After a series of tasks with collecting Disaster Beast remains as the main storyline and communicating with Jin Ruochu as the subplot, Hibiscus's life returned to normal.
She entered a new plan.
Without long-term considerations, one must have immediate worries. Since the money problem was properly resolved, the Disaster Beast landing that felt like a thorn in her back couldn't be ignored either. She was bound together with the city—running away was useless, better to be proactive. She didn't have the idea of "eliminating Disaster Beasts to debut as a magical girl hero"—just wanted more self-protection ability.
Hibiscus quite looked forward to what the transformation experience would be like after the third awakening that netizens mentioned.
Attribute points—only basic attributes were greater than everything.
Netizens had said "only when Origin is powerful can one be truly powerful," and the system panel attributes were "detailed breakdown of Origin," so the direction of effort was training.
The girl seriously studied the magical girl fitness routine and continued to master it thoroughly, while not forgetting to frequently use techniques and magic to improve limits. Though she was always gasping for breath afterward, she indeed felt the levitation technique's manipulation quality improving and Sands of Time's pause duration extending—the more the better. Besides this, she updated her menu. Food ingredients she didn't dare buy before could now be freely prepared. Facts proved that hundreds of thousands in huge funds were quite durable for one person's cooking—completely sufficient.
The last or most important link was going to the provincial library to look up Disaster Beast-related materials, watching more news, listening to more reports, then cross-referencing with netizens.
That's right, as a modern person, Hibiscus's Disaster Beast knowledge was quite lacking—she'd always been indifferent.
When she asked about this basic information, netizens were all surprised:
【OP wouldn't be the type who doesn't know what surname Emperor Qin Shi Huang had, right? Substituting into Magical Girl of Light world background, it's simply equivalent to women in our world who are indifferent to politics and have naive cognition】
【Little Red Book called you out】
【The most feared episode】
【Sisters, if they attack, I'll be the first to surrender】
【Seriously speaking, Hyacinth, you need to catch up on a lot of knowledge. But don't worry, you understand management well or you couldn't create the Salvation Church later】
"...I'm just a student, okay? But I've taken everyone's suggestions to heart. Skills don't weigh one down. Honestly, I think when magical girl numbers explode in the future, organizations will indeed be needed. This power can't be handed to others. But thinking about it now is too early. For this I need lots of preparation, like starting now by understanding the enemy."
【I approve of OP's attitude. Ignore those jokesters. Materials suitable for the current storyline have been sent .pdf】
Hibiscus concentrated on opening the file and comparing it with the public books she'd found. Indeed the former had more information, but the latter had plenty to fill gaps. She only cared about one thing:
Vanguard Disaster Beasts.
Humans generally classified based on the overall function the enemy served, rather than intuitive "level-based classification." After all, anything slightly over 50 meters in size was difficult for humans to handle. For 80-meter, 100-meter, and even higher classes, combat power levels simply couldn't be distinguished—they couldn't beat any of them anyway, at most could drive them away. Might as well calculate by how much military force to deploy. Back to the point, so-called "vanguard type" meant reconnaissance forces sent out by major Disaster Beasts capable of causing catastrophe.
Characteristics were feline animal form with black armor all over, combining speed and defense, skilled at one-hit kills, 10-meter class size, medium intelligence.
Generally appearing alone, but one head was enough to stir up the entire city.
Disaster Beasts came from distant other worlds, favoring Planet Gaia's land while wantonly unleashing natural disasters. For example, infectious bacteria would spread very quickly through water bodies, contact, and even air. Facing "invisible killers," humans often suffered heavy losses.
Massive Disaster Beasts were actually very rare, basically could be viewed as occasionally seen earthquakes, volcanoes, etc. The rest could always be eliminated with sufficient military deployment. The real terror lay in infection.
But those weren't the focus.
Hibiscus currently just needed to pay attention to vanguards—this time's biggest opponent. Any carelessness could cost her life.
Wait.
Why specifically plan for fighting it? Just ensuring she could run away was enough. Even if it was good at speed, it couldn't keep up with time stop.
With this thought, the girl felt much less pressure. Without the premise of direct combat, assassination plans were feasible, like using techniques to manipulate explosives for long-range kiting. But one point was worth noting: the few Vanguard Disaster Beasts recorded in news footage were often building-sized—you call this 10 meters?
Searching through all library materials yielded no answers, but according to reports, humans had indeed observed Disaster Beasts creating semi-virtual, semi-real avatars far larger than their main bodies to sweep through cities.
The setting collection netizens sent answered Hibiscus's questions.
The truth was magic power release.
Disaster Beasts used magic power release similar to one of magical girls' Origin manifestation methods to construct another layer of body, both offsetting damage and expanding affected range—invincible. The reason they appeared so massive in video footage was due to this substantial energy result, which also explained why Disaster Beast appearances caused large-scale fainting and incapacitation.
In other words, magical girls could also create an outer shell? Both sides were similar in this regard.
Hibiscus seemed to touch the next stage of Origin, but unfortunately the advancement stone fragments were currently in mascot phase and couldn't be used. No need to aim too high—meaningless.
She continued studying while maintaining training. After a few days, she clearly felt her physical qualities improving. The system attribute panel indeed showed changes across the board, including magic duration evolution.
Dates gradually approached landing time.
After not opening the system page for several days, Hibiscus felt like asking about how much disaster the original storyline had, but what met her eyes were flooding messages:
【Where's the OP?】
【No reply to private messages, no response to comments—did Hyacinth return to Planet Gaia?】
【We couldn't give a specific time point earlier because Vanguard Disaster Beast attacks continue for several rounds. The original work didn't clearly give dates. You must be very careful. When Ningfeng Harbor has snow falling in summer for just a few minutes, it means disaster is imminent】
Hibiscus glanced outside the window. What had been pleasant warm breezes just now was suddenly glass covered with ice and snowflakes, crackling and visibly quickly covered with frozen frost.
She carefully touched it and even her finger stuck to the frost.
Much stronger than imagined—indeed matching records in books that early omens of Catastrophic Disaster Beasts would be accompanied by large-scale weather changes. Confirmed without doubt. So netizens were impatient just because of early blizzards? They usually had an overlooking attitude.
【Stop stop stop】
【Nothing just now was important. Go save someone quick. You can't let my wheelchair girl suffer again】
【What kind of internet performance art scene is this? Not necessary, right?】
【Just treat it as reading fanfiction】
【No going off-topic. Who understands your nicknames? @Hyacinth, immediately go find Nan Zhiyi, or she'll be attacked by Disaster Beasts and left permanently disabled. Even though she becomes a magical girl later, she often has leg problems and uses a wheelchair. Also, her family dies in this incident. Leave immediately right now, firmly guard all routes from her home to yours. In the original work, Nan Zhiyi comes to visit the dejected you. What happens in the new worldline isn't clear, but being prepared never hurts】
【Must recruit Magical Girl Dandelion. She's the strongest domain type, Salvation Church's number one Chief Steward】