[Time]: 12:15 PM
[Location]: Yggdrasil Academy · Cafeteria No. 1 · 3rd Floor "The Cloud Terrace"
Hathaway shouldered her way onto the Cloud Terrace, hauling a tray that qualified as a strategic resource.
The anti-gravity runes on the heavy alchemy platter were humming, struggling to support the sheer mass of the meal.
Sitting on it was the [Char-Grilled Ash-Rock Dragon Ribeye (Juvenile · Whole Slab)], 25 Solars, and it looked less like a steak than like a shield: a three-inch-thick slab of dark, lava-infused muscle roughly the size of a car's hubcap, with a bone protruding from it thick enough to club someone unconscious.
It was drenched in a glowing, viscous orange sauce made from High-Concentration Flame Slime Gel, which bubbled where it sat and released a scorched aroma of sulfur, black pepper, and aggressive high-tier protein.
Witch metabolism ran a biological furnace that burned mana and calories at a terrifying rate, which was the only reason this counted as lunch instead of a dare.
"This... is salvation."
Hathaway took a deep breath, inhaling the spicy, mana-rich steam. She could feel her mana circuits, which had been aching from overload, cheering in anticipation.
"Once I finish this meal, I'll have the strength to go back and slave away for Victoria, begging her to teach me those damned 'If apples could fly, are they still apples?' basic logic questions!"
Instinctively she headed for the VIP area, which had the best view and the highest price tag, and when she pushed open the carved glass door a light hit her full in the face.
It was [The Glow].
In the center of the terrace, in the midday breeze of the White City, sat a young girl who looked less like a living person than like an effigy carved from the finest moonstone, radiating a cold, fragile, unattainably celestial brilliance.
Silver hair. Skin white as snow. Hathaway had seen that face on the frontispiece of every transmutation text she had failed to open: Heidi Lucent, Tenth Seat of the Grand Witches, youngest daughter of House Lucent, and the witch who personally set the Transmutation half of the A3 question bank.
At the moment she was prodding a cherry tomato around a puddle of Flame Slime Gel with a silver fork, gaze fixed somewhere past the horizon with the melancholy of a woman contemplating the ultimate truth of the universe. The tomato had not been peeled. That was the entire quarrel.
Hathaway froze. The Dragon Steak in her hand almost hit the floor.
Holy crap! The textbook just came to life!
Is this the legendary "Lord of the Glow," the "Dragon Slayer"?
Hathaway began backing out. Heidi's eyes shifted, and a look cold and clear as moonlight landed on her.
"...Ludwig?"
Heidi's voice was crisp as wind chimes made of ice, and she tilted her head with a perfectly measured trace of confusion. "Your eyes... why aren't the lights on?"
Hathaway shivered and immediately performed a standard noble curtsy (a bodily instinct, even while holding a tray):
"Lady Heidi. I am Hathaway. My eyes... underwent a slight mutation and lost their illumination function."
"Mutation? No glow?"
Heidi put down her fork.
In those cold silver eyes surfaced the pure pleasure of an art connoisseur.
"Marvelous." Heidi sighed in admiration, the corner of her mouth curling into a charming arc. "You know, at the White City's annual Winter Ball, every time I see Rhode's 150-Lumen searchlights swaying on the dance floor, I feel like my retinas are suffering an atrocity. She is simply a walking Light Pollution Source."
Heidi waved her hand elegantly, her movements lazy yet magnetic. "Come here, child. Let me take a closer look at these... eyes that understand restraint."
Hathaway felt her feet moving towards her uncontrollably.
Heidi extended a finger. The tip stopped short of Hathaway's skin, and a cool wisp of mana brushed past the corner of her eye like silk.
"Deep, introverted, like red wine aged for a thousand years..." Heidi looked at Hathaway, her appreciation undisguised. "This is what a Ludwig should look like. Someone like Rhode... can only be called an 'incompletely evolved beast'."
Hathaway blushed hard enough to feel it in her ears.
Somebody kill the ambient lighting. This woman is running a permanent beauty buff and I have zero resistance rolls left.
"Sit." Heidi pointed to the chair opposite her. "Eat with me. Eating alone is too boring; it leads to indigestion."
Hathaway sat down and put both hands flat on the table to stop the room from tilting.
Heidi tossed out a topic between bites: "I watched the replay of the entrance duel just now."
The air stayed exactly as warm as before, which somehow made it worse. Hathaway's fork stopped halfway to her mouth.
She saw it?! A Grand Witch saw the gutter tactic of throwing chili powder?!
"Psychological fraud, followed by blinding dust..." Heidi tapped the edge of her plate lightly with the silver fork. Her tone wasn't blaming; rather, it carried a hint of amusement. "This pragmatic style of 'Throwing away your face as long as you win'... I can smell that woman Lin's stench a mile away."
She lifted her eyelids, looking at Hathaway with a faint smile. "I heard you went to Lin's training ground yesterday?"
Hathaway's scalp tingled. Twelve hours. She has a Grand Witch's surveillance uptime and she is spending it on freshman gossip.
"Uh... Y-Yes," Hathaway answered honestly. "Senior Lin took me for special training yesterday."
