Chapter 440: The Radicals and Conservatives of the Witch Academy
“Oh? Principal Mei Linde~ What a coincidence to run into you here?”
At this moment, Deina, who had been driven out of the plantation by Ah Fula and had nothing to do, encountered a familiar figure just a few steps outside the plantation.
“Not really a coincidence; I specifically came over to get an understanding of the situation,” Principal Mei Linde said without any intention of hiding her purpose.
“Eh? Even for such a small matter, the headmaster comes all the way here? Oh, it’s the Clones, so that’s not surprising. Is Principal Mei so concerned about Xiao Han?” Deina looked at Mei Linde with a confused expression and then continued, “Since it’s to understand the situation, why not have a chat at my Cat Café? Or you can also come to my consultation room~”
“Let’s go to the Cat Café,” Principal Mei Linde responded without hesitation.
Soon, the two witches appeared in one of the most special cat houses within the Witch Cat Café.
“Make yourself comfortable. Would you like me to get you a cup of coffee?”
“A cup of black tea, please.”
“You’re picky, aren’t you? Fine, fine, who told you to be the headmaster? You’ve worked so hard; since you want to take care of this trivial matter personally, let me have you try my skills.”
“Thanks, I was just saying it casually. I didn’t expect you to actually have it.”
“Of course, the Cat Café has everything, do I need to say that? But I have to ask, Principal Mei, what exactly are you here for? Is it about Xiao Han, Fool Dream, or the Fool Dream Drink? None of these should be a big deal for you, right?”
Moreover, Deina was very clear about the relationship between Principal Mei Linde and Fool Dream; or rather, these Fool Dreams originally belonged to this headmaster. In the Witch Academy, most extraordinary witches knew what this headmaster was doing before, and the only puzzling part was why she was handing it all over to a student.
But confusion aside, witches indeed didn’t necessarily need a reason for their actions. Sometimes, a witch could make life-altering decisions simply with a “I feel like it,” which was no joke—especially when it came to a Great Spellbook and a creature race that could potentially give birth to primordial life.
“I was just a bit surprised when Xiao Han learned the Fool Dream Drink blending technique and those fruit seeds from Fool Dream behind my back.”
“You didn’t know? Oh… wait, were you originally trying to set a trap for Xiao Han? Fool Dream Drink already has traces of potion formulation in it, were you the one helping Fool Dream? Or did you facilitate it?”
“Don’t think so badly of me. I only taught her a little bit about potion refining; I didn’t intervene too much. Besides… why would I set a trap for Xiao Han? I was just calculating that without a specific ceremony, Fool Dream would probably have difficulty suppressing the nature of Dream Creatures, separating them from reality.”
“Oh, I get it, casual chess moves, right? But it seems you’re out of luck. Xiao Han really learns everything; she’s learning the Fool Dream Drink formulation, and maybe even has a hoarding habit, collecting seeds.”
“Yeah,” Mei Linde said as she pressed on her temple.
“So, what do you want Xiao Han to do?”
“Am I being that obvious?”
“Don’t forget I’m a master in psychology!”
“A half-baked master? Save your self-taught micro-expression analysis for someone else.”
“Fine~ It looks like Xiao Han’s matters are not the main issue, so what’s bothering you? Why the long face?”
“That guy Beif has given me a tricky problem that affects the entire Main World, asking me to persuade other academies to cooperate,” Mei Linde replied.
Just thinking about that guy wanting to connect the players from that game world to the Main World gave her a headache.
Perhaps it was revenge against her since she had previously located the small world through Xiao Han but hadn’t given him a heads-up…
Look at those players from that small world; even though she had never visited that world, it didn’t mean she didn’t have an idea of it all. Xiao Han had described it to her. However, this wasn’t the main problem; what truly bothered her was the subsequent plan proposal.
In the current Main World, extraordinary powers and ordinary people were completely divided, existing in a mutually exclusive manner, at least on the surface. But the dominant force was still the Extraordinary Academies.
Beif Alanna’s intention was quite clear; she wanted to break this boundary and bring the extraordinary into the public eye.
If it were agreed that this was impossible from the start, the merging of the small world and the Main World would inevitably result in extraordinary phenomena affecting the entire world. Given this as a starting point, should those players come to stir things up afterward, there would be nothing unacceptable about it.
This approach aligned with some of the radicals’ ideologies, particularly that of the Witch Academy, which believed that the Main World had enjoyed peace for too long and needed a catastrophe affecting the entire globe to carry out a selective culling.
