Chapter 451 - The Witches...
"Elder, is there a potion or a way that can increase my mental energy capacity extensively?" Felix inquired.
"There is." Lady Sphinx added calmly, "If you want it, you need to trade one of your intelligence enhancement potions."
"I am willing."
Felix didn't hesitate to accept the deal. Mental energy was a must-have for potion-concoction and also for battle purposes.
However, those intelligence enhancement potions were bonuses to help him in his path, not a necessity.
Hence, losing one wouldn't affect him much.
"Let me check my stock if I still have one lying around." A couple of seconds later, Lady Sphinx said, "I will have my servant send it to you."
Felix nodded his head and waited patiently in his room.
15 minutes later...
The maid had brought the potion and took one from Felix, concluding the deal.
Felix beamed the potion in the spatial card, having no plans to drink it now since that would affect him negatively.
After all, he just drunk a potion related to the brain and he couldn't drink another right away.
...
15 minutes later...
Felix was standing in front of the castle's gate, wearing a formal suit. Although he was already enrolled in the Academy, he had yet to get his own uniform.
A few moments later, Felix's ride had arrived. Surprisingly, it wasn't a carriage but a classy red hovercar.
The driver wasn't Lara but another witch, who appeared like she was in her twenties.
Scarlet, short hair was pulled back to reveal a lean, charming face. Freckles were spread neatly around her nose and cheekbones, leaving a pleasant feeling to those who saw her.
Unlike Lara, she had a warm smile on her face, making anyone feel relaxed to be beside her.
"Hop in." She said, smiling charmingly.
Felix opened up the front seat door and sat next to her. After he closed it, he extended his hand for a polite handshake while introducing himself with a faint smile, "Felix, nice to meet you."
The witch ignored his handshake and give him a quick friendly hug, making Felix raise his eyebrows in surprise.
"I am Lobna, Teacher Dalilia's 978th student and your soon-to-be senior in the Academy." Lobna beamed warmly, "So no need for formalities."
'Well, she seems nice.' Felix thought to himself before saying, "I appreciate the ride, senior."
Lobna pressed on autopilot and turned to face Felix with her soul-capturing blue eyes, showing an unfiltered curiosity and a bit of excitement?
'Here we go.' Felix sighed to himself after seeing her look. A look he knew that he would be receiving a lot in the upcoming days.
"When the teacher told me that a human is going to join the Academy, I thought you are going to be a gardener or something, not a student." Lobna leaned closer to Felix and asked, "So how did you do it? Only witches can be students and I doubt that you can concoct potions when you don't have the spiritual eye."
Felix glanced at her tail's eye that was giving him a curious look and answered casually, "I don't have a spiritual eye but I was lucky enough to be born with something like it."
'Shameless.' Asna insulted reflexively, 'I feel bad for big sis Sphinx.'
On the other hand, Lady Sphinx's eyelids twitched but she didn't say anything at his bullshit.
"Can you please show it to me?" Lobna gave him a puppy look.
"I don't see why not." Felix shrugged his shoulders and activated his Quantum Vision while being face to face with her.
That made her see the entire process of how his white triangle-like pupil had expanded to its limit to allow the emergence of a new bloodish red reversed triangle pupil!
Before Lobna could comment, Felix blinked once and his eyes returned to normal.
Upon seeing that she was left in astonishment, Felix raised an eyebrow and asked, "Don't you hate me or feel threatened at all?"
"Why would I?" Lobna wondered.
"You know...I am from a different race yet I will be learning potion-making." Felix stated with a weird look, "I doubt other witches would have been this cool about it."
Lobna looked at his eyes and giggled while covering her mouth, "You are truly too silly. You think we will consider one human learning potion-making as a threat? Even if millions of you showed up, most witches will be more curious about your ability to concoct potions instead of worrying about you guys stealing business and craft from us."
Lobna manifested a hologram with numbered data on it and said with an annoyed tone, "This is my monthly homework. I need to concoct 30 Brew of Haste. Otherwise, I will have my contribution points reduced."
