Chapter 9: I’m a Falcom dog now, haha

Mo Baiwei sat on the ground, clutching a damp handkerchief, her face flushed with embarrassment.

She was a gold-ranked Hero, and yet she’d lost her composure over a spider.

If anyone found out, her social life would be over.

She shuddered at the thought of the old geezers at the Adventurer’s Association giving her that mocking, gleeful look if they ever learned about her reaction.

Forget it.

No one saw anyway.

And even if someone did, so what?

Now she was an elf, not a human.

Let alone anyone realizing her past as a gold-ranked Hero—no one would believe it even if an old acquaintance pointed at her and said she was Wei Bai.

Who would believe such a thing?

A perfectly healthy, sturdy human male suddenly becoming a delicate, pitiable elf beauty—who would buy that story?

They’d probably be branded a lunatic or a heretic and executed.

But still, this time she had verified what she wanted to test.

This pendant was useful—extremely so—almost to a game-breaking degree.

It could absorb bloodline power and convert it into Mana, and more importantly, the Mana could be released directly through guidance.

In other words, even an ordinary person with a mediocre bloodline—or even someone with no bloodline power at all—could unleash magic rivaling a true Mage if the pendant absorbed enough energy.

What a terrifying pendant.

It could turn a powerless person into a Mage who wielded the way of magic, with virtually no upper limit on the Spell tier that could be released.

Mages increased the Spell tiers they could master and cast slowly as their own strength grew through constant training.

A novice Mage could only cast entry-level Tier One Spells, while a Grand Mage could handle high-tier Tier Eight or even Tier Nine Spells.

Spells were ranked from one to nine—the higher the tier, the greater the power and effect—and above Tier Nine was the ultimate Super-Tier Magic.

Owning this pendant meant its user didn’t need time to train or adapt.

They just had to know the required Spell’s Chanting Ritual, and they could potentially cast high-tier or even Super-Tier Magic without further guidance.

Why was Mo Baiwei so sure?

Because she herself was a cripple with suppressed bloodline and not a trace of Mana sensitivity.

And now, after seeing the pendant’s effect firsthand—and with her own vast experience—she’d also witnessed similar weapons on adventures.

On one commission, she had seen an ordinary person unleash a mid-tier Tier Six Spell using a single Bead.

Their party was nearly blown to bits that day.

The person who cast the Spell died on the spot.

They later determined it was a side effect of the Bead’s forced activation; the frail body of a mortal simply couldn’t withstand the backlash and paid the price with their life.

Back then, the Bead was only an Artisan-Grade Weapon, with unavoidable and significant side effects.

But the pendant in her hand was Rare-Grade.

She didn’t know if there were side effects, but judging by how she felt now, even if there were, they wouldn’t be as severe as the Bead’s.

After all, she hadn’t noticed any difference so far.

Everything felt normal.

But that didn’t mean she thought this power came without a price.

There was no free lunch in the world.

If she used this power, she was sure the cost had already been taken—she just didn’t know what it was.

Could the price be…

Recalling her earlier emotional outburst, she, who was always calm, felt awkward at having lost control in elf form.

She didn’t understand why her elf state and human state felt like two entirely different people, with personalities that almost didn’t overlap at all.

After some thought, Mo Baiwei pinned all the differences on bloodline.

Why was her elf bloodline female and her human bloodline male?

Logically, after removing or putting on the pendant, she should have either become a male elf or a female human.

She’d never heard of gender being affected by a pendant.

“Maybe… because the bloodline got overwritten?”

Mo Baiwei pondered, making some guesses.

Maybe because she was a mixed-blood, there were two bloodlines in her body.

Since human bloodlines are short-lived and elf bloodlines are long-lived, the powerful elf bloodline simply overwrote the human one.

If she had pure human blood, maybe she’d be a human boy?

But since the long-lived bloodline was so overpowering, it completely overwrote the human one—making her an elf girl.

The more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed.

Still, while she could be both elf and human, she preferred being human.

After fleeing the Elf Kingdom, she found acceptance in the Human Kingdom far beyond what the narrow-minded elves ever offered.

To Mo Baiwei, humans felt more human than elves.

When she first left the Elf Kingdom, she had been educated in elf values.

She used the pendant to become human.

As a human, she still harbored prejudice toward humans.

Even when she first joined the Adventurer’s Association, she wore colored glasses toward humans, avoiding contact whenever possible for fear of being influenced.

But over time, Mo Baiwei realized humans weren’t as disgraceful as elves claimed.

Her years in the Adventurer’s Association made her feel truly alive, not rejected and scorned.

Maybe humans weren’t as bad as her kin had claimed.

Trying to accept humanity, Mo Baiwei experienced feelings in the Adventurer’s Association she’d never felt as an elf.

Unlike elves, who viewed monsters with disdain, her companions always trusted her.

Her back was always safe with her friends.

Among the so-called short-lived species of the Adventurer’s Association, she felt support and acceptance—things she never knew in the Elf Kingdom.

She put on the pendant and turned back into a black-haired youth.

Recalling her earlier actions, Wei Bai couldn’t help but smile.

“Why dwell on all that?”

“Now, I have a new choice.”

Wei Bai held the pendant in his palm, as if making a decision.

Images of past near-death adventures flashed through his mind.

Suddenly, a feeling of resolve surged within.

As the feeling settled, Wei Bai swiftly began chanting a Spell from the Magic Encyclopedia.

“Tier One · Fountain Surge.”

A clear sphere of water formed in front of the pendant.

He tossed it onto the still-burning flames on the ground.

Seeing the fire sizzle out, Wei Bai’s heart filled with joy.

As expected, his guess was correct.

He had extinguished the fire simply to prevent it from spreading and attracting City-State Guards, and to test his theory about the pendant.

It definitely wasn’t because he worried the burning trees would make him sad.

But finally…

A wave of uncontrollable excitement surged through him.

A long-held wish had finally come true, even if in a different form.

After all this, I, Wei Bai, am finally a magic dog too! Hahahaha!