"That explains it." Heidi let out a short chuckle. "Don't misunderstand. I'm not criticizing your dirty tactics. Witches don't need glory; victory is everything. That's fine."
She changed the subject.
"I just think... she taught you wrong." Heidi gently cut the tomato, her gaze becoming sharp. "Lin is indeed strong. Even Irene, the 5th Seat, wants to buy the patent for her 'Anti-Mana Rune Matrix.' In the fields of 'Destruction' and 'Dispelling,' she is indeed a top expert."
"But do you know why she can't pass the A3 Exam?"
Hathaway shook her head like an obedient elementary school student.
"Because she is arrogant," Heidi said elegantly, as if telling a joke. "The textbook says: 'Mana is Omnipotent.' This is an axiom. As long as your mana approaches infinity, you can indeed ignore all logic and rewrite all rules."
"But the problem is... Lin, that mana-poor pauper, only has a total mana pool of a measly 60,000 M-Units. She is strong, but she is far from 'Infinite'."
Heidi put down her knife and fork, speaking with interest.
"Last year's A3 finale question was set by Chief Ovelia herself. It was a classic logic trap concerning the [Wish Spell Conflict Paradox]."
Heidi cleared her throat and recited the nightmare: "The question posited: 'Assume two Witches simultaneously cast mutually contradictory Wish Spells. Both spells produce benign effects upon activation. One spell triggers its target's [Contingency Spell]; the other triggers its target's [Malicious Trigger Spell]. Question: What is the priority sequence and weight order of the resulting spell stack? Please explain the principle and provide six examples to prove your point.'"
Hathaway's eyes glazed over.
...Is this question for humans? My brain hurts just listening to it! Contingency? Malicious Trigger? Mutual Wish Conflict? That's a triple-nested logic loop!
"This question tests the precise calculation of rule weights under Mana Parity," Heidi sneered. "And what did that idiot Lin write?"
Heidi leaned back, imitating Lin's cool, arrogant, and domineering tone: "'My Wish Spell is absolute. It will simultaneously crush the Contingency, shatter the Malicious Trigger, and suppress the contradictory Wish. Therefore, I consider the logic of this question invalid.'"
Heidi spread her hands. "See, that's her logic. She tries to brute-force the problem with 'Absolute Power.' In most cases, she can indeed do it against weaker Witches."
"But she forgot one thing. The question setter was Ovelia."
"And then?" Hathaway leaned in.
"Then?" Heidi wiped a tear of laughter from the corner of her eye. "Then Ovelia called her to The Umbral Cathedral. She said: 'Since you think logic is unnecessary, let us have a practical drill.'"
Heidi's voice dropped to a whisper, filled with a mix of fear and awe.
"That day, Ovelia lowered her output to match Lin's exactly, a perfect mirror match."
"And the result?"
"It was a massacre," Heidi smirked. "Lin tried to use her 'Brute Force' philosophy. She poured everything into one strike. But Ovelia? She didn't use force. She used Syntax."
"She utilized the very 'Sequence and Weight Order' that Lin despised. She tweaked the priority of her spells by milliseconds. She exploited the logic gaps in Lin's Wish."
"Lin found that her 'Absolute Power' was hitting empty air. Her spells were redirected, her shields were dismantled by her own Contingencies, and her mana was drained by her own triggers. Lin walked out with her ego completely shattered."
"Not because she lost to a monster with over half a million M-Units of mana."
"But because she realized that under Equal Stats, in front of the true Apex..." Heidi took a sip of her wine, savoring the aftertaste. "...Her 'Brute Force' couldn't even lift a single brick from the ground."
Hathaway: "..."
This gossip... is hardcore. So she got smacked down by reality for trying to flex in front of the Chief...
"So," Heidi looked at Hathaway, her gaze turning serious, "don't learn her blind arrogance. Unless you think you can beat Ovelia."
She extended a finger and tapped lightly in the air.
Buzz—
A strange fluctuation enveloped the dining table. No incantation, no casting gestures, and a mana signature too faint to register.
The slice of dragon meat on Hathaway's plate began to boil, its material structure taken apart and reassembled inside a few microseconds. It stretched, deformed, grew scales and wings, and within a second had become a lifelike miniature Red Dragon.
The little Red Dragon flapped its wings, flew around Hathaway's finger, and even breathed a tiny stream of dragon fire (which was actually the spicy sauce turned into flame) into the air.
Hathaway's brain did the teardown on reflex. Ninth-tier transmutation, matter reconstruction at the atomic level with temporary life characteristics bolted on top. Cast time: none. Mana cost: whatever a Grand Witch files under rounding error.
Anything shipping with that stat line gets flagged in balance review and cut before alpha.
The little Red Dragon flew back to the plate and with a poof was a tender, juicy dragon steak again.
"See." Heidi smiled. "This is Magic. This is the art of Rewriting Reality. Lin only knows 'Unraveling'. But we..."
She pointed to herself, then to Hathaway.
"...We pursue 'Creation'. We don't need to specialize in one school because, in front of the A3 question bank that covers all knowledge systems in the universe, mastering all schools is just the basics."
Hathaway was dumbstruck.
