CHAPTER 1180: CHAPTER 1179: IN THE FACE OF THE PROTAGONIST’S AURA, THE PLOT IS BUT FLEETING CLOUDS

Bringing the spoils of war back to Earth, Fang Zheng quickly contacted Precia and dumped all the good stuff he got from Mid Zhilanda onto her.

Precia, naturally, was completely baffled by this. She wasn’t some backstreet researcher but a genuine specialist professor. She immediately recognized that quite a few of these devices were top secret even in Mid Zhilanda, something she wouldn’t even have been able to touch before. And here Fang Zheng casually brought them over?

When faced with Precia’s questioning, Fang Zheng’s answer was simple.

"The Space-Time Bureau came looking for trouble, I had a fight with them, they realized their mistake, so they obediently surrendered and admitted defeat, and also compensated us with these things."

Of course, Precia didn’t believe Fang Zheng’s nonsense. But no matter how she tried, she couldn’t imagine that in the time she took a nap, Fang Zheng had rubbed the entire Mid Zhilanda fleet into the ground with his fleet... Well, Precia didn’t care either. As long as she could live a quiet life with her daughter, that was enough.

Other matters, Precia truly didn’t want to bother with.

The technology taken from Mid Zhilanda was abundant, but for Fang Zheng, most of it wasn’t of much use, like warship construction or weapons, as Heavenly Dao Palace already had better alternatives. In the end, Fang Zheng narrowed it down to three research targets.

The first was magitech devices. Fang Zheng was very focused on the research, transformation, and production of magitech devices, especially within Heavenly Dao Palace. Although considering that magitech devices are, after all, weapons and it’s impossible for everyone to have one, they are suitable for combat and maintaining order. Little Sakura’s Clow Cards, each involving conceptual magic, were not replicable; in contrast, mass-produced magitech devices were obviously more readily usable.

The second was naturally the Rainbow Cannon. Don’t be fooled by the dimensional fleet having difficulty against the Titan Super Ship; it’s purely a matter of inadequate output. After all, compared to the dimensional battleships, the Titan Super Ship excelled in size, mass, and defensive capabilities. If the dimensional battleships wanted to release a Rainbow Cannon powerful enough to pierce the Titan Super Ship’s defenses, it would likely take the energy of the entire fleet to achieve.

But for Fang Zheng, this wasn’t an issue.

More importantly, the Rainbow Cannon was magic—completely separate from technology, meaning if Fang Zheng wanted, he could directly "add" the Rainbow Cannon to the warship’s main cannon, firing the Rainbow Cannon during the main cannon’s cooldown, and once the Rainbow Cannon was done, firing the main cannon again...

Tsk, tsk, tsk, the picture of that is already beautiful without needing further imagination.

Of course, this is easier thought than done in reality; modifications are naturally not that simple.

As for the third technology Fang Zheng was interested in, it was somewhat unexpected—that is, Familiar Spirits.

Familiar Spirits are actually a fairly common technique, present in many worlds, and exist in the Main World for mages. In fact, Fang Zheng, as a mage specialized in summoning, could have entirely found a pet to sign a contract with as a familiar.

Of course, familiars in the Main World have many usages, but they also bear considerable risks. Firstly, a familiar contracted with a mage shares life with the mage; if the familiar dies, the mage suffers "half-blood critical strike" damage. While not dying with the familiar, being half-alive for a short period is unavoidable.

Therefore, most mages are cautious when searching for a familiar, preferring to forgo the many conveniences a familiar offers rather than signing a contract with just any animal—for example, if their familiar dog got run over while seeking a mate, the mage might collapse breathless while romancing under the moon with their lover.

That would be laughable.

But in this world, the familiars are different.

Magical Girls are inherently unreasonable and exceedingly "innocent and cheerful." Consider the Magitech Cannon Fire; a slight miscontrol would result in destructive power equivalent to hundreds of nuclear bombs, yet those caught up in it somehow survive, a concept baffling enough to make Main World mages question their existence.

And the familiar technique is the same.

According to Precia, creating a familiar in Mid Zhilanda is extraordinarily simple; one merely needs to find an animal with a bit of potential, sign a contract, and afterward, it can be turned into a familiar.

Okay, up until this point, it seems similar to the Main World, but what follows is entirely different.

After becoming a familiar, due to the master’s infusion of magic power, they can transform into humans, and also wield a certain degree of magic to assist their master in battle!

More importantly, the power is quite formidable!

Just this one point is enough to make the mages in the Main World envious, jealous, and angry to the point of vomiting blood.

A familiar that can transform into human form!!

In the Main World, humanoid familiars willing to sign contracts aren’t usually nice; they’re typically undead, necromancers, or succubi... not exactly the best company.

However, in the world of Magical Girls, this seems quite "simple."

