Sorcerer’s Handbook

Chapter 95: I Will Watch Over You

Cailleach, Swordflower College.

As the three bright stars gradually sank in the west, a young professor walked steadily along the campus path. When he saw a beautiful young female student approaching, he immediately changed direction, trying to hurry away.

“Professor Liebrom…”

“Miss Therave.” The young professor stopped and said helplessly, “I have to admit, your sincerity has moved me. After all, if you keep pestering me like this, I won’t have any reputation left. My strict and serious father even came to warn me specifically not to do anything that would damage Swordflower College’s reputation, such as getting entangled with female students.”

Sonya’s eyes lit up. “Then—”

“But I really don’t have the authority to make last-minute changes to the emcee,” Liebrom interrupted. “Either you disappear before the party starts in half an hour, and I’ll initiate the emergency plan if I can’t find you, at the cost of you getting a warning. Or you go directly to the principal – if you can get the principal’s permission, the rules can naturally be bent for you. But without even giving me a ‘suitable reason’ for cancelling your emcee duties…”

Sonya shook her head repeatedly.

“The principal is reclusive, and she’s a legendary four-winged sorcerer. I don’t dare go to her. What if I make her angry? Even Professor Trotzam won’t be able to protect me.”

“So you’re not afraid of making me angry?”

Sonya immediately covered her mouth, but her voice still leaked out between her fingers. “Because you’re just a two-winged alchemist who’s good at academic theory and research. Even if I offend you, it won’t affect my interests much.”

After speaking, Sonya looked at Liebrom pitifully. “Professor, I really have no choice. This is the truth, I can’t lie.”

Liebrom was so angry his face turned rigid. He took a deep breath. “Thank you very much for your honesty, Miss Therave. You’ve made me understand my true worth in the eyes of ordinary students, very enlightening.”

“But since you don’t dare go to the principal, you only have two choices left: fulfill your duties, or take a warning. It’s almost dinner time, please decide quickly. I’ll be waiting for you backstage at the party.”

Watching Liebrom leave, Sonya was also helpless. She wanted to ask the Observer for advice, but remembered today was also the Observer’s action day. She didn’t want to disturb the Observer either.

I wonder if the Observer has smelled the air of freedom yet…

Sonya sighed dejectedly and returned to her dorm in low spirits.

Just then Iris and the others returned from dinner. Seeing Sonya, they were greatly surprised. “Why are you still here? People from Trinity College are already at the school gates. Hurry and change into your dress and put on makeup!”

“I don’t want to go.”

“What’s with this childish temper? If you’re absent, it’s not just your own face you’re damaging, but Professor Trotzam’s face and Swordflower College’s face too. Don’t think you can do whatever you want just because you’re a genius at swordsmanship!”

Even Iris was shocked. As roommates living under the same roof, they naturally knew Sonya had been acting very strange these past few days. But they didn’t expect it to be this bad.

This was a social mixer between the two schools!

The mixer was not just a simple party. Under the gazes of the stars, both schools would send their best students to compete in a ‘friendly’ match – it was actually the annual prelude to the Cailleach Intercollegiate Competition, where everyone got to see the rosters of the other schools’ competition teams this year, and roughly gauge the strength of their competitors.

Although sorcerers focused on combat weren’t as important in today’s society, with production-type mages gradually gaining more influence, and schools reducing combat curricula while adding more production-focused subjects, students were also more interested in researching spirits, miracles and spell systems with production value.

Even so, combat-capable sorcerers could still obtain the most resources and respect!

This was not because people feared the violence of mages, but because for mages, combat ability equaled potential! The more adept at combat a mage was, the more they could gain in the virtual world, the farther they could go, the higher their ceiling!

Among single-wing mages, the number of those specialized in production exceeded those focused on combat.

But by the time they reached two wings, the number of combat mages far outstripped production mages.

And if it came to three wings, even mages who specialized in production would definitely have a flawless combat system, or they wouldn’t even be able to survive and adventure in the virtual world!

To encourage mage apprentices to improve their combat ability, the Cailleach Intercollegiate Competition was thus born. Now in its 167th year, it had long become the highest rated show across Cailleach, even the whole Starfields.

For mage apprentices, being able to compete and place in the Intercollegiate Competition was the fastest way to make a name for oneself!

As a prelude to the Competition, the importance of the social mixer naturally rose as well. And with the mixing being with Trinity College this time, they couldn’t be the slightest bit sloppy!

Yet Iris saw Sonya still lying lazily on the table not moving. She realized this country bumpkin had really gotten herself into trouble.

“Adele, go dig through her closet and get out the custom school dress. Ingritt, hold her still, I’ll put on her makeup.”

“Roger!” “Oh.”

Adele and Ingritt followed orders. Sonya also let them fuss over her without resisting.

In her heart, she was still conflicted, unable to judge whether ‘telling the truth at the party’ or ‘getting a school warning’ would have worse consequences.

If the ‘school warning’ was -100 points, then the ‘attending the party’ would be between 0 to -1000 points.

Perhaps Sonya could keep things within reasonable bounds and perfectly fulfill her emcee duties. But it was also possible she’d spout madness, offending all the professors from Swordflower and Trinity and becoming the worst student in history.