However, Beif Alanna was a conservative in the Witch Academy, believing that these radicals were still too cautious. The script had already started, and once it was completed, the concept of souls would be implanted into the Main World’s long river of earth veins, allowing new soul life to replace the old soul material lives.
Furthermore, the policy in the Main World promoting childbirth had led to a massive population boom. A cleansing was needed to cycle soul material.
However, merely relying on the Main World’s soul material was far from enough; the soul material cycle of the Main World needed to be supplemented by something. A small world wouldn’t suffice; that game world, which liked to plunder soul material from other worlds, was quite suitable.
A large amount of soul material supplementation would provide the Main World with more foundation to revive the scorched earth of the ruined Main World—after all, population is the foundation of a world.
Once everything returned to peace, new life would emerge from within the d*ath of the Main World.
Population would also experience a turnover, and the world would be rebuilt once again. This wasn’t just forward progress for the Main World, but a once-in-a-history natural disaster from outside the world.
Moreover, as the Main World was rebuilt, this situation might attract more extraordinary races to join and collaborate, allowing the Main World to develop to higher levels.
Witches would not be content with the status quo of the Main World, and that was the real problem.
Besides, all of this was just a prediction and had yet to be implemented.
Not to mention whether other academies would cooperate; even if they were to cooperate, there would be numerous challenges along the way.
And couldn’t other academies see the intent behind the Witch Academy’s actions?
Naturally, they could see it. The Witch Academy dared to do this because the witches were confident they could expand the Main World pie. They could also get a bigger slice, but the other three extraordinary races did not share such confidence.
Rather than taking risks, it was better to keep what one had.
This was just a choice between immediate interests and long-term benefits. If this idea needed to be implemented and aimed to gain cooperation from other extraordinary academies, the Witch Academy also had to safeguard the interests of others.
Of course, many witches in the Witch Academy actually supported indifference, believing that those who stagnated would eventually be eliminated.
But witches are witches, and the Witch Academy is the Witch Academy. While many witches might express their attitudes through casual chat, collectively, it would still be based on interests and convenience, otherwise, it would be chaos.
But witches were not afraid of chaos; this point needed to be clarified because it was a necessary threat.
“What what?” Although many witches in the Witch Academy were aware of these matters, Deina certainly was not one of them.
Thus, after Mei Linde briefly explained, Deina was instantly shocked!
“So, how do you plan to choose?”
“Of course we go for it! Mei, what about you? You can’t back down, right?” Deina was so excited that she didn’t even use the title of headmaster, but Mei Linde didn’t mind.
“I naturally want to do it, but you need to understand that this is my responsibility, and it’s the most troublesome thing. If it were any other witch doing this, I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment.”
“Then it’s on you~ our university headmaster!” But Deina quickly reacted, “Wait, Principal Mei, how is this related to your visit? You can’t be asking Xiao Han to help you do something, right?”
“I indeed need Xiao Han to cooperate.”
“Wait, Xiao Han can participate in such matters now?” Deina said in shock.
“Anyone can participate; it’s only about whether they are suitable or not. Xiao Han is not yet an extraordinary witch, and having severed the Earth Vein Shackles, she is positioned as a very convenient backup for locating that game world.”
“Wait! Locating? Xiao Han? Are you sure?”
“Xiao Han has the Reverse Summoning Spell; this time, she located the void position of that small world faster than Beif Alanna’s team did. Didn’t she tell you about this?”
“Huh?”
“It seems she didn’t mention it. I thought she would tell you. I originally wanted to leverage this chance to help Fool Dream a bit and have her cooperate, as a sort of insurance. But now it seems like that plan is falling through.”
“So you already knew that such a thing would happen with Fool Dream, huh? You owe me a pot of precious potion! I invested part of my savings into it! Do you understand! If I had known this was your doing, would I need to waste my time like this?” After hearing the explanation, Deina was immediately distressed. She truly wanted to grab the other person’s collar and question them, but given the other’s position as headmaster, she just cursed verbally.
“But didn’t you already get a bunch of cute catgirls from Fool Dream? I remember you once asked me to use metamorphosis to nurture little catgirls for you, and I just helped you fulfill that.” Principal Mei Linde said in a flat tone.
“This! This doesn’t count! They’re Xiao Han’s!”
“Oh? Now they’re Xiao Han’s? I see you’re quite proactive about bringing them to the Cat Café.”