"It's mandatory?!"
Felix drew a deep breath at the sound of that. He knew that Brew of Haste was a rank 1 potion that's a little bit more difficult to concoct than rejuvenation potion. Yet, Lobna must concoct 30 of them monthly?
"Sigh, the moment you pass the 1st semester, every witch will get those monthly 'homeworks' as well." She shook her head, "That's because in this wide universe only us witches can supply potions."
"Hence, every witch has a mandatory quota that needs to be fulfilled each month even after graduation."
'Dear God, they became slaves to their own craft.'
Felix was horrified by Lobna's narration as those things weren't written in the network, or they were written but no one cared about it.
In everyone's eyes, the Witches were rich, elite, and one of the superior races due to their potions.
But, what most people failed to see was the work behind the daily potions supply that was keeping the majority satisfied.
If it wasn't for those mandatory quotas, the rejuvenation potions wouldn't be common and sold cheaply at 10k SC but found at five times their price.
That's only if you managed to find them.
"Enough with this vexing subject, tell me more about your eyes." Lobna pointed at her tail's eye and said with a proud tone, "My spiritual eye allows me to see everything in slow motion for ten seconds."
"No wonder elder Dalilia picked you as her student." Felix raised his eyebrows in surprise at the sound of that.
Hence, he understood that since witches weren't born from parents and didn't have any family relations, they need a system of parenting emplaced to raise the newly born witches.
That system was based on senior witches having a mandatory duty to adopt at minimum 5 newly-born witches. They need to feed them, house them, teach them about life...etc.
Since 'parent' term wasn't being used in the witch empire, this mandatory relation was being considered as teacher/student relation.
Naturally, this relation wouldn't last for long.
In fact, the moment witches graduate from their elementary school and are fully prepared to learn about potion-making in the Academies, the younger witches would be considered as a.d.u.l.ts that could take care of themselves.
They have gotten a childhood, learned about life and the universe in elementary school.
Now it was time to learn about potion-making in the Academies so they could graduate and start their own life as full-fledged expert Potioneer witches!
Frankly speaking, Felix always believed that this system was quite flawed since it makes parenting a mandatory chore.
He knows for a fact that quite a lot of senior witches prefer to isolate themselves in their research and potion-making instead of giving time to the newly born witches.
Most of them just let their maids take care of babysitting those witches, acting like their mothers.
The moment those witches enter the Academies, that nonexistent relationship with the senior witches breaks off immediately.
However, witches with high authority like Sage Dalilia, don't get assigned a random newly born witch but choose who they wanted to teach since they had no intentions of breaking off the relations!
The newly born witches chosen were typically the gifted ones in potion-making!
Gifted in the sense, their spiritual eye had another beneficial trait in either their learning or concoction.
For example, Lobna's trait allowed her to see everything in slow motion for ten seconds.
This might not seem like a good trait in normal daily life but in potion-making?
It was a god-like trait!
However, there were other traits that might be good in normal daily life but absolutely useless in potion-making. Such as having an additional X-ray vision or infrared vision.
Sadly, Felix had all types of visions but none of them were useful in potion-making.
This made him have the minimum requirement to be a potioneer but not excel in it and be considered a genius.
Hence, Felix came clean and told Lobna that he didn't have any useful traits.
"Don't worry." Lobna comforted him with a tight friendly hug while saying, "Having an addition trait merely provides a bit of help. The most important factor will still be knowledge and practice."
"I couldn't agree more." Felix nodded his head while hugging her tightly with a solemn expression.
In other situations, Asna would have called Felix a perv since she could read that his thoughts weren't proper at the hug.
But she let him have it since she knew that Lobna wasn't seeing Felix as a man but merely as a pet that needed comforting.
All of this due to their nonexistent gender, reproductive system, or s.e.x hormones.
Felix was just about to arrive at the Royal Academy that was filled with ten thousand elitist witches that were just like this.
'Hehe, by the time he graduates, he will turn into witch Felix for real.' Asna laughed in delight while watching those two separate from the hug.