“Haven’t you been looking forward to this chance?” Iris asked puzzledly as she put on Sonya’s fake eyelashes. “We signed up together two months ago, stood out from over a hundred female mage students, and you finally won the final selection, beating me and the other seniors. It was hard-earned, so why are you giving it up?”

“You know the Intercollegiate Competition emcees are often selected from the party emcees, so you and I both valued this chance so much. If we can really become emcee this year, just that on our resume would be enough to apply for TV host jobs. Not to mention the exposure from appearing on screen in front of millions… There’s no more comfortable path than this!”

“Although you’re Professor Trotzam’s research apprentice now, you don’t only want to be a mage who practices swordsmanship all day, right?”

“What’s wrong with being a swordsmage?” Ingritt said unhappily.

“Of course it’s good for you, Ingritt. One, you’re not social. Two, you don’t like the limelight. Being a swordsmage is indeed the most comfortable, happiest choice for you.” Iris put on Sonya’s eye makeup. “But Sonya, you and I are not so simple.

“Dazzling, the focus of all eyes, fawned over and cheered… First becoming famous in school, then acting in shows, releasing albums…” Iris’s mouth also curled up slightly. “Becoming like Datura Rose, the brightest star in the sky.”

Sonya blurted out, “How did you know Datura Rose is my favorite?”

Iris retorted, “Who doesn’t like Datura Rose?”

Datura Rose Leyna, the most famous actress in the Starfields. She started acting in shows since her teens, almost every one becoming a classic, like ‘The Queen’s Return’, ‘Gorgeous Rebellion’, ‘Don’t Apologize to Strangers’, and other shows that are still heavily re-run every year. She’s won the ‘Holy Grail for Best Actress’ five times so far, lauded as the ‘Number One Beauty Under the Stars’.

Not only that, she was also a powerful mage. The news last year that she’d entered the Saint domain at three wings caused cheers across Cailleach.

Some rich nobles even extravagantly spent a fortune to hire mages to launch fireworks into the Cailleach sky for three consecutive days. During those days, whenever the Cailleach residents stepped outside and looked up, they could see the words “Congratulations to Datura Rose on entering the Saint domain.”

For Sonya, Datura Rose was undoubtedly her most beautiful aspiration in childhood.

As a little girl, her only entertainment outside of studying was watching the Meteor Channel. When she saw Datura Rose’s dazzling performance in shows, saw Datura Rose go on stage to accept awards, saw Datura Rose singing on stage, it gave her unlimited motivation.

Back then, she didn’t even dare hope that she could become like her idol. But she knew that if she didn’t work hard at learning, she wouldn’t even have a chance of getting close to the limelight.

Iris was right. Sonya did not want to just be a swordsmage.

Power was important, but it wasn’t everything to her, not even her goal – just a tool.

Although no longer a child, Sonya’s desires were still so simple: she wanted to step into the limelight, she wanted to be a movie star, she wanted to sing, she wanted to dazzle, she wanted to enjoy the envy and admiration of countless strangers…

She also wanted to become someone else’s aspiration.

Sonya took a deep breath. “Thank you, Iris.”

“You’ve gotten a lot more direct recently, it’s kind of disgusting,” Iris laughed.

“But why are you persuading me like this?” Sonya asked. “Seeing me about to miss this chance, shouldn’t you be gloating in secret, then go tell our other classmates to mock me?”

Ingritt’s mouth twitched slightly. Adele snorted, then covered her mouth to muffle her laughter. Iris was a little embarrassed and pursed her lips. “I didn’t… Didn’t you also mock me openly and secretly after winning the selection?”

Suddenly going into rehashing old accounts, Iris quickly took stock of her ammunition, ready to pull out even older cases to shut Sonya up the moment she retorted—

“Because I can only interact with you as an equal by demeaning you.”

Stunned by her own words, even Sonya was shocked into silence. The dorm instantly fell into an awkward quiet.

Iris was also rendered speechless for a time by Sonya’s words, subconsciously blurting out what she’d prepared to say: “You, you also seduced my admirers…”

“Because I wanted your attention. I hoped you would look at me, I wanted to keep competing with you. I’d be very lonely if you went and fell in love.”

Iris listened dumbfounded.

“I’m sorry, I…” She didn’t even know why she was apologizing. “Then why were you against me when we first enrolled? I wanted to be friends with you too. If you hadn’t rejected my goodwill repeatedly, I wouldn’t have…”

“Because you were from a noble family, grew up rich with a carefree childhood. While I was a country bumpkin from a small town, I had nothing. I envied you to the point of inferiority. Your goodwill felt like charity to me then, so to protect the little dignity I had left, stubbornness was my only defense mechanism.”

By now, Sonya was utterly defeated.

This was too awkward. Even bedwetting as a kid wasn’t this awkward.

She no longer had a place in Swordflower College. She now hated that she couldn’t immediately shoulder a train and escape back home.

This absolutely wasn’t the truth. The Observer was controlling her mouth!

It didn’t count, this absolutely didn’t count!

After a long silence, Iris suddenly said, “Alright, let’s change clothes. No time to eat, we’ll head straight to the party venue.”

Sonya was pulled out of the dorm. As they went downstairs, Iris suddenly moved closer and whispered to her.

“I will watch over you.”