Chapter 238

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Chapter 238

Finding treasures in Xerath’s notes was not the first time. About the "non-classical" constants in the scroll, seventeen-year-old Xerath had various strange speculations. Her notes seemed to have been transcribed once, with very few corrections, each part neatly listed, showing great organization.

The first part is some experimental data, the second part is categorized analysis, the third part is various speculations. One of them is "advanced mages can easily infuse magic into the scroll, but apprentices are not as skilled, resulting in differences in quality between the scrolls they create and the ideal values." Another one is "the freshness of parchment affects the loss of magic", but it is noted afterwards that "I don’t know how to quantify freshness."

She’s really adorable. Sylas held the notebook and walked to a quiet corner of the library, so she could freely giggle without holding back. If Xerath was only seventeen, she wouldn’t need to restrain herself like this, she would surely go and pursue immediately. The little fairy who had received love letters from a quarter of the entire school suddenly found confidence in her own charm.

They might become great friends, like chatting about scroll-related issues. Based on the data analysis, almost every scroll has different actual values, but Xerath managed to find a pattern among them. She marked the sources of some scrolls, some from Emerson himself, some from her senior brothers and sisters, some were hers, and some were acquired from classmates.

The last entry on the list says "budget used up."

Sylas really wanted to lend her money, so she could have an excuse to have two meals together when she repays. These were tricks Luna taught her, but she never had the opportunity to use them. The teacher probably wouldn’t fall for it, but what about seventeen-year-old her?

Will she open her heart because someone is willing to lend her money?

Thinking about this, she felt her own idea was funny. Use Xerath’s own money to lend it to herself?

She laughed at her naive and foolish thoughts, leaning on the window sill with one hand, looking at her own smiling face in the mirror.

Will she think I’m beautiful? Will they call me a little fairy with everyone else? Or will they still think of me as a beast?

"Sylas？Sylas？"

Suddenly, her shoulder was touched by someone, but she was still lost in her imagination. When she turned her head, she almost believed she would really see the seventeen-year-old Xerath.

So the gentle and sweet smile still lingered on her face, catching the unprepared archmage.

She didn’t mistake Sylas for a teenage girl in love: leaning on the window sill, propping her cheek with one hand, looking up diagonally, a smile on her lips, lost in her thoughts, occasionally giggling, flipping through the book in her hand, probably not paying attention at all.

The smile that hadn’t yet faded from Sylas’s face was beautiful, but definitely not meant for her.

"Teacher?" The young girl’s face showed a hint of panic, feeling like she had definitely done something wrong. Obviously, her guess was right, Sylas was daydreaming.

Xerath couldn’t be in a good mood because of this, but she didn’t want to show her jealousy. With a blank expression, she asked, "I finished everything for this morning. If you need anything, come find me in the living room, alright?"

"Huh? Huh? Oh… alright." Sylas snapped out of her initial guilt and felt pleasantly surprised that Xerath had come to explain her whereabouts. But it also meant that they couldn’t be in the same room anymore. So, she grabbed her notebook and followed.

Xerath had already walked a distance when she felt her arm being grabbed. She discreetly pulled away and asked, "Hmm?"

"I, I’ll go with you too," she added, trying to not sound abrupt. "Just in case there are any new problems."

But the so-called "leaving early" was just an excuse for Xerath to go away. It wouldn’t be good to keep staring at her. The annoying little thing came over herself, but it also slightly warmed the old mage’s gloomy mood.

After arriving in the living room, both of them privately felt a sense of boredom. Sylas’s plan was to wait until Xerath settled down to do something and then adapt accordingly. However, the Archmage just stood in the center of the room, slowly looking around, until a lazy Titus approached.

The Archmage crouched down and patted the top of Titus’ cushion, saying softly, "Good dog, come here."

Finally, she chose a spot — her designated seat, the recliner in front of the floor-to-ceiling window. She took off her shoes and socks, revealing her fair feet, and stepped on Titus’ back. The tendons on the top of her feet appeared and disappeared with her movements. A book floated in front of her, but she didn’t turn a page for a long time.

Sylas sat down on the sofa next to her, leaning half of her body against the armrest, with the book in front of her.

She probably didn’t know that the archmage was still thinking about her, thinking that this book was boring and not worth her interest.

Naturally, the young girl in love might have suddenly fallen in love with someone that Xerath didn’t know.

