The Cornflower Witch

For the following week, Sylutia stayed at the academy along with Ya, because as Chief she needed to visit the students on campus regularly, take inventory, and learn their situations. This was also the first time in years she had the chance to see where the students lived.

Not everyone lived in the dorm apartments. After entering the third year, students had more housing options: some rented rooms off-campus, while others moved into vacant rooms left by upperclassmen. Those houses often contained private labs and facilities, making it convenient for students to practice alchemy and craft items on their own.

The Mithril Clock school excelled at crafting and enchanting items, and most students had learned at least some of those skills. If living in a dorm made it hard to have a quiet, private space for practice and experiments, that would be a shame and would hinder study and growth.

The sky was gloomy, and even inside the lab Peline could hear rain striking the glass. She stared at the liquid boiling in a beaker and carefully added the prepared ingredients. The liquid shifted from dark red to jade green, then to light brown.

No, something was wrong in this step. The color should have returned to pale red.

She went blank, staring at the failed potion, her thoughts stuck. She didn’t know exactly where she’d gone wrong.

Could it be that she really had no talent for potion-making? Peline reviewed her past. Although her theoretical scores were decent and her spell models and runes ranked her in the upper middle among her peers, her performance in potion-making had always been poor, and several times she had only barely passed.

Facing the unusable potion, Peline shook her head and prepared to pour it out. A knock on the door made her stop.

She turned off the flame, went out, and opened the door. A rush of rainwater-driven cold wind swept into the room and cleared her head. The girl standing outside removed her hood and greeted her.

“Good afternoon, Peline.”

“Ah, Lady Hedra.” Peline looked surprised at the girl. The tips of the visitor’s hair were wet from the rain, a few strands clinging to her forehead, a very different image from her usual graceful appearance.

“Sorry about this, come in.” Hedra welcomed Sylutia into the room and closed the door.

Sylutia looked curiously around the house. Compared to her residence at Black Rose Palace, this place was much smaller—only about a hundred square meters.

After sitting down, Peline poured tea for her, and the two began talking.

“It’s been raining these days, so I’ve been doing experiments inside,” Peline said.

“I don’t know when this storm will end. I originally planned to prepare three vials of Spiritual Medicine for ‘Breathing Technique,’ but now my materials are nearly depleted and I still haven’t succeeded.”

“Spiritual Medicine? I remember that’s for warriors to improve Breathing Technique. The effect for mages is weak.”

“Yes, it’s for my brother. He’s sixteen this year and just passed the Star Ash Iron Guard assessment to become a trainee knight.” Peline talked about her family.

She came from the Herlin family in the Prunex District, the count family that once ruled the area. In the past they were famed for their control of the baylands and their ranks of spearmen. After the Mage Alliance annexed the Prunex kingdom, the local nobles lost their titles and had to find other ways to survive.

Now the Herlin family had long since dispersed. Peline’s branch was a collateral line. Although they still received some family support, it was limited. If she wanted to rise, she could only rely on herself.

“I have two older brothers and one older sister. I’m fourth in the family, then comes my youngest brother.” Hearing Peline describe her family, Sylutia felt both new curiosity and a strange unfamiliarity.

In both her previous life and this one she was an only child, so it was hard for her to imagine living with so many siblings.

After hearing that, Sylutia thought for a moment and asked Peline to take her to the lab to have a look.

“Oh—right, the Chief will definitely see where the problem is.” Peline brightened and led the way to the lab where she had just failed.

Sylutia took the failed potion, gently swirled it in her hand, then applied her knowledge to analyze it.

“The procedure itself should be fine, but the initial simmering time was too long, which caused the potion’s properties to deactivate and dissipate,” she told Peline the reason.

“You followed the recipe’s time, right?”

“Yes.” Peline nodded.

“The reason I say the process was fine but the final simmering was too long is because this is the wind season, and with the storm raging now the Vaulted Sky aspect is surging. It accelerates some reactions. If the recipe calls for simmering for one minute, the effect might be achieved in twenty seconds. If you keep simmering past that, you’ll destroy the potion’s properties.” Sylutia explained the true cause of the failure.

“Ah, wind season can affect experiments that much?” Peline was astonished.

