Chapter 278

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Chapter 278

She lightly patted Sylas’s shoulder and walked back to her own seat, ostentatiously opening the book "Unicorn Observation Diary." She wrote on it, "Just now, I came up with a brilliant idea that forced her to look into my eyes, and it worked like a charm. In my opinion, my recent actions and thoughts have become increasingly dark, sometimes even causing my own disgust. But time is running out, and I would rather indulge myself one more time."

While eating breakfast, Sylas answered Xerath’s two questions. Xerath flipped through the paper in her hand and asked a few more follow-up questions. Sylas reluctantly answered them. Xerath quickly wrote a line on her own draft copy of the paper, saying, "I think you should explain the interpretation of the final titration of silver in more detail."

She looked up and smiled. "We’ll continue tomorrow. Are you ready?"

Under Xerath’s attack, her paper was almost completely torn apart. But even so, Xerath still had confidence in her, which puzzled her.

"Even with everything… why can you still laugh?"

"We still have a month left, enough time to patch up all the loopholes. I will teach you all their tricks, so you won’t struggle when dealing with them." She stretched out her hand to pat Sylas’s shoulder. "You’ve got me."

When she said this, she didn’t look up, and she was sure it was only the literal meaning. But Sylas couldn’t help but want more: if she had a hidden meaning, it would be great, but unfortunately she didn’t.

Xerath seemed addicted to bullying her, and later their interrogations were not only during breakfast time, but were evenly distributed throughout the day. Sometimes, when they went out for afternoon tea, they would throw a few questions at Sylas that she couldn’t handle.

Sylas was so confused that she couldn’t even remember when she wrote a certain sentence. But the old professor delightfully pulled out her copy from her bag, as if seeing Sylas embarrass herself was her greatest pleasure.

"Look into my eyes and answer, with a stern expression and sharp gaze." She even demonstrated it herself, with that contemptuous and disdainful look she usually reserved for enemies.

"Very good, excellent." She even took out a mirror and placed it next to Sylas’s face, comparing herself with Sylas. Sylas didn’t even know she had a habit of carrying a makeup mirror, strange, considering she didn’t wear makeup.

The paper was finally submitted, and during the months of waiting for a response, she had nothing to do. Xerath’s work didn’t require her help, so besides tutoring Swis, she started her witchcraft research again. Now, she had various colored rings on top of Titus’ head.

"Sylas." The old professor stood behind the bookshelf in front of her and specifically pulled out a book, calling her name through the gap.

"What’s the matter, teacher?"

"Hmm… How about going for a walk in town?"

Sylas smiled, these invitations often occur when Xerath wants to eat cake. They have to keep the cake eating a secret from Elvis, otherwise the sensitive Fire Lord might instantly lose interest and not feel like cooking.

"Okay, I’ll go downstairs and change clothes," Sylas happily ran out. If possible, she would prefer to see this as a date, like when two people in love go out together and don’thing. She couldn’t figure out how Xerath viewed their habit of going to town when they had free time. The secluded archmage never did this before.

When she walked back, she saw Xerath near the portal, flipping through a book. As she approached, Xerath put down the book and slowly smiled, extending her hand. When she confirmed that Sylas had a firm grip, she took a confident step towards the portal.

The sky was cloudy, and Withered Leaf City was still a bit cold. But spring had already arrived, and the trees along the road had turned quite green. There were even some flowers hiding among them. The warm breeze rushed through the streets. Sylas suppressed her pounding heart and couldn’t help but ask, "I’m curious, what exactly made you change your habit and start enjoying walks in the city?"

"… You probably haven’t forgotten that Miss Priest told me I should go out for walks more often."

"… Hmm, I remember. I think it’s good. You look much better."

"For now, I’ll take your words as sincere. In fact, Miss Priest told me many cases, such as most of the mages who were brought in for rescue were not late in seeking medical help, but rather their bodies were too weak to survive the critical period," Xerath explained earnestly. "So walking is beneficial for physical and mental health, to prevent someone from plotting against me next time."

It’s not easy to plot against an archmage twice.

"Do all enemies use dragon bones to get here?" Sylas couldn’t help but ask.

"I’m afraid they have no other way, but wolves should come by themselves."

"This is really difficult." Dragon bones can gather all the energy, so it’s imaginable that something was disrupted at the Elemental Gate, no wonder a sudden storm arose. The day Sylas left, it was still a sunny day. "But besides that, what can hurt you?"

