Chapter 344: Never a Student from the Start

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A deep sleep.

Leah opened her eyes. Dazzling light streamed in from the imperfectly closed curtains, painting a golden line across her vision.

“Still… morning?”

Like every morning since she returned here, she lay in bed, looking at the sunlight outside, her first thought being what kind of dream she had. She desperately wanted to remember what she had dreamed the night before, and what she had been thinking. But she couldn’t remember anything.

It was simple… she knew she hadn’t dreamed at all. Whether it was dreams of returning to the past with him, or dreams of a future where he was still alive, she hadn’t dreamed of them…

“As expected… today is still…”

She clutched her chest, gripping her clothes tighter and tighter. Her heart was beating, blood was flowing through her veins, and her witch’s magic circuits should have been circulating throughout her body with that blood, but—

Every day she woke up, she only felt a deathly stillness in her magic circuits. Every day she woke from sleep, she felt it quieter than the day before. Leah had experienced a similar sensation before, a feeling where even Bloodmint Essence couldn’t stimulate the flow of blood…

The last time, when she saw Will’s picture in the newspaper, she remembered what Will had called this physical reaction.

Withdrawal.

A cutoff from something she had always relied on. The moment she lost it, her body felt as if its source had been severed.

But… today was particularly severe, worse than any other day. So bad that even though she was already sitting up in bed, she didn’t want to do anything. She wanted to curl back into bed, clutching her cold feet.

“It’s okay, it’s okay… just like the past few days… as long as… as long as I keep looking at what he left me…”

Leah’s right hand caressed the two rings intertwined on her ring finger. One ring was a bit wider than her ring finger, so it felt loose, which was why she always wore that ring on the outside. She quickly dressed to feel less cold, because Melyn would arrive soon—she was never late, so Leah couldn’t just wear a blanket as she used to.

Once you’ve experienced your heart “burning,” felt your magic circuits constantly surging, felt…

The feeling of being moved.

You can no longer accept a self that is dull, unresponsive, and gradually numb to everything. You will only constantly…

Leah hurriedly opened her bedroom door.

Constantly…

“Quest… quest… quest…”

She murmured, still a bit unsteady from waking up, as she staggered towards the slightly cluttered lab bench where her notes were kept.

Constantly…

Then, she looked at the mirror—not at her own unwell reflection, but staring intently at the note taped to the other side of the mirror. As if drawing enough energy, enough blood, and enough memories from it, she reached out and took the note.

Constantly trying to find the few remaining things that could rekindle her passion, reignite her soul, and wake her up again.

“…Today… what ‘quest’ were we supposed to… supposed to complete today, Will…?”

Her eyes once again filled with hearts, her voice regained its sickly yet loving tone, and a smile played on her lips. She quickly read the words on the paper—

[Quest 505: Teacher Leah attempts to assemble the wax block and wick. Considering this is work witches have never attempted before, new challenges may arise, such as secondary processing of the wax block. Refer to Quest 506.]

[Quest 506: Regarding secondary processing of the wax block, to allow it to be cut and hollowed out, does it require magic like Radiant Silence for processing? Or even stronger magic?]

Thump, thump, thump, thump.

Leah could hear her heart beating again, feeling the blood surging wildly through her veins. The words before her, calmly narrated, yet filled with the warmth of care. They were no longer “predicting the future,” but “guessing the future,” offering countless possibilities to describe the problems she was currently facing and her potential state.

Just seeing these few lines of text, Leah felt as if… she could imagine him truly being by her side, offering these suggestions, chewing on the end of a ballpoint pen, thinking together with her about solutions and answers to the problems they encountered. As if he was standing beside her, his body now much taller than hers, leaning slightly forward, unconsciously reaching over her arm to write down his thoughts on the paper when he was thinking. Then picking it up to ask her if this was the best choice.

Just by looking at the quests, this image flashed through her mind, and Leah already felt the magic circuits that had lost vitality rekindle at her fingertips.

“Yes, that’s right. We can… we can do this. Let’s… together…”

She turned around.

