Volume 2, Chapter 57 (Chapter 95): Weaponizing

The sky outside the window had already darkened, and the crescent moon shrouded by the dark clouds looked as if it were being submerged in water.

Lu Yibei’s apartment was pitch black, but conveniently, becoming a Witch grants her night vision. Unpacking her parcel, she spread the materials out on her coffee table and went through them one by one.

‘Mercury sulphide, carving knife, mahogany…’

She requested the store to cut the mahogany into small pieces, the size of a card with the thickness of a finger.

She couldn’t believe they charged her twenty yuan extra.

However, since it was beautifully cut, she couldn’t complain.

Her ‘friends’ surrounded her, looking at the items on the table like curious parents about the trinkets their child had brought back.

“Ms Witch, what are you doing?”

“She’s dabbling in the arts of alchemy!” the eyeball yelled. “It’s muscle memory to any Witch; it’s rooted in their soul! She may be using mercury now, but one day she’ll use humans, and…”

“She’ll use urban legends! For example, she’ll start with you,” another piped up.

“Shut up!”

Lu Yibei got a little impatient with their banter, picking up a few pieces of mahogany and throwing them towards them.

They scrambled away stealthily into the shadows, and she couldn’t help but sigh. Their minds were immature, like children’s.

She shrugged her shoulders and concentrated her energy on crafting the Charm.

Recalling Bright’s recipe, she picked up the carving knife and a piece of wood and carefully carved it according to the pattern in the recipe.

Although the wood was sturdy, she was proficient in the ways of using a knife, so she was quick and accurate in her carvings.

Half an hour later, she completed the carvings—patterns symbolising the wind and the sun, as well as some strange symbols that held an unknown meaning.

Putting down the carved wood, Yibei sighed and took a short rest before getting up to fetch the purified water he had prepared earlier and mixed the mercury sulphide in a small bowl.

Bright used a porcelain bowl, but Yibei couldn’t look at porcelain the same anymore.

Besides, she fears that Zigu might be related to porcelain. It was better to not take a risk.

With a brush dipped into the mixture of mercury sulphide and water, Yibei fixed her eyes and started to paint according to Bright’s recipe.

Unlike cooking, she had no talent for painting, and Bright’s memories don’t exactly translate into muscle memory.

According to the recipe, it must be painted in one single stroke, so she drew extra carefully and slowly.

During this time, her apparitions fell silent and laid on the sofa behind her, watching intently.

It was functionally easier than carving, but it took her twice as long to finish painting.

The Charm seemed to possess some kind of power; while making it, she could feel her spirit weaken slightly.

While waiting for the paint to dry, she tilted her head and stared at the Charm as she fiddled with her hair.

Their memories are getting to me, she thought, ‘Daydream loves to play with her hair, and here I am.’

Shifting through her memories, it was time for the final step, which was also the step that Bright had failed.

‘What does ‘imbue with energy to awaken it’ mean?’ She frowned, going through her memories once again.

She saw Bright attempting to imbue the charm with magic but failing to do so—sun exposure, moonlight exposure, tossing it into the microwave, being baptised by a priest…

She guessed that it meant channelling her psychic energy into the charm, but she didn’t know how to control her own powers. Turning around, she eyed her audience, which looked at her with expecting eyes.

“Which of you can control psychic energy? Come and do me a favour.”

Working together, the apparitions nodded and threw their common sacrifice over.

“Hey, bastards!” the eyeball yelled as it conjured a middle finger, only to be lifted up by Yibei.

“Come on. Psychic energy.”

“Absolutely not! I would rather die than help you!”

“Well, in that case,” she smiled, opening her mouth to reveal a set of pearly white teeth.

“W-w-wait! F-fine! Just a little, I’ll give it to you!”

The eyeball squirmed out of her grip and landed on the coffee table. Leaning towards the charm, it made a few gestures in the air to imbue the charm with psychic energy, only to scream out in agony.

“A-ack! Help me! It’s sucking me dry. I’m- I’m going to die!”

As the eyeball’s energy was being drained, the charm began to tremble violently; bursts of emerald green light illuminated the charm, and the symbols glowed with radiant light.

The eyeball started to shrivel.

Seeing this, Yibei hurried forward, and it took a lot of effort to separate it from the charm before its life force was syphoned out.

The charm flickered a few times in the dark before splitting into two and falling back on the coffee table.

Yibei held the eyeball gingerly in her hands and whispered, “Are… are you alright?”

“Y-you should have just eaten me.”

The eyeball closed, and the other apparitions were visibly petrified.

Yibei laid the eyeball down on the couch and instructed them to take good care of the eyeball before going back upstairs.

‘If the eyeball’s energy is fine, then the energy left within an urban legend’s core must be fine too.’

‘It’s not like I can continue eating them anyways, and they’re rotting away in my room. A stupid neighbour asked me if I was eating durians. I’d better get rid of it before somebody reports me for hiding a corpse.’

She was much faster when making the second charm, and it only took ten minutes to make it. After a brief thought, she picked up half of the core of the urban legend and tried cutting it with the carving knife, but found that it could barely make a dent into the core.

“What the… but I cut it open in an instant the last time! Wait…”

Thinking of this, she dashed towards the kitchen and found her family’s ancestral knife.

Taking the kitchen knife, she brought it down upon the core, and the core was cut in half easily.

Raising the knife in her hand, she breathed out shallow breaths of excitement before letting out a cheer: “Sh*t! It can’t be…”