Witch's Embrace

Die swallowed hard again, her robe stopped writhing, leaving only a face full of regret. "Alright."

Seeing Heidi's somewhat stern expression, she continued, "Actually, I don't really know how to quickly make money. You know me, Heidi; I have no interest in money. So I don't really care about memories related to ways of making money."

But then, after a pause, she suddenly changed her tone: "However, if you really need money urgently right now, I can lend you some."

Saying this, she took out a deep green transparent gem from a pocket nearby.

It was a piece of exquisite jadeite, worth at least five hundred gold coins in the market!

Heidi's eyes lit up immediately, and Die smiled. "Do you think this will be enough? If it's not, I still have more..."

As she said this, she pulled out a pure black pearl and pressed it into Heidi's hand, saying, "When I was draining memories from people in the past, I occasionally found that they had hidden some jewelry. Since they would never need these things again, I took the liberty to accept them on their behalf."

"If you need them, feel free to take them, dear Heidi. Sell them for a good price, and don't feel shy about it."

Heidi's face immediately brightened with joy as she rushed over, arms outstretched, and tightly embraced Die's body. "Ah, my dear sister, you are just amazing!"

However, in the area covered by her nun's habit, her arms extended rapidly, her five fingers transforming into dark green tentacles that secretly reached into Die's clothes and entwined with her own tentacles.

Having lived together in the convent for so long, she was well aware of what she needed to do to bring Die pleasure.

And Die maintained her gentle smile, embracing her in return and squinting her eyes slightly: "Ah, my dear sister, this is truly just a simple task."

"As long as you can help me out after the next Witch's Night, I will be very satisfied..."

...

In the room, Hawthorne was carefully reading the目录 of the "Introduction to Quantitative Analysis" in his hands.

This book is fundamentally divided into two major parts. The first part consists of the mathematical and magical knowledge required for students in the College of Quantitative Analysis to get started. The second part is where the real value of this book lies, as a highly valued magical item.

The latter half is composed of intricate and complex texts, symbols, diagrams, and color blocks forming various magical arrays that made Hawthorne dizzy just by looking at them. These allow the book to accumulate a charge of Magic Power daily. The holder of the book does not need any learning or training; they can simply recite the command phrase to expend this charge to cast a first-level spell, "Thunder Wave."

Once this charge is used up, a person with Casting Ability can, even if they haven't learned the spell, recite another command phrase to inject their Magic Power into the book, thereby casting the spell.

Although Hawthorne could not understand those obscure magical arrays, the instructions for using this book were easy to grasp. He felt a surge of excitement at wanting to test the power of this spell.

Unfortunately, the "Thunder Wave" spell produces a loud noise that can be clearly heard within a radius of hundreds of meters, which would certainly attract the witches' attention. So, he had to suppress the restlessness in his heart and forced himself to refocus on the book.

Then, an hour quickly passed by.

"Ha..."

Sitting on the bed, feeling a bit dizzy, Hawthorne finally set down the heavy book in his hands with a sigh. He closed his eyes and began to gently massage his temples with his index fingers.

It was too abstract; what kind of convoluted material was this textbook written in? It was even more difficult to understand than the university textbooks from his previous life...

Damn it, is this really meant for teaching? Do they really expect students to learn with a textbook written like this?

Hawthorne was filled with frustration.

To be honest, the mathematical content in this book was not too difficult for him, having been a student doing exercises in his small-town school for over a decade.

However, the section about how to construct models of spells in one's mind, much like building mathematical models, in order to cast spells was written in a way that...

I don't understand! I truly can't comprehend it at all!

What do they mean by "first, imagine a regular icosahedron with twenty faces in your mind, connect each pair of geometric vertices, color each edge red or blue, and then calculate all the arrangements..."

I don't get it! I can't imagine something so abstract that I've never seen before!

He was in agony. It was clear that if he just kept trying to follow what the textbook said, eventually he would figure it out and learn the several examples recorded within.

But this efficiency is way too slow!

And this process is far too painful!

After rubbing his temples to give his tired mind a moment of relaxation, Hawthorne opened his eyes again and resolved to act.

He needed to think of a way to improve his efficiency in learning magic!

Without a teacher to guide him, his self-learning had made little progress. Fortunately, he did have a method to enhance his reading efficiency at hand.

He then summoned the system, flipped to the page on buildings, and looked at the "Study" building, then began reading its detailed description.

The description of the "Study" building in the system was similar to what he remembered from the game; it simply stated that the people residing in this building could accelerate their learning speed.

Learning anything, including but not limited to magic, historical knowledge, religious knowledge, natural knowledge...

And this was only a level-one Study. When the convent's level increased, the Study could be upgraded to a "Library" or even a "Book Tower," allowing multiple people to study simultaneously.

Additionally, this was a prerequisite building for the later training facility "Silent Reflection." Without it, players could not train the ordinary nuns they would later recruit into powerful knowledge-domain Clerics.

Therefore, this building could be said to be a must-have for players. Hawthorne was eager to unlock it right away, but if he did, he would have to face a dilemma...

"Heidi?" he called softly from outside, "Are you still there?"

Whoosh—

A breeze suddenly blew in from the window, and then he heard Heidi's gentle voice from the door: "I'm here."

Creak—

As she spoke, she pushed the door open, her tone cheerful, her beautiful eyes sparkling: "Is Master feeling tired from studying? Do you need Heidi to help you relax?"

Just those two short sentences caused a surge of blood to rush through Hawthorne. He had barely managed to suppress his desires and shook his head repeatedly, saying, "No, um, I meant to ask if there's a Study in the convent?"