“Is there anything I need to prepare in advance for Introduction to Magic?”

The academy cafeteria was still pretty crowded at lunchtime. With all the noise around her, Jiang Cha instinctively raised her voice.

“Absolutely~ nothing!”

Mention that, and Lina wasn’t sleepy anymore!

She barely paid attention in theory classes, but the knowledge taught in Introduction to Magic had a real impact on combat ability.

The other two exchanged a glance, each seeing the helplessness in the other’s eyes.

He Qin, thoughtful as a Yamato Nadeshiko, pressed her lips together in a faint smile and said nothing. So Jiang Cha went along with it and prepared to hear Lina out.

“Other people might need a wand at first, but your control over magic is so precise, Cha Bao, you don’t need a short wand to guide your magic and cast spells at all.”

“Then what’s the point of me going to pick one up?”

Jiang Cha gave the short wand a little shake. It was only slightly longer than a dinner knife. Her fingertip traced the faint inscriptions hidden beneath the dark wood.

“It’s stationery, okay? Isn’t that totally normal? The school insists we get things we don’t even need. Witches are such a pain about this. They claim to value efficiency above all else, then go and bury us in red tape that slows everything down.”

At that, Lina’s little mouth went into overdrive, rattling off complaints. It sounded like she’d been poisoned by some relic of the old century and had a whole bellyful of resentment to vent.

Considering where she came from, Jiang Cha could guess why.

“Anyway, that’s how it is. You have to bring a wand to your first class—or, well, you don’t absolutely have to. You can ask the teacher for permission to go without one.”

“So instead of asking for permission, I should just go get one from the Battle Club, right?”

“Exactly!”

Lina slapped the table with her tiny hand, brimming with confidence.

“Mentor Carol is lazy to the core, and Mentor Melos is stern to the core. Neither of them is someone you want to ask for permission. Compared to them, even Mentor Alivia seems considerate of her students. But the best of them all is Mentor Diana, of course!”

“Mentor Diana once gave Lina special permission to sleep in class.”

He Qin leaned close to the girl’s ear and explained in a quiet voice.

But Jiang Cha had a different take. She narrowed her eyes and studied Lina’s expression—that look of someone who was a devoted Diana fan...

“Mentor Diana’s perfect figure really is something, especially since it suits her personality so well. She’s as gentle as water.”

“I knew you understood, Cha Bao!”

Watching her two roommates keep making strange giggling sounds, He Qin looked at them in confusion. A Witch’s intuition told her it was probably best not to pry.

.....

“Jiang Cha-chan...”

He Qin watched the pretty girl walk back carrying a tall stack of books. The pile was so high that she looked a little clumsy. He Qin hesitated, unsure what to say.

“I can finish them.”

Jiang Cha looked perfectly relaxed. She lifted her little hand, and with such precise control of her muscles, she set the tower of more than a dozen books on the table without letting it topple or scatter. “Most of these are just collections of notes and ideas. Only four have a fairly high level of corruption.”

“But these four?”

Lina propped herself up a little and craned around to peek at the titles.

“Alchemy, potions, machinery, dolls, enchanting techniques... Are you planning to learn every single sub-discipline?”

Enchanting couldn’t really be considered an independent field. Or rather, before the twenty-first century, it had held the same status as the other four major sub-disciplines. But as magical technology developed and the different fields became more and more integrated, the status of enchanting...

rose even higher.

Alchemy products could be enchanted to improve their effects and strengthen their materials. Potions could be enchanted to increase their success rate. And machinery and dolls went without saying—the presence or absence of enchantments made them completely different products.

By now, enchanting had become a cornerstone of Witch technology. To give an example, it was as important as materials science in humanity’s technological development.

It was foundational technology—one breakthrough in a single field could drive the development of an entire industry.

So no matter which sub-discipline you chose to specialize in, enchanting was compulsory. Combat Witches were the only ones who didn’t have to worry about it.

“Yeah. I’m planning to learn the basics of all of them first. I should have enough time.”

Then Lina and He Qin witnessed Jiang Cha’s downright monstrous reading speed.

The girl wore an easy smile as she pulled out a collection of popular-science notes with her slender, pale fingers. She flipped through it, the pages rustling rapidly beneath her small hand.

