Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Why Was Senior There?

Pulcheria slyly curled the corner of her mouth. “That’s right. Theresia said that if I’m tired, I can go there and rest.”

Margaret’s wide eyes instantly locked onto Theresia. Theresia shrank back under that fierce glare. “It’s... it’s because something happened before...”

“You won’t even give me the key to your library resting room, so how does she have it?” Margaret looked as if her eyes were about to pop out.

“B-Because something happened before...”

“Oh, come now, Junior Margaret, don’t be angry. Theresia must have her own considerations for not giving you the key.” Pulcheria came forward with a cheerful smile to mediate between them.

Margaret slumped back into her seat. After taking two deep breaths, she closed her eyes, clasped her hands together, and pressed them against the space between her brows. “I put on Your breastplate of righteousness. Holy Father, I ask You to examine and reveal the dark schemes aimed at me. I take up the shield of faith to resist the works of the evil one...”

“It isn’t prayer time yet, is it?” Theresia asked.

“In the Holy Son’s name, I stand upon the truth of the divine way: the Son of God has appeared to destroy the works of the devil!”

Only after Margaret finished reciting an entire prayer did she open her eyes. “Come on, explain properly why Theresia’s resting room key is in your hand—where is she?”

“Pulcheria? She already went to the resting room.” Theresia gestured for Margaret to calm down. “And your voice is too loud. You’ll disturb everyone else’s studying.”

Margaret hurriedly sat down, and only after confirming that none of the surrounding apprentices seemed to blame her did she breathe a sigh of relief.

“Hey.” She reached out and grabbed Theresia’s arm, which was still continuing to copy notes. “Why does that woman have the key to your resting room?”

“What do you mean, ‘that woman’... Weren’t you calling her senior just now? But finding out that she helped make our constant-temperature magic array really did surprise me...” Theresia stared rather helplessly at the hand Margaret had stretched over. “Something just happened before, so I gave her the key to the resting room.”

Margaret tugged Theresia’s arm again, stopping Theresia’s attempt to keep copying. “What exactly happened?”

Theresia found it a little strange. “What’s wrong with you today... Usually you would never do something like this.”

“If you don’t answer my question, I’ll practice holy spells tonight.” Margaret puffed out her cheeks. “You won’t get a proper night’s sleep.”

“I was wrong. I’ll tell you right now.” Theresia hurriedly put down her pen and surrendered. “I’ll explain. Didn’t I tell you the day before yesterday that I met a Miss Thief in the library’s resting area?”

Margaret nodded.

“That Miss Thief was Pulcheria.” Theresia shrugged. “That’s all there is to it.”

“But you didn’t tell me you also handed her the key to your resting room.”

“Because that only happened yesterday. I saw her in Professor Michel’s Fire Element Magic class, and then I went over to ask her what exactly had happened the day before.” Theresia tried hard to pry Margaret’s hand off her wrist, but Margaret’s grip was so strong that she actually could not budge it in the slightest. “Then she said it was because she was too tired, so she snuck in to sleep. So I gave her my key—this way, she can rest without violating school rules, can’t she?”

Only then did Margaret let go with some disbelief. “So... you just gave her the key like that?”

“Yes.” Theresia rubbed her wrist and nodded.

“Then why won’t you give me a key? I also want to go rest in your room when I’m studying in the library during the day.”

“There’s only one key, and Senior Pulcheria hasn’t returned it to me yet...”

Margaret gnashed her teeth resentfully, but in the end, she gave up on the idea of chasing after Pulcheria. “Forget it. Review, review. At least the nuisance has left...”

Only then could Theresia finally put her attention back on the book in front of her.

However, until the entire day ended, Margaret did not seem to be in any state to study. Even after Theresia had completed the library’s preparations, finished registering the apprentices, and dragged Margaret back to their dormitory, Margaret still looked dazed.

Theresia did not bother with her. Instead, she changed into an apron on her own and walked into the kitchen.

Margaret finally recovered a little. “Are you going to cook?”

“I can’t cook, okay? I just wanted to come over and look at Senior’s spell structure.”

Theresia leaned closer to the spell structure and drew a piece of saltpeter from her apron. Immediately afterward, she took out a small piece of blue crystal.

After completing her preparations, Theresia drew her wand from the storage sheath at her waist. This wand was about thirty centimeters long. Its body was made from the root of a cloudsea cypress, and two attribute-less crystals were embedded inside the wand to help with Theresia’s aether conversion.

Theresia had already spent the entire day thinking about how to modify this magic array. First, she had to stop the water element’s cycle, then pause the fire element’s heat-absorption command. The deconstruction of the spell required the solutions to inequalities, and she also needed to improve the wind-element magic array into a sensor array that could automatically activate at set intervals.

In theory, this plan was feasible. After completing the dismantling of the spell composition, Theresia would delete those few “unnecessary” annotations and dead loops. That would make this magic array more efficient, and its magic fluctuations would become even smaller. If the dormitory supervisor discovered that they had privately arranged a magic array inside the dormitory, the imperial academy would absolutely make a show of treating everyone equally. No matter how exceptionally gifted the student was, she would be expelled on the spot.

When Theresia was halfway through her work, Margaret finally returned to the kitchen carrying the food Theresia had thrown out.

Margaret was instantly startled. “What are you doing? You actually dismantled Senior’s spell structure? Don’t mess with it! A three-element compound spell structure isn’t something two second-year apprentices like us can unravel...”

Theresia did not answer. Instead, she directly used her magic power to erase the signature Pulcheria had left on the magic array, forcibly seizing control of it. Only then did she follow her plan, dismantling the compound magic array bit by bit until only a few magic-array materials remained, still operating one-sidedly by relying on the casting materials.

Margaret watched without blinking as Theresia rearranged and recombined the magic array, then replaced its array eye with a new one to maintain its operation.

She said somewhat unwillingly, “All right, I had almost forgotten that your magic talent is actually very high.”