Xerath shrugged. The danger of danger is that it won’t tell you when it will appear.

Sylas opened the door in front of her, letting her go in first. This time, Xerath ordered a pumpkin tart covered in crushed nuts, while Sylas only had a frosted blueberry muffin.

The archmage looked out the window, absentmindedly saying, "Would you like to take a walk by the river later?"

"Um… okay?"

Hearing Sylas’s uncertain tone, Xerath turned her head and asked, "Is there anything inconvenient?"

Sylas quickly shook her head, nothing is inconvenient, just feels unusual. Usually, their route is to go out to eat and then immediately go back, at most taking a detour to the bookstore. They rarely go to the riverside.

Unfortunately, the sky became even gloomier, rain streaks quickly appeared on the glass, Xerath pursed her lips, and a hint of unhappiness appeared in her dark gray eyes.

Sylas couldn’t help but comfortingly say, "We can still go tomorrow, I always have time, as long as you want."

Xerath pulled at the corner of her mouth, seeming uninterested, not knowing what she was thinking. She focused only on poking at the mixture of cream, flour, butter, and sugar in front of her, finally cutting a piece and offering it to Sylas’s mouth.

"I think there’s salt added to it." She said to Sylas seriously.

Sylas slowly ate the spoonful she was given, still unable to read any intentions from her eyes.

Or maybe she had no intentions at all, sharing a spoon and eating the same food had become a habit for her.

Suddenly, the glass beside them made a "thump" sound, followed by repeated "thump thump" sounds. Sylas turned her head to look and saw the glass emitting a soft blue light as Shamodial repeatedly pecked at it.

She quickly stood up and went out to catch Shamodial and bring it inside.

The bird stood on the back of the chair, pecking at Tower Rock that Sylas had left on the table. The mail tube on its leg had been emptied by Sylas. The miraculous unicorn opened the letter that was written to her. Xerath took the envelope after seeing the address and tapped the table, "It’s a defense notification."

"So soon?!"

"Yes, get ready, when does it say?"

Sylas quickly opened the letter, "Uh, three more days…"

"Oh my, if Shamodial hadn’t seen us, you would have almost been late." Although we don’t know who tampered with it, since we caught up, it doesn’t matter. The old wizard finished the remaining milk tea in his cup, patted Sylas’s shoulder, and said, "Let’s go, there are some final preparations left, and then we can wait for the results peacefully."

Huh? Shouldn’t the final battle come after that, and then we can wait peacefully?

As if knowing what she was thinking, Xerath gave a sly smile, "Victory is something that naturally happens, there’s no need to worry too much."

Xerath was right, compared to defeating Xerath herself, even repelling the Lich, or crossing half a desert, successfully defending a thesis was a very, very simple and natural thing to do. Before going on stage, Xerath took off her gold-rimmed glasses and let Sylas wear them. Sylas thought maybe it was some kind of protective charm, so she walked onto the stage with great vigor to face the "dozens of sharp-tongued old men" and spar with them.

Xerath was a little exaggerating, about half of the dozen people still had hair or normal hair color, and there were three women (though they were not young), only five of them were persistently attacking her, attacking every weakness Xerath had mentioned before. The remaining people, there was even one person who asked her during the Q&A session, "Which type of elemental spell did you mainly rely on to defeat the Lich?"

"I think it was a combination of fire elemental and earth elemental spell, magma has an indelible effect on corroding artifacts and bones. But I have to admit, it was the Light Mirror Technique that unraveled the whole battle. Thank you."

"In your acknowledgments, you specifically thanked your teacher, Elemental Archmage Xerath. I would like to ask what her main contribution was to this thesis?"

"Hello, first, my teacher gave me a notebook she wrote when she was seventeen. She recorded a lot of data, but couldn’t understand the patterns in the data. This is mentioned in the various charts. Secondly, when I suggested that a certain substance in the brass nib might be affecting the actual data, she realized that Mordant might have books on alchemy that document similar reactions. So, we went to Mordant and found the key transformation formula for this paper. This is also mentioned in the citations at the end of the text. Thirdly, sorry to say, I couldn’t complete these complex experiments on my own, so she kindly helped me a lot. Thank you for asking."

As soon as these words were spoken, there was immediate buzzing and even some screaming from the audience. It seemed like "archmage helping me" struck a chord with many people.