“Wen…”
“Good morning, Second Sister-in-law!”
Just as Eleanor came out of Theodore’s room and saw Winnidith wanting to greet her, she was stunned by that cheerful, loud “Second Sister-in-law.”
Beyond the embarrassment of the address, she felt that Miss Winnidith was different today from before.
But…
“Miss Winnidith is still as cute as ever, hehehe~”
Aside from Eleanor, who giggled like an obsessive fan, the servants living with Winnidith at Trenton Manor felt her change even more clearly.
The most obvious point was that Winnidith would never have been able to get up at this hour before.
“Oh? My little baby, why are you awake so early today?”
Before Winnidith could take two more steps, Tina wrapped her in a hug, unable to let go as if she had found some rare treasure.
Poor Winnidith—her hair, which she had just managed to smooth this morning, was soon tousled into a bird’s nest by her mother.
But hair could always be combed again.
She had resisted her mother’s affectionate gestures for so many years; now that she had let go of the grudges from her previous life, letting her mother enjoy herself wasn’t such a bad thing.
Besides, Tina smelled sweet and warm.
The only problem was—
“It’s really flat.”
Winnidith muttered quietly.
Although she wasn’t as flat as an elf—who was basically a steel plate from the side—when her face pressed against her mother’s chest, she could clearly feel the bones.
No wonder she drank milk as a child.
“My dear daughter~ Your mother might be getting old, my ears aren’t so good. Could you say that again?”
Winnidith suddenly felt a pain in the back of her head.
A wise person knows when to yield.
She rolled her eyes, looked up, and smiled flatteringly.
“Mom, I was praising your beauty. You’re as beautiful as an elf.”
“Oh~ When did my daughter’s mouth become so sweet?”
Tina pinched her cheek happily, then realized something was off.
“As beautiful as an elf”…
Wasn’t that just another way of calling her flat?
Realizing this, her expression turned dangerous.
Her hand curled slightly, ready to turn into a claw and teach the naughty child a lesson.
But Winnidith had anticipated her move.
The moment her mother loosened her grip, she cast Flight Magic and flew away.
“Mom, I have things to do, so I’m off now!”
“This child, I never saw her being so mischievous before.”
Tina watched her daughter’s figure disappear, laughing in exasperation but also feeling a little down as she clutched her chest.
“Is it really that small?”
“Huh? What? I thought I saw Wendy go out just now.”
At that moment, Vidal happened to pass by.
Seeing his daughter flying away and his wife deep in thought, he suddenly had a bad feeling.
The trigger had arrived.
Tina curled her lips and, without a word, dragged the bewildered Vidal back to their room.
Poor Vidal—he had just finished his morning exercise and now had to go back to “work.”
Luckily, Winnidith didn’t see that.
Otherwise, just thinking that these clingy lovebirds were her parents, she would only have one word: pitiful.
“Is the Light Element in the Imperial Capital getting denser?”
Winnidith sat sideways on an ordinary staff.
With Elemental Vision active, the Imperial Capital looked like a massive ball of light to her.
Recalling that Xinliezhi’s elements were Light and Dark, she began to form an unpleasant suspicion.
Could it be that Divine Power leakage was already serious?
But she quickly dismissed the guess.
The royal family had always kept a tight watch on The Sanctuary.
If Divine Power were really leaking, Victor had no reason to deceive them.
Then it must be something else.
Could it be that the Great Mass was about to start?
But wasn’t it only two years since the last one?
She couldn’t figure it out.
Since she couldn’t, Winnidith simply stopped thinking about it.
This was the Imperial Capital, and she was the most beloved young lady of the first noble family.
Some questions she didn’t need to consider at all—just ask and she would know the truth.
She sat sideways on an ordinary staff, using the flowing wind to comb her messy long hair.
Actually, except under special circumstances, flying at high altitude in the Imperial Capital was forbidden.
Winnidith didn’t intend to break Imperial Law publicly, so she cast Invisibility Magic on herself.
Now that she was a high-level Mage and had Spiritual Power, no one below the Saint Realm could see through her disguise.
Soon, she arrived at her destination—the Royal Academy of Magic.
This academy was founded by Moretti himself, originally meant to teach students with magical talent how to use Magic.
But after a thousand years of development, its disciplines were no longer limited to Magic.
With the Magic Academy as the main body, there were also the Fighting Spirit Academy, Music Academy, Craft Academy, Art School, and so on.
Among them, the Magic Academy had gradually split into Traditional Magic and Life Magic due to the creation of Life Magic.
The former was the basic Magic curriculum, while the latter was the dream that every magic apprentice yearned for but often could not obtain.
Every year, the Royal Academy of Magic enrolled one thousand students from across the empire.
Three hundred slots were reserved for nobles, while the remaining seven hundred came from commoner families like tenant farmers and artisans.
After graduating from the Royal Academy of Magic, the academy would prepare career paths for them—either the Border Fortress or becoming guards for nobles.
If they were outstanding enough, they could also choose to stay and become teachers.
But if they had other ideals, the Royal Academy of Magic would use its transcendent status in the Empire to facilitate their goals.
Therefore, every graduate had a high degree of recognition and sense of belonging to the academy…
Well, except Winnidith.
When she was a student here, countless professors surrounded her, asking her to demonstrate the latest uses of Life Magic, taking careful notes, then happily hopping away to do experiments, leaving Winnidith standing there in confusion.
For those two years, she felt she wasn’t there to study, but more like a rare protected animal on display.
This gave her a bad impression of the academy.
After completing her credits, she hadn’t come back for a whole year.
“Let me think… Where is Dean Elias’s office?”
Winnidith thought while invisible.
She still retained habits from her previous life during her school days, basically following a three-point line between the teaching building, cafeteria, and dormitory.
She rarely went anywhere else.
But she had a good memory; she could still remember the route Isabella took when she registered her.
Following that path from memory, she passed the fountain with Moretti’s statue, walked past the noisy training ground, dodged the trap magic set along the way, successfully slipped into the office building with the starry dome, and then followed the signs on the wall to the principal’s office.
She quietly pulled open the door and found two white-bearded old men talking in the principal’s office.
The one standing was passionately describing his research progress, while the other, seated in a leather chair and wearing a purple magic robe, listened with a smile.
He was the dean of the Royal Academy of Magic, the Grand Magician of the Saint Realm—Elias Anake.
Winnidith also recognized the standing man: Clement, a senior professor of the Magic Academy.
During her two years at the academy, he had been the most enthusiastic.
She didn’t know what kind of progress he had made this time; he hadn’t even heard the door open and kept rambling on about his work.
However, Elias, who seemed to be listening intently, was startled when he saw her.
But when she made a shushing gesture, he nodded.
And that nod was taken by Clement as the dean’s approval of his project.
“Then it’s settled, Dean! I’m counting on you for the Mage team and funding support! I have a feeling that once we build this thing, the whole world will be changed by us!”
Elias’s expression tightened.
He knew how much impact Clement’s research could have on the world if it succeeded, but his request this time was really over the top!
The funding wasn’t a big issue—he could just swallow his pride and visit the Imperial Palace.
But asking for two-thirds of the professors specializing in Life Magic—that was a bit…
Elias suddenly realized that agreeing to this request wasn’t impossible, after all, wasn’t there a very useful little one coming to help voluntarily now?
Winnidith, who was wandering around the principal’s office, suddenly shivered.
She had a bad feeling.
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