บท 9: 9. Omniscience and Omnipotence
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"Sister, where did you get all this money?"
Alice asked with a mix of shock and curiosity.
"Of course I've saved up over the years, pocket money, scholarships and the like, and I've written some stuff on the Magic Network for a little extra cash. Before I knew it, it all added up to this much."
Dorothy shrugged her shoulders, and even though she felt the pinch financially, she couldn't appear so pathetic in front of her sister. So, on the surface, she maintained a "money-making? Just gotta have hands" attitude.
"Ah, what on the Magic Network makes that much money? Sister, you've got to take me with you next time."
Alice looked at her own shriveled wallet and then at the Identity Card in front of her sister, leaving behind her poor tears.
"Take you with me? Sure, but after you go back, you'll have to get your Spell Studies certificate first, and then there's Potion Studies, Alchemy, Advanced Enchantment Theory..."
Dorothy glanced at her sister from the corner of her eye, then dropped the basic requirements on this overconfident little sister.
Hehehe, my foolish sister, prepare to experience the horror of being dominated by various certifications.
"Stop, stop, stop, sister, have mercy on me, stop with all that, I'm done with you Omniscient Party folks. I'll stick to my Path of Omnipotence."
Underachiever Alice promptly surrendered. She clasped her head in her hands and covered her ears, acting like she wouldn't listen.
Dorothy was speechless. She looked at her sister with a tinge of envy, feeling somewhat sour inside.
It sounded like she wanted to take the Path of Omniscience, but if talent had allowed, who wouldn't want to take the straightforward and rough Path of Omnipotence?
Just as the goal of Cultivators is to ascend to immortality, the ultimate goal for all beings in the Witch World is the same: to become Deities.
These Deities are certainly not the idols worshiped by religious sects, nor are they the Primordial Gods evolved from some world rules. To the Witches, these deities are too weak, merely Pseudo Gods.
The Deities that Witches strive for are more like the creators themselves, supposed to be Omniscient and Omnipotent, where one thought can create everything and one thought can destroy the world.
Despite their strength, even Witches have not yet reached this realm. However, as a race nearly godlike within the Multiverse, Witches have made some progress on this path to Ascend to Godhood.
Being Omniscient and Omnipotent is really too difficult, so let's be more practical. Let's try to achieve one of the two first, which would reduce the difficulty significantly.
Following this simple and humble value, Witches evolved the two mainstream paths of today, namely the Path of Omniscience and the Path of Omnipotence.
The Path of Omniscience holds that knowledge is power. Witches on this path advocate gaining understanding of the laws governing all things through study and learning, ultimately reaching the Omniscient Realm by mastering everything.
As long as there are no more secrets in the world to you, Omnipotence is naturally within reach.
The Path of Omnipotence believes that Magical Power is all-powerful. As the energy source for casting spells, Magical Power is the Power of Miracles. With enough Magical Power expenditure, every natural law and world rule must yield; theoretically, as long as one's Magical Power reaches a certain extent, a Witch could arrive at the Omnipotent Realm and have the world obey her will.
If the world is subject to you, then there are no secrets in everything to your eyes.
Both paths ultimately lead to the same destination, so in essence, there should be no distinction in rank or class. But in reality...
Holding a nuclear launch button versus being a personified moving Calamity—who's cooler and more badass goes without saying. Witches on the Path of Omnipotence of the same level are just a bit stronger than those on the Path of Omniscience.
However, a quick look at the highest institution of the Witch World known as the Council of Sages reveals which faction is ruling.
No way around it. Witches on the Path of Omnipotence may be strong, but they heavily rely on talent. The number of top-tier powerhouses is far less than those on the Path of Omniscience. They might be stronger individually, but only to a limited extent, while the numerical advantage of the other side is overwhelming.
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For this reason, the Path of Omniscience is actually the mainstream path in Witch World nowadays, with the saying going, "To be a witch is to be omniscient, and a mage should be learned and skilled in many fields, knowledgeable in everything."
