel a change. Any change would give her hope and instill the belief that there was still a chance for everything.

And yet, her future looked bleak as she passed through the thirty minute mark in her experiment quickly.

No results were spotted. Estelle started wondering if her way of approach was wrong. However, she was used to constant training and had lost her sense of time. One or two hours were now nothing in Estelle's mind.

Her mindset had been built in such a way that she was able to endure constant hours of concentration. Through her experience in Eterna, she felt her thoughts grow sharper than ever before. Her mental state was honed and sculpted until she managed to achieve her current state of calmness at any given moment.

Continuing on pressing through the matter with the simplest approach she came up with, Estelle was both indignant and wishful.

Somehow, she felt like her method of approach would work. Even though it was quite absurd. In face of such a troublesome matter, how could the solution be so easy?

Even so, she persevered amidst her contrasting thoughts that told her to back off.

Another thirty minutes passed without a single result.

She didn't pay much attention to it. As long as nothing failed, as long as there were no casualties, she was willing to continue down this path.

One hour turned to two hours. Then three hours. And so on.

Strangely, Estelle didn't feel uncomfortable. She felt at ease even if she had been maintaining the combination magic for hours. It wasn't unstable.

At this point, Estelle didn't know what to say. She started treating the experience as additional training for her mind and power. She felt stabler than any other moment she had spent inside Eterna.

Just as she was spending more of her time catering to her limb, the change she had been so passionately waiting for appeared.

In form of a tiny light that entered her being, warming her up for an instant.

Estelle blinked, not sure how to react.

It was a small reaction, but she felt it.

Her heartbeat increased as she checked her soul power's digits in a hurry.

There, she found that her digit had increased by 1.

"..Well, this worked?" Estelle made a small laugh.

She didn't expect it to work that smoothly. Her attempts in figuring out the solution to this matter was far easier than what she once envisioned. Her mental preparation was made useless, because she thought that she would have to face much failure before she succeeded.

Turns out, some matters only needed simple solutions.

As long as she tried, there was light at the end of this gloomy tunnel. Estelle smirked as she was once more motivated. Her willpower burned like an undying flame.

Although it might die out from time to time, the flame's vitality would always come back soaring. Never would it be pulverized. Never would it disappear.

Estelle was someone who hated losing no matter what the condition she was affiliated in anyway.