Chapter 180: Chapter 178: Passive Magic: Danger Sense

A few months ago, Hilia followed clues to Deep Red Town and destroyed two bases of the Deep Sea Mutual Aid Association around it.

The latter base was dealt with by Rose, who resolved the self-destruct rune at the base and took the spiritual object collecting faith, a scale of an unknown fish.

After returning to school with this scale, Rose secretly arranged a reverse tracking array, successfully pinpointing the location of Sea God Ethel, who collects faith.

Because Hilia’s strength was too low, Rose shelved plans to search for the Sea God.

Now, he feels very close to the Sea God, and after careful consideration, decides to let Hilia come and check the situation.

"From the sensed state, Ethel’s situation doesn’t look good. He might even be in a deep sleep, and although I haven’t seen his divine fragments, his condition must be quite poor."

"With Hilia’s strength, she can’t fight a god, but if the opponent is a soul body, it’s another story. If the original form is in mere sleep, there’s nothing to fear; they can just leave."

Rose possesses a passive danger sensing ability, which once saved him from many critical injuries during ambushes, allowing him to survive attacks from the Twelve Main Gods before ultimately being sealed.

Now, entering the influence zone of the Star Spirit Tree, feeling the dense magical environment around, Rose says to Hilia, "Hilia, this place is suitable for learning [Danger Sensing], feel the operation of this passive magic."

Hilia pauses for a moment, then gets excited: "Okay!"

Passive spells, as Hilia has heard, are a very peculiar branch of magic. Once mastered, they provide enduring magical effects.

However, mastering them doesn’t mean doing away with constant practice to enhance the effect of the passive spell and avoid forgetting it due to inactivity.

"The instructor in the magic class once said that the Era of Calamity led to the loss of many passive spells; few remain today, and most are locked away. Even if learned, they are hard to teach, as teaching and learning seem like different systems."

"Hmm, indeed, teaching and use are not the same." Rose nods, "For example, teaching Danger Sensing requires meeting two conditions: one, being constantly in a dangerous environment during learning, and two, within the coverage of the Star Spirit Tree or carrying its branches."

"If I hadn’t told you these two conditions, how would you teach others after learning?"

Upon hearing Rose’s example, Hilia instantly understands.

"No wonder, no wonder I couldn’t grasp what the instructor meant. Because he didn’t give straightforward examples, I didn’t know that passive spells needed specific conditions for learning. Why didn’t the instructor just say so?"

"There are two possibilities: either the instructor used professional jargon during class and made simple things complex, or perhaps the instructor himself wasn’t aware of these requirements, thus his description was ambiguous."

"I see, does Lord Rose have other passives?"

"Don’t aim too high, focus on sensing the magic circuit of Danger Sensing."

"Got it!"

Direct spiritual transmission, fortified by godly power, saves the memory process, directly commencing the attempt to learn by channeling magic power.

"Danger Sensing requires synergy between magic power and spiritual power. Apart from the two conditions I mentioned earlier, proficient Mage’s Hand is another non-essential but significant criterion; your proficiency in Mage’s Hand is enough to learn it."

Hilia senses meticulously, suddenly, a crisis emanates from the rear right, she swiftly turns and points, and the magic puppet immediately chops down with an Ice Blade Impact.

The sneaky demon is instantly split in half, spraying blood.

"Is this what Danger Sensing is?" Hilia’s face radiates excitement: "Feels more practical than the innate sensing of mages."

"Danger Sensing allows you to perceive dangers and quickly figure out how to deal with them, with effects enhancing through proficiency." Rose says calmly: "While mage’s innate sensing can only be used in non-combat states."

"What do you mean by non-combat state?"

"It’s when not engaged in battle, and at the start of combat, the sudden sensation of being attacked, it only works then. After defending this sneak attack, it rarely remains useful and can’t quickly pinpoint weaknesses or offer solutions."

"Oh."

Hilia appears somewhat confused.

While proceeding forward, she continues learning the passive spell.

Just as Rose said, this place is highly suitable for learning this spell.

Hilia encounters demon attacks practically every few steps.

Initially, she would kill them all in one go.

However, after a lot of killing, she feels uneasy, as these are demons not adversely affected by pollution, or more precisely, magical beasts—excessive slaughter might disrupt the magical ecology.

Especially since these demons are low-tier, she already gains little from them, better leave them for mages adventuring later.

As a "reward" for assisting her in learning [Danger Sensing], Hilia resolves not to kill them, instead freezing them so they remain idle until the magic dissipates and thaws them.

She keeps moving forward until sensing changes in the pollution levels around.

"You have entered a Tier Two area." Rose’s voice reaches Hilia’s ears.

Hilia looks ahead, trees appear even taller.

Even the weeds and vines growing on the ground seem as thick as her arm, directly hindering her movement.

Hilia looks up to the sky, and from here, she can already see the gleam of the Star Spirit Tree over the clouds.

These branches appear to emit golden light, substituting for sunlight and illuminating all the trees below, allowing them to grow more robustly than outside.

"It’s so hard to travel here, I feel like flying, but the magic seems just a bit inadequate."

"Don’t fly, be sensible." Rose says placidly.

Curious, Hilia asks: "I know flying in polluted areas is dangerous, but can Lord Rose explain the risks of flying here in the Star Spirit Forbidden Land?"

Rose points in a direction: "Over there, roughly a kilometer on the tree tops, is a Tier Four bird. If you fly above the canopy, it will immediately target you to feed its offspring."

Hilia asks further: "What about flying below the canopy?"

"Among the canopies here, many flight demons are concealed, do you have aerial combat ability?"

Hilia shakes her head, "No."

Although she can use magic while flying, it’d be clumsy to aim and even dodge attacks is far trickier in the air than on the ground. She hasn’t seriously studied aerial combat spells, nor does the magic puppet have flight capability.

"Before Tier Four, no need to specially learn aerial combat because you lack prolonged flight ability, relying on a flying device to fly. Once the flying device is destroyed, it’s you who face danger."

Hilia nods vigorously.

At this moment, a strong sense of crisis emerges from above.