Chapter 271

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Chapter 271

Just now, Sylas doubted if she was just upset that Xerath didn’t bring her out to play and led her to Mordant on a whim. But now she feels that Xerath came here in person to confirm this special memory.

Xerath reached out her fair hand towards the nearby curtain, which had accumulated a thick layer of dust. Sylas couldn’t help but reach out and ask, "Would you like me to close the curtain? I can do it."

Xerath gently let Sylas press her hand down, but skillfully broke free and slowly walked forward to the next window, still maintaining the same posture leaning against the window. With one hand supporting her chin, she looked at the garden outside the window, then looked up at the sky, and finally turned her head to look at the bookshelf.

Sylas felt that her gaze suddenly became sharp. The archmage raised her hand and a book obediently fell down, bringing along a cloud of dust.

This book couldn’t even fly and fell straight into Xerath’s hands. The archmage opened the book, the pages of which had turned deep yellow due to improper preservation, and smiled, saying, "This is it, you can take a look first."

Sylas eagerly flipped it open, but only saw a bunch of symbols that looked like celestial writings, causing her emerald eyes to widen in astonishment. She looked at Xerath with a frightened expression and asked, "What… what kind of book is this?"

"It’s a book on alchemy. They have their own set of peculiar symbols, all written in the appendix. Or do you plan to copy it and read it later?"

Sylas struggled to think and said, "I think… I can copy it here during the day and bring back what I have copied to read at night."

Xerath nodded without saying anything and said, "Let’s start."

"Start…?" She looked at Xerath in confusion, and Xerath smiled and said, "Isn’t it time to start copying? Let’s get to work."

The archmage brought out a small suitcase that had been placed in the corner. Inside were tools they had bought from Withered Leaf City – several types of needles, different threads, various rulers, and a blade that looked like a torture instrument. But Xerath only took out a pen, ruler, and charcoal pencil, handing a set to Sylas and saying, "Let’s prepare to start. Is this your first time making a handwritten book?"

"Huh? I’ve copied B Truce’s exercise books before."

"That was just copying onto notebooks, right? Making a real handwritten book requires some knowledge of binding, so you need to pay extra attention to the page numbers while copying."

She had Sylas sit across from her and both of them leaned over the table, putting their heads close together. The archmage took about a hundred pages and folded them directly in half, saying, "If you fold a hundred pages in half, can you still see such neat faces?"

Sylas shook her head. Obviously, that wouldn’t work because the paper itself had thickness. The middle parts would protrude while the edges would recede.

"You probably noticed before," she slightly opened the spine of this little book, revealing the inside, "the spine of a book is not made of flat pages, but a ‘bundle’ folded and tied together with several pages. The books in my library are well-preserved, but maybe you’ve seen in a library that some books have completely fallen apart. The parts that are most prone to damage are the glued pages on the outside of the spine. If the quality of the glue is poor, it naturally deteriorates. Of course, the library staff will repair it, so you might not have had a chance to see that."

"So we…?"

Xerath smiled and said, "Yes, we will make a handwritten copy this way, count its pages, separate the paper, and then we will start working."

Sylas obediently separated the paper that Xerath bought into "bundles," and then she asked with her eyes. Xerath generously replied, "What are you looking at me for? You should mark them with page numbers using a fine charcoal pencil."

A fine charcoal pencil is used for drawing lines. Sylas thought that if they were going to start copying, they would need to draw grids on all the pages, but Xerath told her to mark the page numbers first. She wrote the page numbers at the bottom of each page, and then Xerath opened the main text, took out the fifth page, and said, "Take this page. Alright, let’s begin. Come sit beside me."

"Me, us?!"

Xerath reached out and held her hand, leading her to come over. Sylas walked around the table and sat next to Xerath, still unable to believe it, asking, "Are you going to copy too?"

"Of course, am I just sitting around doing nothing? There’s nothing interesting to read here, and I get bored too."

Sylas certainly knew this, but they had always been very far apart during work time. It can be said that they have always been very far apart, because even when they relax in the living room, they don’t snuggle up together. She and her classmates are much closer than she and Xerath.

But now, Xerath suddenly said she could sit beside her, maybe for as long as eight hours or more, and Sylas couldn’t help but suspect she was dreaming.

At this moment, she asked a very silly question, "Shouldn’t I draw the grids first?"

Xerath had to say, "Okay, let’s play tic-tac-toe."

The ruler was very long, and they had to move further apart. They couldn’t even make eye contact. Sylas lacked the courage to sneak a peek, but after saving up for a long time, she finally managed to take a quick look. However, Xerath accidentally bumped her, and she quickly turned away.