Fang Zheng also planned to open a pet section in Heavenly Dao Palace. You see, on the Heavenly Dao Palace forum, many girls had complained, saying Fang Zheng himself raised two cute little cats, while they couldn’t find any pets to raise, which was akin to allowing only the army to light fires while prohibiting the common folk from lighting lamps.

And Fang Zheng was almost worn out by their complaints. If there was no other option... perhaps he’d acquire a pet store or... a familiar store in Mid Zhilanda?

After teaching Mid Zhilanda a lesson, Fang Zheng’s matters temporarily came to a close, and in the following time, he focused primarily on researching the improvement of magitech devices and the loading of the spell card system with Precia. As for the issue of Little Sakura collecting Clow Cards, Fang Zheng left it to those girls to resolve on their own.

Nevertheless, something Fang Zheng did not expect happened.

"...What’s...going on?"

Looking at the magic wand in Little Sakura’s hand, Fang Zheng was half-stunned, and after a long while, he finally opened his mouth to ask.

The magic wand in Little Sakura’s hand was no longer the original "Key of Seals." Instead, its shape had completely transformed. From the original bird head, it had become a five-pointed star wrapped by the moon, with two small wings on the side—Fang Zheng was certainly not unfamiliar with this form of Little Sakura’s magic wand because this was precisely the wand that was "upgraded" in the second part when Little Sakura transformed the Clow Cards into Sakura Brand!

But...the timing isn’t right, is it?

Fang Zheng remembered clearly, this magic wand upgrade occurred only after Little Sakura collected all the Clow Cards, wrote her name, and then in the final trial when she couldn’t defeat the second Guardian "Yue," after Teacher Mitsuki used the bell left by Kuro Reed to combine it with Little Sakura’s wand, it converted.

But now... Little Sakura hadn’t even collected all the Clow Cards, so how did it change?

"I don’t know either..."

Upon hearing Fang Zheng’s inquiry, Little Sakura also seemed somewhat uneasy.

"After I collected some Clow Cards earlier, I encountered those Shadow Creatures again, and during the battle, I don’t know why, but the wand suddenly changed into this form. It’s not just the wand, even the Clow Cards..."

As she spoke, Little Sakura pulled out a "Wind" card, and at this moment, the Clow Card’s color was completely different from before, having turned...pink.

Oh my, what’s this plot, the Clow Cards weren’t even fully collected yet, and they’ve turned into Sakura Brand?

Is this even possible?

"...How’s your body feeling? Do you feel anything?"

"No, I just feel like it takes a bit more magic power than usual..."

"About how much more?"

"A third?"

"..........."

Hearing Little Sakura’s answer, Fang Zheng was utterly speechless.

He finally understood what was going on.

In the original storyline, there was no one to help Little Sakura with magical training every day, and she didn’t train persistently like Nanoha. In fact, Little Sakura’s attitude towards magic was completely lackadaisical, picking it up when needed and setting it aside when not.

Learning is like rowing upstream: not to advance is to drop back. Magic is the same. The reason Little Sakura couldn’t defeat Yue in the end, and needed Kuro Reed to come all the way from the United Kingdom to tutor her, was because she didn’t have the drive in this aspect. In the original, Little Sakura was pretty much forced into it, hence she struggled greatly.

But now it’s different. Here, Little Sakura has rivals like Nanoha, Fate, Little Hei, and Illya. They’re all magical girls, and naturally, competitiveness and rivalry aren’t lacking. This can be seen in how Little Sakura secretly takes a few hours every night to train at Fang Zheng’s place.

In the original, early in the second part, Little Sakura needed half a day to recover after transforming a card, yet now she merely indicates the magic power consumption is a bit high...

This reminded Fang Zheng of a saying: it’s not scary to be a genius; what’s scary is a genius who’s more diligent than you...

"Don’t worry, this is a normal phenomenon."

Saying this, Fang Zheng patted Little Sakura on the head.

"Uh? Normal phenomenon?"

Upon hearing Fang Zheng’s response, Little Sakura tilted her head in curiosity, and Fang Zheng nodded.

"That’s right. The Clow Cards and wand you initially used were all created by Kuro Reed. Strictly speaking, they’re not really yours, and the power used when activating the Clow Cards wasn’t your own power either, but the residual magic power from Kuro Reed. Strictly speaking, your previous battles were all about ’borrowing’ Kuro Reed’s magic power for completion. But now, your power is strong enough, so you can transform Kuro Reed’s things into something that belongs to Little Sakura yourself... This is a good thing, keep it up."

"Okay, Teacher!"

Hearing this, Little Sakura immediately showed a happy smile and nodded vigorously.

And looking at Little Sakura in front of him, Fang Zheng couldn’t help but sink into thought, knowing that in the original, the budding feelings between Little Sakura and Syaoran were because several times Little Sakura was saved from crises by Syaoran, but now with Little Sakura’s increased power... would she still be saved by Syaoran?

Looks like this pair...isn’t happening?