Bella's previous life had been ordinary. This life, she'd worked hard and possessed some talent, but limited perception kept her spell level stuck at third circle for a long time.
Her trip to Ashina had allowed her to break past the third circle and successfully master a fourth circle spell: Divination.
Yet perception remained her weakness. Constrained by circumstances, everything she saw was the material world. But what lay beneath? Above? What did the past, present, and future contain? What knowledge existed there? She had no idea.
Put simply, the material world had limited her vision.
Many preconceptions from her previous life had helped enormously in the early stages of her magical journey. But by the middle stages, they'd become obstacles.
She needed to break old concepts and view the entire world from a new perspective.
Calypso's viewpoint had elevated her understanding significantly. Though only a fleeting glimpse in a moment of chaos, borrowing the goddess's unique perspective let Bella see things previously invisible. What exactly were those things? She still needed to contemplate. But the mind mage's thorny path had undoubtedly expanded by two notches.
Half an hour passed before Bella opened her eyes.
Finally, she'd escaped the psychic pollution. All her consciousness had returned to her body.
As psionic energy gradually emerged from her mental lake, her body slowly recovered.
The fever began to break. Her shoulder and back wounds hurt less.
Though physically drained and aching all over, her condition remained terrible.
Bella carefully catalogued her gains.
She'd directly acquired five spells—four offensive, plus a desperately needed defensive spell.
The five spells were: Ice Arrow (a first circle spell distinct from Frost Ray), Crystal Storm (second circle), Ice Nova and Ice Armor (third circle), and Ice Storm (fourth circle).
Unlike the underhanded tricks she'd previously developed—Distraction, Weakness, Suppression, Life Link—Calypso's spells were all grand, imposing attack magic with elemental damage.
The symbols representing these five spells were now etched in the depths of her mental lake. From now on, she could freely use them. Her offensive capability had increased dramatically.
Eagle Vision, sixth sense, and other abilities gradually recovered as her psionic energy grew.
Her keen sense of smell immediately detected the cave's various odors.
Sweat, blood, dried saltwater, smoke from last night's fire.
No matter how beautiful a woman, throw her in the ocean, pull her out to dry, throw her back in, pull her out again, make her crawl a hundred meters (328 feet) across a beach, shoot her twice, make her sweat, then air-dry her—after all that, she won't smell pleasant.
Identifying women by scent had prerequisites. Bella's current odor was absolutely terrible.
Lara had personally killed someone. Her arms and stomach were splattered with blood. After carrying Bella for over a kilometer (0.6 miles), she didn't smell much better.
"You're awake? Feeling better?" Last night's shadow of killing someone hadn't actually faded. Lara had slept very lightly. Bella's slight movement woke her.
Bella raised her arm to sniff herself, grimacing slightly.
Only when she lifted her arm did she notice her shoulder. A pale athletic bra had been torn into two strips and wrapped around her shoulder. Her back was similarly bandaged with military green cloth that looked torn from pants. Glancing at Lara's bare legs confirmed where the fabric came from.
She expressed sincere gratitude. "Thank you for saving me. My performance yesterday was terrible—normally I'm not that bad... My memories from last night are jumbled. Um... I'd like to know, where exactly are we?"
Lara lacked her future confidence yet. To add credibility to her words, she pulled out a sealed notebook from her backpack.
"According to my father's notes... deep in the Dragon's Triangle lies an ancient kingdom called Yamatai. Legend says Queen Himiko could control weather. Her touch spread death and plague. People called her the Mother of Death..."
As Lara explained their situation, Bella tried contacting her Revenge Ghost Alliance.
Unfortunately, the island was blocked by layers of storms. Massive magical power accumulated outside, severely interfering with her perception.
Psionic energy could only open a small gap. If she used her full strength, she might summon the ghost O'Rin. But Jason and Pyramid Head at the edge of hell couldn't cross over unless she broke the storm barrier surrounding the island.
"I wonder if Lu Ren also washed up on this island," Lara said, worried about her companion.
Bella thought of Sadako and the professor. Her bad luck this time definitely originated with Sadako—that girl was a walking disaster magnet.
She considered. "The currents in this area should all flow toward the island. Barring accidents, they're probably all here... Don't you feel uncomfortable? Let's go wash up at the beach."
"Can we go wash?" As the sole heir of Croft Industries, Lara had lived in luxury since childhood. Though she'd been at odds with her guardian Ana these past years, she'd never fallen to begging in the streets. The smell had bothered her all night.
"Of course. This smell is awful. Whatever we do next, it'll give us away. Let's go wash."
The seawater had high salinity, but they couldn't afford to be picky.
Both were women, so there was no embarrassment.
They walked out of the cave together and began washing at a nearby beach.
All women, no need for modesty.
They stripped off blood-stained clothes and started cleaning.
Lara wasn't as tall as Bella. Her arms were too slender, her shoulder blades not as graceful, her legs not as long. But at least she had C-cups...
The adventurer snuck sideways glances, comparing. She felt reassured.
You're not as big as me! Lara recovered some confidence.
You know wilderness survival? You can read mountain terrain? You're skilled with a blade? Those things can all be learned! But some innate differences are just differences...
After washing their clothes once and scrubbing away blood and sweat, they returned to the cave to rest. This wasn't a game—at minimum, they needed to wait for their clothes to dry.
They built a fire at the cave entrance to dry their garments.
Then they split up—Lara went to find food while Bella retraced last night's route to retrieve Fudō Masamune.
Once out of Lara's sight, she carefully avoided the storm blocking the island, then summoned O'Rin, the ghost from Mibu Village.