Then she closed her eyes to rest for half a minute. While the other two were still wondering what Jiang Cha was doing, she picked up the second book and prepared to repeat the same process.

“Wait, wait, wait!!!”

“You’ve already finished reading it!?”

Lina cried out, drawing a disapproving look from Miss Mo’er. The little blondie pressed her palms together and hurriedly apologized, then turned back to Jiang Cha and whispered, “That can’t be right, can it?”

“I have some talent for resisting corruption, and my innate magic is Information Gathering, a Mysticism spell that improves learning efficiency. Besides, this book is only a travel journal, so its corruption level isn’t very high...”

The girl explained earnestly, her big, innocent eyes blinking as she looked at Lina. “Is something wrong?”

“Everything about that is wrong...”

He Qin felt a little down. She’d always thought she learned pretty quickly. It had only taken her two years to become quite skilled at making magical dolls, but compared to Jiang Cha...

The Yamato Nadeshiko puffed out her cheeks a little, feeling strangely dejected.

‘I can’t compete with her at all.’

“First of all! First of all!”

Lina delivered her verdict in a hurried whisper. “Your Mentalism rating absolutely can’t be explained by ‘a little’ talent.”

“I don’t have the money to get it measured, though.”

Measuring a Witch’s Mentalism rating was quite a hassle. Oh, mainly because it cost a lot.

Piercing a Witch’s mental defenses to measure her mental energy directly and precisely took a huge amount of magic.

—Measuring other creatures was easy, though. For example, any Witch could do it barehanded to an ordinary human.

That was a natural defense mechanism of supernatural species, and Witches were at the very top among them.

And the reason it was called a Mentalism rating rather than mental strength was that this rating was another name for the mind at its core—or, in other words...

the soul.

More precisely, the soul’s strength.

You couldn’t exactly kill a Witch who’d come in for a checkup, then grab her soul after it floated out and measure it from top to bottom before casting a resurrection spell to bring her back, could you?

Hey, don’t laugh! That method really was popular in the twentieth century!

For energy-based lifeforms and supernatural species whose body and soul were one, this was the easiest and most convenient way to measure the soul precisely.

‘Witches really can be rough sometimes.’

Having learned about these dark chapters in Witch history from her books, the girl could only complain quietly to herself.

“...I should be happy to have a genius like that on my side.”

The little blondie weighed it carefully, thought it over again and again, and came to a conclusion.

Screw it!!!

What was so bad about having a genius roommate? Maybe if she bought gear from Jiang Cha in the future, she could even get a discount.

“Hehe~ Lina, I can supply you with magic items at a discount, with no limit on how many you buy.”

“Now you’re talking! If anyone ever picks on you, come find me. I’ve got plenty of older sisters who can really fight.”

The one-meter-thirty blondie planted her hands on her hips and thrust out her flat chest, wearing an expression that said, ‘I’ve got your back.’

Well, she really could back up her words.

“Boobies are fine too, you know?”

The girl turned her head to look at He Qin beside her.

“Boobies?”

Lina repeated in confusion, then noticed that Jiang Cha’s gaze was just a little higher than He Qin’s face.

“Pfft... Yeah, true.”

“Huh?”

He Qin seemed to have just returned from her own little world. She looked up to see Lina trying not to laugh and Jiang Cha looking completely sincere, and blinked in confusion.

“It’s nothing.”

“I was just saying I’d like to ask you for advice about making magical dolls sometime.”

“You can leave that to me. I’ll teach you everything I know.”

He Qin seemed to let out a subtle sigh of relief. Jiang Cha wasn’t sure why, but that was the impression she got from her expression.

The rest of the time was spent with the three girls reading.

Or, more accurately, two of them.

After flipping through four novels in five minutes, the little blondie quickly lost interest. She looked this way and that, made a little noise now and then, and acted like a kid with ADHD. Every so often, she’d even wander over to say hi to students she knew at other tables.

—Then Miss Mo’er grabbed her by the collar with a sour look and tossed her out of the Great Library.

Maybe that was what Lina had wanted all along. After all, expecting a Combat Witch to sit quietly and read in a library was asking a bit much.

Lina just couldn’t bring herself to ask to leave outright.

The other two girls simply smiled, sent Lina a message, and went back to reading their own books.