Of course… Will wouldn’t be in the lab. This was just a beautiful imagination for her to get her magic circuits flowing again.

Leah took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and calmed down a little. Both her tone and her eyes returned to their usual state.

“How ridiculous. In this world where he’s already… already gone, I… I’m actually using tasks left by a student to… to push myself forward.”

She seemed to understand.

Why, in the past few days, especially after completing the wax block creation task, her body had been in its best state, closest to how it used to be. And then, when moving to the next task, the wave of excitement that surged, and the magic circuits that had flowed again, would quiet down again. And why, every morning she woke up, was always when she felt the coldest and loneliest, and she needed to look at the tasks before her every day to reignite her inner self.

“Am I… am I relying on the pleasure of completing every task you left behind… to… to feel your presence, to avoid the withdrawal symptoms from before?”

—Just like she used to think about tricking Will to tie him up and inject him with witch’s blood.
—Only now, she couldn’t tie up the real person.
—So she could only move forward, step by step, with the heaviest and most profound thoughts he had left behind.

Having reached this answer, Leah found no reason to deny it.

Damn it.

Today, she had such a strong reaction again, all because Melyn yesterday… yesterday had asked her if she had ever had a student. She had been thinking about it since she lay down in bed last night. She even thought she would have a beautiful dream—but she didn’t! If… if Melyn hadn’t mentioned it, at least… at least she would have moved on from constantly fantasizing.

“As expected, these quests were written by someone who can make Leah’s magic circuits move again?”

Suddenly, the voice of the person who had caused her current state emerged from behind her. And she used a very ambiguous and strange description.

“You… why did you suddenly…”

“Yes. Because, Leah, you never lock your lab door. I noticed on my first day here. As a witch, not locking the lab is not a good habit.”

Melyn obediently pointed to the door. Leah’s lab door had never been locked from the start. After all, she lived inside, and Lis lived nearby. Even among the witches in the Coven, no one would dare offend the two of them. Of course, more importantly… when she was at school, she was always the last to leave the lab, and every time she left, no one else was there. And someone would always lock the door for her after she left, even if she forgot.

Melyn, standing in front of her, didn’t seem to have called… called her “Teacher” just now? And she hadn’t sensed Melyn entering at all. Even if she had been as “immersed” as she was in the “quests,” she absolutely shouldn’t have failed to notice the entry of a “normal student.”

“Melyn, you…”

“And is this also why your highest magic circuit energy peak… has dropped so low?”

—Unless she wasn’t a “student.”
—Unless she was never a “student” from the start.

Leah nervously placed her hand on the Staff of Ancient Flame, the metal staff clattering against the nearby cabinet.

“No need to be nervous. I was brought by Lis. You should trust your mother.”

She no longer seemed to be “acting.” Whether calling Lis’s name or Leah’s name, there was no “honorific,” just direct address.

“You… who are you?”

Leah felt she should have realized sooner. Witches’ ages couldn’t be discerned from their appearance, and it was easy for them to conceal their total magical power. But Melyn’s red hair, compared to her and her mother’s gradually reddening hair ends, should have hinted at her superior experience and strength.

So…

Her mother sent such a person to her, for what purpose…?

Melyn walked around the lab a bit, then precisely knelt down and pulled out an entire box from under a lab bench…

Of Bloodmint Essence.

More accurately, the “remaining” Bloodmint Essence.

“This stuff is great as a catalyst for our magic circuits. Though the side effects are annoying. But I noticed earlier. If you’re going to use it, why… were over ten vials used up on the same day, and then… half of it was left?”

Melyn, standing in front of Leah, spoke in the same tone as when she was “playing” the student, but her words were now analyzing Leah.

“…”

Leah bit her lip.

“Well… let’s not talk about that for now. Your problem is quite serious.”

Melyn picked up one of the raw wax blocks they had refined earlier from the lab bench. It hadn’t been processed a second time and was distorted in shape.

“To process this, as you said, let’s first try the fire magic that can process it.”

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