Of course, that's the slogan people chant, but in fact, everyone's secretly jealous. Everyone would switch sides if they could, because if it wasn't for sheer helplessness, who the hell would want to spend their days cramming and losing hair in laboratories when they could eat through their talents like those animals on the other side?
Dorothy is a member of the Lemon Group. In her past life, she was a slacker in school, but now she has been forced to become a top student. What a karma she's built for herself, all because as a half-witch, her innate talent is insufficient.
You shouldn't be fooled by the bunch of talents listed on her identity card previously; they might seem impressive but actually...
Okay, they are quite impressive.
However, that's not the point, because all those flashy talents and specialties are ultimately just embellishments, secondary paths. The true path of a witch has always and will always be a single one: amassing Magical Power.
The quality of one's Magic Power aptitude is the only standard to measure whether a witch has talent or not.
After all, Magic Power, the Power of Miracles, has a ridiculous property: a quantitative change causes a qualitative change. A sufficient quantity of Magic Power naturally evolves and refines, becoming more pure and powerful.
Take the same Magic Spell, for instance. A witch with a Total Magical Power of 100 Mana might need to consume 10 Mana to cast it, while a witch with 1000 Mana might only need 1 Mana to do so, due to the stark difference in the intensity of their Magic Power.
Not to mention that the amount of Magic Power also affects recovery Speed, strength of Spells, and other effects.
Thus, those flashy talents and specialties may look strong, but in the end, the standard that determines a witch's true strength is still the Total Magical Power.
And the higher the level, the more this is the case. For Peak Witches, even if there's only a 1 Mana difference in Magic Power between two witches, the gap in their strength could be massive.
It's quite easy to see if a witch has a talent for Magical Power growth—just look at her Innate Magical Power. Generally, the higher the Innate Magical Power, the faster the Magical Power growth in the latter stages.
As a pureblood witch, little sister Alice starts with an Innate Magical Power of 9888 Mana, just a bit shy of the scary territory of monsters with Innate Magical Power over ten thousand, making her a genius among geniuses. She naturally has the qualifications to try the Path of Omnipotence.
On the other hand, Dorothy's Innate Magical Power is only 2333 Mana, a perfectly average figure, equivalent to the average baseline of 2324 Mana recently published in a survey of half-witch Innate Magical Power. In this regard, she is honestly just a painfully ordinary half-witch.
Now at sixteen years old, Dorothy has barely reached the admission requirement of 10k Mana for Witch Academy. Alice fulfilled this condition when she was only half a month old. If it weren't for the academy's minimum admission age of three years, she could have been enrolling in school at just half a month old.
Ah, to compare oneself to others can be torturous.
Dorothy let out a helpless sigh.
But envy aside, she wasn't exactly jealous or anything, because as Alice said before, it's not necessarily true that half-witches are inferior to pureblood witches. After all, as long as you're a witch, the future always holds promise.
One of the race traits of witches is the unrestricted growth of Magical Power. The concept of a Magic Power bottleneck or that Magic Power can't increase after a certain amount simply doesn't exist for witches. As long as a witch is alive, her Magic Power growth never stops.
Of course, the later the stage, the slower the growth rate inevitably becomes. Otherwise, in nearly a hundred thousand years of the witch race's history, there wouldn't still be a lack of a true God of Witches who had reached the Omnipotent Realm.
So in fact, the pureblood witches with outstanding Magic Talent are merely off to a faster start. They do grow faster at the beginning, but after a thousand years or ten thousand years, once everyone becomes a Peak Witch, the differences aren't that grand after all.
In short, everyone has a bright future, always full of promise.
Of course, that's assuming you can survive long enough to reach that grand late stage.
"Aside from Peak Witches, an average witch only has a lifespan of around 1000 years. Where's all that future to look forward to, huh."
Dorothy sighed again, still unable to suppress a bit of sourness in her heart.
But soon, she had no time to feel sour, for the Magic Wand Store owner had returned.
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