“You…” It was clear that Deina was quite frustrated, originally thinking about bargaining for some benefits, but now she had thrown herself into the mix. How infuriating! Did being headmaster make Mei Linde so special?
“Hmph! Witches playing with these things have dirty hearts. Is this because Xiao Han couldn’t get what she wanted, so you’re using me as an underling?”
“Who said that? I’m here just as insurance to ensure everything goes smoothly. If I confronted Xiao Han directly, would she agree? I would bet she would.”
“Be careful, or I might stir up trouble next to Xiao Han and fan the flames.”
“That’s up to you, but I’m definitely using you as my laborer. You’re so eloquent; come with me to persuade those academies.”
“Wait! Wait! I promised Xiao Han I would deliver the items tomorrow!”
“Don’t worry; I’m not leaving until the day after tomorrow. You can’t expect to deliver fruit in just a day or two, right?”
“You… you! Ahhhh…”
……
At this moment, Deina once again arrived at Fool Dream’s residence.
As before, these Fool Dreams had not been bullied; on the contrary, other strange creatures nearby seemed to keep their distance from this place, likely having been educated.
But no matter what, as long as they didn’t bully Fool Dream, that was good.
The remaining Fool Dream Drinks that I handed over to that Fool Dream had helped some of them recover, but their mental states did seem a bit off.
As expected, it was still because the Fool Dream Drink was just too little; even just one sip didn’t yield very obvious effects.
But I had no other way and could only temporarily stay here with them. I didn’t mind spending some time accompanying them through this most difficult phase.
After all, I hadn’t accompanied them in a while, so I seized this opportunity to get closer.
Alongside that, I wanted to add some new items to their living space.
As for the remaining time, I was studying the insight obtained from the Fool Dream Drink.
I was also curious about the runes that insight had transformed into.
In my view, this rune had some resemblance to the one I comprehended in the small world concerning the Knowledge Tree.
It looked more like a key, but I hadn’t found the door it could open.
It couldn’t possibly be some kind of derivative of the Grand Wisdom Enlightenment Spell that wasn’t completed, right?
But why did it appear in the Fool Dream Drink?
Perhaps… I could try using it for something, like… making it into a spell just like the rune I previously obtained from the Tear of the Wild Plant?
Although it might not necessarily be effective, at least it was a try. However, this faced a problem: I was currently under the influence of a major weakening spell, and I couldn’t experiment in the Witch Academy as freely as I could in the small world.
“Sister Xiao Han, what are you doing?” At this moment, a Fool Dream was attracted by movement in front of me and approached me.
“I’m researching something related to the Fool Dream Drink.” I looked up at this Fool Dream and momentarily set aside what I was doing, “There’s still time. How about I teach you all how to concoct the Fool Dream Drink now?”
“Really? Yay!”
“Yay!”
Hearing my words, a group of Fool Dreams immediately cheered with excitement.
But soon, one of the Fool Dreams realized something.
“Sister Xiao Han, did the raw materials for making the Fool Dream Drink arrive?”
“Yeah, didn’t Sister Deina say that the materials for making the Fool Dream Drink were insufficient?”
“It’s just for learning. Sister Deina has already told me that the materials will arrive at the latest tomorrow. When the time comes, it won’t just be me mixing it alone; you’ll learn ahead of time, and then we can all help together~” I explained.
“Okay! We’ll all help!”
With my encouragement, the Fool Dreams became eager to assist, but some of the ones not feeling so well I had to let rest first because there’s no need to rush in learning this skill.
Once the first batch has learned, then I can let them teach each other afterward.
For the first batch of teaching, I planned to use the subconscious clones of the Knowledge Tree since there were so many Fool Dreams, and I couldn’t handle them all by myself.
As for how to teach without actual materials… that would naturally be handled through the Knowledge Tree.
The power of the Knowledge Tree exceeded what its literal meaning suggested.
The branches branching out also represent my memories, and I could extract them to project memories. These were all basic operations, but this ability relied on the abilities of the Illusionary Clones; to be precise, this projection was actually a type of illusion effect.
With this capability, I could directly use illusions for practice.
Of course, this ability could not be used to delve into unknown skills. The reason I could teach them how to concoct the Fool Dream Drink with this method was that I had a clear understanding of the Fool Dream Drink.
Beyond my understanding, there was no practical reference; all the changes stemming from illusion’s creation were reflections of my cognition.
However, for dealing with the current situation, it was sufficient.