It took a little bit of time to play tic-tac-toe with so many pages in the book, but four hands made the task faster than two. Yes, even water lords can handle this simple task. Sylas happily sat next to Xerath as she had hoped.

Thank goodness, this budgeted library had benches. Both of them had to sit on the same bench.

Each book had two sides, and in order to transcribe them simultaneously, they had to sit very close. When Xerath stretched her arm, she noticed that Sylas’s expression seemed a bit strange. She was staring at Xerath’s arm.

"What’s wrong? Am I in your way?" Xerath asked.

"A bit." Sylas couldn’t put her hand on the table anymore. She used to sit alone at a separate desk and never had someone obstructing her like this before.

Xerath furrowed her brow and asked, "Haven’t you sat this close to someone before? I remember in pre-school we had those small desks, right?"

Sylas turned her head and looked at her, "No, my desk partner was left-handed."

"Huh? You didn’t tell me?"

"I thought it was too ordinary, so I didn’t say anything."

"Then you sit on the left, starting from the first page, and I’ll start from the second page. How about that?"

"Not good," thought Sylas, as she sat down and felt even more uncomfortable. Xerath didn’t need to hold the paper with her hands, but her hands had to be somewhere, so she placed them in the gap between the two of them.

Sylas immediately felt uneasy again. Her bottom accidentally touched Xerath’s hand, and she didn’t know if it was inappropriate or if she should move a little to the side. But when she glanced at Xerath, she noticed that the old wizard was writing very attentively. Even though Sylas’s arm was almost brushing against her, Xerath still maintained an upright posture.

Xerath was writing very fast. By the time Sylas had just completed one-third of her writing, Xerath had already completed two-thirds. But at the same time, she wrote beautifully, so Sylas quickly focused and caught up. After a little while, she felt Xerath stop and tilt her head to look at what she was writing.

This made her quite uncomfortable because Xerath rarely looked at her while she was writing.

She became more and more nervous and wrote slower. When she looked up, Xerath smiled and said, "Just write clearly, there’s no need for fancy fonts like this. Don’t you think cursive handwriting is not suitable for reading?"

"Th-think…"

"Then write quickly."

Sylas hurriedly lowered her head and wrote vigorously, but Xerath still leaned over and looked at her. Due to their sitting positions, she felt like she was being half embraced by Xerath.

Although she couldn’t see it, she could feel the warmth seeping through her thin clothes, which was very different from the cool indoor temperature. The rhythmic breathing slowly permeated her ears, making her feel a slight itchiness, but not the uncomfortable kind. She wanted to lean in closer and have Xerath get even closer.

"I like your handwriting."

"Huh? Huh?" A short sentence startled her little apprentice. Xerath innocently looked at Sylas, who had turned around in surprise, and asked, "Did I interrupt you?"

Sylas quickly shook her head, "I just didn’t expect it."

Xerath picked up her own piece of paper and placed it a little further away, saying, "You clearly learned to write from looking at my handwriting, so why is there a difference in the end?"

She probably didn’t expect an answer to this question. Sylas casually replied, "Maybe it’s related to personality, your personality is too serious."

"And what about you?"

Sylas thought for a moment and said, " ‘随意’?"

Xerath shook her head with a smile and said, " ‘随意’ doesn’t capture your characteristics properly. ‘野性’ is more fitting."

Sylas finished writing this page seriously and let out a big sigh of relief. She turned to the second page and took a new piece of paper. Xerath also placed a new piece of paper in front of her and started writing at the same time.

"野性…" Sylas whispered, her attention still focused on her nose. "What exactly does it describe?"

"Hmm…" It’s not easy to correct mistakes in a handwritten book. You have to scrape off a layer of paper with a knife. Xerath was focused and held her breath. After writing a few words, she slowly replied, "Even if it’s an outlandish idea, you would quickly implement it. Even if it may result in injuries, it doesn’t stop you. And often because of your wildness, you have remarkable strength, which ultimately supports your audaciousness…" She placed a period, then turned around and smiled at Sylas. "Isn’t that right?"

Sylas shyly smiled and said, "Don’t make fun of me."

Xerath also smiled and said, "I’m praising you. I think it’s great. It’s the trait I admire the most in you…" Her voice gradually faded as she neared the end of this page. She needed to be extra attentive at the end. After finishing, she let out a sigh of relief. Then, she continued the unfinished sentence from earlier, "From the moment I first saw you."

She said it very casually, like a soft murmur. Sylas, as the only listener, struggled to keep her hand holding the pen from trembling.