“Of course. In past Gale Seasons storms rarely reached this intensity; at most they just reduced quality. But if you keep using the old recipe now, you’ll only get failures.”

“Do you have materials left? Let me try making one.”

“Yes, wait a moment.” After Sylutia spoke, Peline went to the storage room and fetched the refrigerated herbs and other ingredients.

With the herbs in hand, Sylutia started instructing Peline meticulously, guiding her step by step through the required procedures. They brewed the intermediate mixture, then performed transformation extraction, purification, and so on, until they finally produced three vials of perfect-quality Spiritual Medicine. Under the lamp light they reflected a beautiful halo.

[Spiritual Medicine] (Third Tier · Perfect); allows those who possess the Breathing Technique ability to enhance the technique’s effect and makes breakthroughs easier. (Breathing Technique +3, Breakthrough Probability +3)

Seeing the vials before her, excitement lit Peline’s eyes. She looked at Sylutia with admiration.

“As expected of the Chief, she succeeded on the first try!” She had admired the girl since first year, and now her worship had only grown.

Pleased by the praise, Sylutia felt a little embarrassed and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear.

After learning about Peline’s situation, the girl waved goodbye, pulled up her hood again, and stepped into the rain.

After leaving Peline’s residence, Sylutia continued on to another student’s housing. Over these days she had visited nearly ten students; in a few more days she would finish visiting the rest.

The next day Sylutia went down to the dormitory building and met the students still living there. She asked about their situations. The boys were surprised by the sudden visit from the Chief and hurriedly tidied the room before letting her in.

This time Sylutia had tied her hair with a white ribbon into two long braids that fell down her back, with a few wisps tucked at her temples and resting against her chest. Her demeanor had softened, revealing a domestic and cute air instead of her usual sharpness. The boys found themselves both enchanted and nervous.

She seemed like a flawless fairy who had drifted into the mortal world; as she passed, the swaying of her hair left an almost dreamlike impression.

In fact, Sylutia never wore perfume. Her sense of smell was too sensitive and she couldn’t tolerate many fragrances. Moreover, she knew so much about perfume composition that the first thing she thought of upon smelling one was its components, not the person emitting the scent.

“It’s very clean.” Walking through the dorm rooms, Sylutia glanced around with some surprise.

“Well, actually we just cleaned it.” The boys themselves didn’t know how they had managed to clean so fast—was this the infinite potential of humanity?

After seeing their living conditions they sat in the common lounge. Sylutia took a wicker chair by the fireplace and listened to the boys talk about their current situations.

“I’m sick of being stuck at home these past days. I don’t know when we can go out again.” They complained. Although the outside situation was dire, several of them were close to Fourth Tier or had already advanced, so they weren’t overly worried.

“The Vaulted Sky aspect’s aura has surged. If someone’s Aspect is Vaulted Sky, their strength could increase by roughly thirty percent during this time. With special rituals and secret methods, it could be even stronger—close to fifty percent.” They spoke with envy.

“Too bad our Mithril Clock school doesn’t have many who practice the Vaulted Sky aspect. The fifteenth-ranked Sky-Scanning School has about half their people with Vaulted Sky.”

“Yesterday I experimented with making a Wind-Summoning Horn—a treasure that uses Vaulted Sky as its core—and I found its quality jumped one tier higher than usual. So this wind disaster isn’t all bad.” They shared their findings.

Sylutia listened and recalled what Scholar Hyde had taught her long ago when instructing her in Secret History Knowledge.

Some ancient, powerful rituals only take effect during specific wind seasons and times, likely related to the seasonal shifts in aspects.

During these days, since going out was restricted, many students would go to the library to read, and historical records and knowledge concerning Gale Seasons and wind disasters were being consulted more and more.

“Although we only need to stay at the academy for now, I heard the teachers say we’ll be deployed soon.” One student spoke mysteriously.

“This is what I overheard when I went to ask about course questions the day before yesterday. This disaster impacts a wide area, and the north is already at the point where it needs support. If it cannot be resolved in time, it may lead to an unprecedented catastrophe.”

“Did you all hear that?”

“The distant rumble of the approaching train.”