Chapter 268 - 24: The Magical Phantom Wing Race and the ’Mo Ning Speed

Chapter 268: Chapter 24: The Magical Phantom Wing Race and the ’Mo Ning Speed

「Five days after his promotion.」

Mo Ning, dressed in his Apprentice Grey Robe, activated his Assistant Researcher badge for the Deep Red Rose Laboratory.

A prompt appeared immediately.

[The passage to the Deep Red Rose Secret Hall has been opened. Please enter within one minute.]

Mo Ning pushed open the grand doors. What appeared before him was not a dreamlike valley, but a great hall paved with hexagonal red floor tiles.

Each tile was as lustrous as Crystal, with lifelike roses carved upon it. They looked as if they might burst forth from the stone at any moment, creating a peculiar and stunning visual effect.

This was the laboratory’s public affairs area—the Deep Red Rose Secret Hall.

Mo Ning stepped across an invisible Boundary Line and entered the hall.

"Good morning, Mo Ning!" came a female voice, so ethereal it was almost unreal.

The beauty of the voice surpassed human limits, seeming to drift from the very depths of a dream.

His eyes flickered, quickly locking onto an exceptionally graceful figure.

She stood behind a stone counter shaped like a pile of roses. Her features were breathtakingly exquisite, a touch more beautiful than even Princess Phoebe.

But her beauty held a porcelain-like fragility, making one worry that she might shatter like a broken vase at any moment.

’The Phantom Wing Race.’

This race was composed entirely of females. Their physical structure was largely similar to that of human women, though their internal organs differed slightly—they possessed two powerful hearts.

The greatest difference lay in the wings on their backs. More colorful than any butterfly’s, they were known as "Illusory Wings."

Although the Illusory Wings appeared so thin that a Gust of wind could tear them apart, they were no mere decoration. They allowed their owner to "cruise" for long periods at speeds exceeding one hundred meters per second.

Normally, the Illusory Wings were folded tightly against the body, making them almost invisible.

This member of the Phantom Wing Race was also part of the Deep Red Rose Laboratory, her strength having already reached the level of a Second Level Apprentice.

However, she rarely participated in research, instead playing the role of "front desk reception" most of the time.

It wasn’t that she was unwilling. Unfortunately, her Divination Talent was simply average. Her promotion to Second Level Apprentice was due entirely to her unique racial talents.

Mo Ning smiled in response. "Good morning, Tess!"

The next moment, Tess instantly unfurled her wings, stretching her magnificent Illusory Wings to their full extent.

Light poured down from the Secret Hall’s high dome, scattering through her wings and forming a beautiful halo around her.

This was the Phantom Wing Race’s way of showing respect.

From what Mo Ning had read in books, the Phantom Wing Race only offered this gesture to beings they liked.

According to Nasha, of the more than two hundred people in the entire laboratory, there were no more than ten whom Tess would greet this way.

’Honestly, he never understood how he had earned such treatment. He had only been to the Secret Hall about fifteen times in total.’

Tess retracted her Illusory Wings, her peculiar pupils staring fixedly at him.

"Mo Ning, I feel as though the ’sky’s fury’ I see in you has grown stronger."

Mo Ning was taken aback.

He knew at once that what she called the "sky’s fury" was in fact Thunder Power.

Just yesterday, he had successfully derived the Divination Model for [Lightning Chain], finally converting the Electric Feather into his second Level Zero Soul Witchcraft. His power had once again experienced a Feiyue.

[Lightning Chain] and [Thunderbolt Spear] were both forms of Soul Witchcraft, but the former was an area-of-effect attack with more than double the power of the latter. ℯℯ𝘭.

Normally, unless an Apprentice actively displayed or cast their Witchcraft, no one would know what spells they had mastered.

It was truly astonishing that the Phantom Wing Race possessed such a miraculous ability.

Mo Ning smiled. "Yes, I’ve reaped another bountiful harvest in the Divination Domain."

By deciphering the Mystery of the Electric Feather and building the Witchcraft Model step by step, he hadn’t just gained a powerful form of Witchcraft. The greater reward was connecting all the knowledge he had learned into a completely new system.

Obvious envy instantly bloomed in Tess’s eyes. "I so envy that your soul possesses such a brilliant Spiritual Light of wisdom."

Then, she reminded him, "Your meeting is about to start."

Mo Ning nodded in acknowledgment once more and walked toward the other side of the hall with practiced ease.

Tess watched him walk up to a half-man-high rose relief on the wall and reach out to touch it.

The rose instantly came to life, emerging from the wall as its petals bloomed layer by layer, transforming into a deep red passageway.

Tess watched Mo Ning’s figure disappear into the passage and murmured in a sing-song tone, "Mysterious Thunder Messenger, you will soar amidst the storm..."

Last night, in a dream, she had seen Mo Ning wreathed in countless terrifying serpents of thunder, suppressing a horrifying, super-demonic entity deep within the earth.

Tess believed this was a dream-revelation granted by her ancestral bloodline, and thus she believed in it without a doubt.

But she had to abide by her ancestors’ oath and could not reveal the information from her dream to anyone, or a terrible calamity would befall her.

No one knew that the difference in Tess’s attitude toward the laboratory staff also stemmed from revelations from her bloodline’s power.

She had met many people more polite than Mo Ning, but in their soul projections, she had glimpsed a darkness that made her uneasy.

In Mo Ning’s soul projection, however, she saw a rare, warm, and sincere light.

That was why she couldn’t help but feel a sense of joy every time she saw him.

*****

「Meanwhile.」

The moment Mo Ning stepped into the passage, the scene before him changed abruptly.

A spacious conference room entered his view.

The edges of the long wooden table were carved with roses of various shapes, each one trembling gently as if it were breathing.

Arranged around the table were high-backed chairs. They appeared to be made of layers upon layers of stacked roses, but they were actually carvings. The craftsmanship had simply reached such a state of perfection that they were utterly lifelike, looking as though they might spring to life in the next second.