This move was too beautiful! Is this the gold standard of [The Zenith of Transmutation]? Compared to throwing chili powder, this was a piece of art!
"Join my side." Heidi leaned back in her chair, offering a reason no student could refuse. "I can teach you how to pass A3."
Heidi blinked, revealing a sly smile. "After all, I am the question setter for the Transmutation section. And I will ensure... the questions I set are absolutely ones Lin can't answer. As long as you follow me, I guarantee you'll experience the thrill of intellectual domination."
Hathaway's heart slammed against her ribs.
Who could resist this! A High Sovereign herself, personally tutoring for The Grand Boards! But...
Hathaway's mind went straight back to the A1 Question Bank that had made her black out. And that notification: "Expulsion if A1 is not passed within a month."
A3 was the doctoral thesis. She was still stuck on the alphabet.
"Lady Heidi..." Hathaway swallowed hard, speaking with difficulty. "Your offer is too tempting. But right now... I have a more basic problem."
"Hm?" Heidi raised an eyebrow. "What problem? Can't solve the paradox in High-Dimensional Geometry? Can't build the model for Void Fluid Dynamics? It's okay, these are indeed a bit hard for freshmen."
"No..." Hathaway's face flushed red, her voice as quiet as a mosquito. "It's A1. I... I haven't passed A1 yet."
"And the Academic Office said I'll be expelled if I don't pass within a month. So right now... I'm worrying about A1."
...
......
Three full seconds of dead silence.
Heidi's hand holding the fork paused in mid-air. In her silver eyes that seemed to have insight into the truth of the universe, a trace of confusion appeared for the first time.
"A... 1?"
Heidi repeated the term the way one repeats a code word from a discipline one has somehow missed.
"You mean that... literacy test for 10-year-olds that you pass as long as you can write your name?"
Hathaway buried her head in her plate, wishing she could bury herself in the ground: "Yes. That one."
Heidi’s gaze went over her once, unhurried: the eyes, the bone structure, the whole expensive Ludwig package. Then the confusion cleared off her face.
"Heh." Heidi’s sigh came out fond. "Since you put it that way... I'll take it as you wanting to consolidate your foundations."
Hathaway ran the sentence twice before it parsed.
She’s taken "I can’t pass A1," run it against "Ludwig, 42,000 M-Units," hit a type mismatch, and patched it herself. Somewhere in there I’ve become the insufferable prodigy who calls the Nightmare of High Witches a literacy test, because to her that is the only reading where the numbers work. She thinks I’m doing a bit.
"Fine." Heidi picked up her fork again, resuming her cold, noble posture. "Since you insist on becoming a sweaty duel maniac, I can't stop you."
She elegantly cut the dragon meat that had been transformed back and put it in her mouth.
"However, the door isn't closed shut," Heidi swallowed her food and said faintly. "When the day comes that you find yourself good for nothing but fighting, or when you want to cry from the torture of those stupid exam questions... You can come find me. After all, I always have extra patience for good-looking juniors."
With that, Heidi snapped her fingers.
Snap.
A napkin with a Reading List written on it floated in front of Hathaway. Hathaway caught it quickly, looking at it with anticipation.
She thought it would be "primary school tutoring materials" for A1, like 100 Questions on Magic Basics or Mana Circuit Connection: From Beginner to Quitting.
Instead:
[REQUIRED READING LIST]
[Hyper-Dimensional Mana Constructs] · Note: Focus on Chapter 7 regarding Dimension Folding.
[Non-Linear Mana Collapse: A Conception of the Fourth Dimension] · Note: This is my paper from last year. It's written quite simply, suitable for beginners.
[Analysis of Thirty Variants of the Pan-Planar Common Tongue]
[Deadlock Analysis in Chaos Theory regarding Wish Spell Paradoxes] · Note: This is the question that broke Lin. Study it well.
Hathaway read the napkin twice, in case the first pass had been a hallucination. Every title on it was A3 mandatory reading. Especially that note: "Written quite simply, suitable for beginners"...
Lady Heidi... do you have some misunderstanding about the words "Simple" and "Beginner"?!
This is like handing a primary schooler who hasn't learned the multiplication table a copy of "General Relativity" and smilingly saying: "Take it for bedtime reading, it's pretty simple."
But she dared not say it.
Facing this heavy and completely misplaced generosity, she could only shout:
"Thank you, Lady Heidi!"
Heidi waved her hand without looking back, leaving a dashing silhouette full of "Accidental Flex" energy: "Eat quickly. Dragon meat tastes fishy when it gets cold."
Watching Heidi leave, Hathaway stuffed the entire remaining slab of dragon into her mouth and chewed like it owed her money.
As expected... relying on this kind of top-tier genius to teach me A1 is unrealistic.
It's like asking Einstein 'Why does 1+1=2?' He would definitely throw a blackboard full of formulas at you to prove that the concept of '1' does not exist in the macroscopic universe.
I still have to rely on myself. Or rather... rely on that scholar roommate downstairs who, although tsundere, is at least within the 'Scope of Human Understanding'.
Victoria! Once I finish this meal, you're dead meat! (Metaphorically speaking; I'm going to pester you to death!)