There was no day or night in the room—at least, that was how it felt to Enise.
The windows were sealed shut, and light was provided by magic lamps set to a fixed frequency, turning on and off at exactly the same times every day. She could not judge the weather outside, nor could she tell if it was early morning or late at night. Time, it seemed, no longer existed.
She was not sure if Sherry had spoken more with the Head of the Florenst Family after she returned, but she knew one thing: everything she owned in this Cage Bedroom had been stripped away. There was only a bed frame, a table, and a chair.
Enise looked around the empty room. Even speaking at a normal volume produced an echo. “It’s fine. Saves me the trouble of moving it myself.”
Those people had even wanted to take her Magic Wand. If Sherry hadn’t stepped in to stop them and give both sides a way to save face, Enise would have wanted to explode on them. This was pure bullying!
However, Sherry had only told her one thing: focus on researching the potion, and leave the rest to her. As long as she could develop a Mana Stability Potion with 100% purity and ensure that Second Princess Rubia’s life was secure, they would take action together.
Although she didn’t know what Sherry had discussed with that old man, based on how she was being treated, the conversation had clearly ended in failure.
“Sigh…”
Then again, in a place with no cauldron, no test tubes, no herbs, and not even basic magic reagents, advancing that final bit of progress was as difficult as reaching for the stars. All she could do was concentrate as much as possible and devote her time to theoretical research.
‘Without experimental verification, it’s really hard just to think about it…’
She repeatedly constructed models in her mind that might refine the potion to 100% purity. Mana stability, in essence, was not about suppression, but about arrangement and clearing paths. Traditional alchemy believed that impurities came from the materials themselves. However, after multiple verifications, Enise had overturned this theory.
Impure materials were only one factor, but for materials of a grade like the Frost Lily of the Valley, how could the material be impure? Therefore, the true impurities in a potion were caused by path loss.
When mana was injected into the pot, it would be lost due to the angle, flow rate, and even minute movements like clockwise or counter-clockwise stirring. To compensate for the loss, in addition to ensuring that every movement was impeccable, an extra mana supplement was required.
After establishing this framework, Enise continued to dismantle the entire potion model into its most basic units within her consciousness. Magic-Infused Distilled Water. A stable and steady Magic Vortex that could be continuously injected. And finally, Natural Energy Shards.
So-called potion brewing was the arrangement and combination of these elements in a specific order. However, she could not follow the knowledge in the books this time. To create a limit, to create the impossible, she had to break away from theoretical dogma.
Her first few deductions always got stuck in one place—the mana purity would reach 97% at most. No matter how she adjusted it, minute mana losses always occurred. She repeatedly calculated that inescapable error in her mind.
It took a long time. Suddenly, she realized a problem. Whose premise was she using for her deductions? It was inevitably the premise of this world, or rather, the author of that book on Witch Potion Brewing. It used the premise that “mana must use materials as a carrier.”
But what if—what if a potion didn’t necessarily need materials? What if “medicine” was just a name for a stable structure?
This thought was like a needle, piercing through all her previous models. She began to construct a plan without a physical liquid. Only components, only arrangements, and only a forced, guided mana circuit.
That also meant she no longer needed a cauldron, nor did she need materials. She didn’t even need the action of “brewing.” She only needed to establish a short-lived but completely closed mana cycle within the target’s body.
She would force the chaotic mana to follow a single, unique path. It was like building a straight waterway for a river that had lost control. This structure did not rely on the outside world; it only required her own precision. It was a bit like performing surgery in her previous life.
She began to recalculate. Once, twice, three times. This time, the error terms began to collapse. They weren’t being suppressed; they were being eliminated. Because in this completely new theoretical system, there were no longer any paths where loss could occur.
Her breathing hitched slightly. It wasn’t excitement, but a state of near-blank focus. She knew she had touched that boundary—theoretical, absolute stability.
If this structure held true, then the so-called Magic Disorder was essentially just a conflict of mana circuits within the body. It was not an incurable disease.
She suddenly understood why this world had never reached this step. It was because, from the very beginning, they did not allow brilliant and powerful Witches like them to pursue deep knowledge. Therefore, that mysterious Black-clothed Witch must have an organization behind her. Once Witches like them banded together, danger would no longer be something defined by others. On the contrary, the rules of the old order were the danger itself.
In her mind, she wrote down the final formula. It wasn’t text, but a set of operations, much like a surgical procedure from her past life. All the mana originated from Rubia herself; there was no leakage, and there was no loss.
In her consciousness, she assigned it a value.
100%
It wasn’t a probability. It was purity.
She sat at the table for a long time without moving, as if confirming she hadn’t miscalculated. It was also as if she were waiting for some kind of denial. But none came. This theoretical model was disturbingly solid.
She suddenly realized a practical problem. She had no way to verify it. She had no potion. No experimental subject. No princess. She couldn’t even tell anyone. This answer existed only in her mind.
If she was kept here by the people of the Prince Faction, or even died here… Second Princess Rubia’s only path to survival would completely disappear. Along with it, another argument would vanish—that Witches did not have to be dangerous.
She slowly lay back on the bed. For the first time, she felt a sense of true anxiety. It wasn’t because of the imprisonment. It was because she had completely become an opponent of the old nobility. And that opposition could shut her down at any time.
She closed her eyes, and Sherry’s face appeared in her mind. Not the recent Sherry, but the one from when they stood side by side on the Snowy Mountain. Back then, she was still thinking of running away. Now, she finally realized that the freedom she truly wanted was never to leave this place, but to make this place lose its reason to imprison her.
She whispered to herself, ‘I must survive.’
It wasn’t an emotion. It was a conclusion.
She had to bring this hope to the Second Princess. Only she could cure the Magic Disorder. Only by curing the Princess could she tell those old men that Witches were not dangerous beings.
She got up from the table and looked up at the ceiling. The light was cold, spilling into this cage, but it wasn’t so unbreakable. She didn’t know what Sherry was doing now, nor did she know if Sherry was still allowed to approach this place.
But she knew one thing. This time, she wasn’t waiting for someone else to save her. She was waiting for an opportunity—an opportunity to bring that “100%” from her mind into reality.
And when that opportunity arrived—it would be the moment for the two sisters to overturn the order of the old nobility.