This made her uneasy, but in theory, she shouldn’t have any extra actions because of this. Just as she had planned, Sylas should be free.

However, ugly things exist because they are a part of human nature. At this moment, this ugliness broke free from her and blurted out, "Sylas, since you chose to focus on writing your paper, stop thinking about anything else. You should be focused on your work."

"I… will."

Even a deaf person could hear Sylas’s hesitation. Naturally, the old mage believed that she was actually thinking about "something else," other girls or boys, anything but her… notes, the work she was assigning, or what she wished for her to do.

This didn’thing to alleviate the jealousy in her heart. It even seemed to have the opposite effect.

The helpless old mage left with a bit of anger. She could feel that her state of mind was off, but what could she do about it? She had no other way, no other excuse. She was even a bit ashamed to face Sylas.

Next to Sylas, all the pink bubbles were burst by the forty-year-old archmage. The seventeen-year-old phantom was nowhere to be found. Sylas had to see this as a separation and temporarily set aside this opportunity to talk about love and romance with the phantom, and come back to reality.

According to the data left by Xerath, she found a way to repeat the experiment and collected many scrolls written by different people, including her former classmates, Xerath herself, and some she bought from shops in Withered Leaf City.

If possible, she marked all the names. Her experimental and measurement results were similar to those measured by Xerath in the past. Some higher-level mages, like Xerath, Eilan, Vice Principal Karrom, and quite frankly, herself, were almost flawlessly perfect, with hardly any difference from theoretical intensity value. On the other hand, the results for others always had discrepancies. The more scrolls were burned, the closer the median value of the calculated differences approached the non-classical constant.

Xerath wrote down her doubts in her notebook, and Sylas had the same doubts. Sometimes when she came back from the laboratory and saw Xerath’s quiet silhouette, questions would arise in her mind: Does she still remember her doubts back then? She has so many things to remember and deal with every day…

However, the library was so quiet that one couldn’t bear to disturb it. Xerath seemed unaware of her presence, still focused on writing her stuff. Sylas quietly approached the shelves, found a place to sit down, and couldn’t help but write down her answers to the questions Xerath had asked before.

Will she be happy? Will she be happy to find the answers or would she feel her authority being violated? Sylas leaned towards the first answer. Xerath used to be someone like that, unafraid of challenges and unconcerned about reputation, as long as there was logic and evidence.

But Sylas still worried about the matter of witchcraft. She felt that each of her opinions made perfect sense, yet they were banned without any counter-arguments, which made it impossible for her to accept.

The archmage was very sensitive about her apprentice. Whenever she drifted off halfway, Xerath would suddenly appear and ask coldly, "Sylas, is there something you want to show me?"

Sylas hesitantly replied, "Nothing in a systematic way," and Xerath stopped probing further, merely saying coldly, "Then you must hurry."

Then, quietly and silently, she left, as if she had put cotton pads on the soles of all shoes! Usually, Sylas would feel disappointed. In her imagination, the seventeen-year-old girl magician would be discussing the problem they were researching with her, laughing and talking. But in reality, the archmage always appeared coldly and interrupted their meeting without any warmth.

Where did her girlish charm go? Why is she so angry? Did she figure out what I was thinking and, for some unknown reason, couldn’t say it directly, so she chose this roundabout way?

Thinking this way, she found it more exciting instead. Dating the seventeen-year-old Xerath from her imagination was much less guilty than imagining being involved with the archmage himself. It also came with a pleasure of rebelling against authority.

But when she’s angry, Xerath herself also regrets it in places where Sylas can’t see. On one hand, she repeatedly reminds herself of the legitimacy of this behavior – it’s completely normal and even a teacher’s duty to supervise and encourage students’ progress. But on the other hand, she knows very well its despicable motive – she just doesn’t want to see Sylas yearning for someone else. Suddenly appearing when she’s wearing a sweet smile on her face, abruptly interrupting her and seeing her expression of disappointment, all give Xerath a false sense of security.

Okay, she won’t think about others anymore.

The archmage’s clumsy interpersonal skills are doomed to not get the results she wants. After a few attempts, Sylas basically refused to communicate with her. What difference does it make if the progress falls behind? It all depends on self-discipline. She has never punished Sylas, in fact, Aimekotes has no means of punishment because Sylas has always been a very self-aware person.