Chapter 253: Suffering for half a month, then being able to vent once.

The long winter holiday arrived, and Little Will once again achieved excellent grades. This time, he even got full marks in everything, which eased Mojes’s worries about him.

Recently, she hadn’t had much energy to look after her son, because her precious son had brought her a new daughter: a cute one-year-old cat girl.

Little Via not only didn’t feel like her mother had been stolen, but she was also very friendly towards the little cat girl. Well, it was more like the friendliness one shows to a pet.

She often took Little Dark Night Spirit Cat to play with her, or rather, let Little Dark Night Spirit Cat and the little cat girl play with her.

As Leia and Yammy’s abilities improved, they were thriving at the Odd Jobs Agency, learning much more than before.

With Little Will backed by the Star Mountain Witches, it wasn’t difficult to obtain general witchcraft information, enough to supply witch apprentices with all aspects of their studies.

What’s more, the Odd Jobs Agency’s resources were now fully open to him.

It had been a week since the witch apprentice Karris joined the Odd Jobs Agency. At first, because the holiday hadn’t arrived, she had to return to Witch Jielie’s place every night.

Aside from two assessment tasks, she hadn’t gained much else, though she did get a glimpse into Zhulant’s daily life.

Well, how should I put it? It was quite fulfilling, even extremely busy.

The amount of information she studied every day was equivalent to what an ordinary person would absorb in a month, and there was basically an assessment every two or three days.

Karris had done this before, and it felt very subtle.

How to describe it? Without looking at the answers, she would need some time to figure things out, but after seeing the answers, she realized that the knowledge she had learned before could be applied in such ways.

No wonder Zhulant had a breakthrough; if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have passed the assessments. He was completely forced into it.

The Odd Jobs Agency rarely had outsiders, but some people were privileged and hard to stop, such as Big Sister Molly’s niece, Lilith.

She also had another title: the scholar boss’s prospective fiancée, though the prospective one wasn’t Lilith, but the scholar boss himself.

Even Leia, Yammy, and Nicole had to join the Odd Jobs Agency to stay here for extended periods, but Lilith, despite having no connection to the Odd Jobs Agency worth a single copper coin, could come and go as she pleased.

Amidst the “ding-a-ling” sound, Karris habitually arrived at the Odd Jobs Agency after completing her morning cultivation.

As for breakfast, it didn’t matter; she had eaten all sorts of delicious things with her grand-aunt, so there was no need to take advantage of such a small thing.

The hall was a bit livelier than before. Zhulant was sitting behind the service counter, as he usually did during the day, pretending to read a book carefully, making notes as he read.

But at this moment, he was listening intently to something and didn’t notice her arrival at all.

At a table nearby, five minors were gathered. They were all people she knew: the scholar, the boss of the Odd Jobs Agency; the violent girl, Xiaolu (Karris had been beaten up by her due to a verbal conflict); the elf doctor; the pure connections-based outsider, Lilith; and the super-strong loli sitting in the scholar boss’s lap.

Among the five, she could only defeat the non-combatant doctor (half-elf Leia) and the outsider Lilith.

That’s right, after Karris joined the Odd Jobs Agency, she looked down on the people there, and then she was successively educated by Xiaolu (Yammy), Cat Warrior (Nicole), Ice Block, Police Dog, and Black Merchant.

Finally, she was even defeated by the scholar boss and the super-strong loli, which greatly shattered her confidence and also changed her perception of the Odd Jobs Agency.

This was a monster concentration camp!

There were powerhouses like Great Warriors and First-Tier Bloodline Sorcerers, and the scholar boss, who seemed to only have the strength of an Intermediate Knight and a First-Tier Witch Apprentice, managed to play zero-level cantrips with such flair using a magic book that he actually defeated her, a Third-Tier Witch Apprentice, with cantrips.

The super-strong loli was even simpler: she swung her big hammer and charged, smashing her shield in one blow. If Karris didn’t concede, another hammer blow would follow, making Karris very sensibly surrender immediately.

Karris was about to say hello when she saw Zhulant make a shushing gesture. Lilith, completely lacking in ladylike demeanor, was gesticulating wildly and shouting loudly, “This deconstruction is definitely problematic!

Look here, here, and here. Aren’t they more similar to these three basic runes? This should mean temperature, wind, and light.”

“The meaning of basic runes is very broad. Under different combinations, they have different meanings, or rather, different runes combined together have different effects.

Even the same runes combined in different ways produce vastly different results. For example, these two basic runes can be seen used in both the Illumination Spell and the Fog Spell, but their roles are definitely not the same.”

“No, no, the origin of this basic rune shouldn’t be here. Don’t you think your deconstruction method is problematic, Classmate Will? Shouldn’t the twelfth basic rune be more appropriate?”

Lilith scribbled and drew on the paper, and in a blink of an eye, a new pattern appeared on the paper as she eloquently explained her insights.

“What are they doing?” Karris quietly approached Zhulant and whispered her question.

“Deconstructing zero-level cantrip models and then analyzing the principles of cantrip composition.” Zhulant’s words made Karris’s throat feel dry. What did she just hear?

Two First-Tier Witch Apprentices were actually analyzing these cantrip models that had been passed down for thousands of years. Wasn’t this a bit too incredible?

“Shouldn’t witchcraft be rigorous? Isn’t it dangerous for them to be so reckless?” Karris looked at the two First-Tier Witch Apprentices with a gaze that saw them as monsters, as they tore apart the Illumination Spell and the Fog Spell.

Over twenty sheets of paper were quickly filled with dense writing.

“They have already completed the analysis and improvement of the Copying Spell and the Reading Spell. The versions of the Copying Spell and Reading Spell I am currently learning and using are the improved versions.

They can save about a tenth of mental energy and increase speed and accuracy by a third.” Zhulant’s voice was very low, but to Karris’s ears, it was like a thunderclap.

“Monsters!” Karris was stunned for a long time, finally spitting out two words, then turned to Zhulant: “You’re with such monsters every day, don’t you feel a lot of pressure?”

“Not at all, because I knew from the start that I wasn’t on the same level as them. Actually, when they’re brainstorming, even a tiny spark of wisdom that I catch is a huge gain.

And they never avoid me, allowing me to witness how true geniuses grow up.”

“As they progress, I also learn a lot. As long as you calm down and genuinely believe in them, you’ll find your knowledge greatly improving without you even realizing it.

Learning and imitating them is what I’m currently doing.”

“And where do you think the applications of combined cantrips I tell you about come from? Haha, that was just their competition project last month, a competition to see whose combined cantrip was more complex and beautiful.

The Rainbow Bridge, and it was three continuous Rainbow Bridges connected, was Miss Lilith’s work.” Zhulant’s words made Karris suddenly realize that Zhulant had more than one teacher.

This guy was also secretly learning from another genius witch apprentice, and the other person didn’t even care.

“Did she win?” Karris felt this idea was very good, simple yet beautiful.

“No, she lost. Scholar Teacher’s thunder and lightning and rain of flowers were even more magnificent than hers, but the knowledge involved was too profound.

I only understood about a tenth of it and can’t reproduce it yet. To truly understand and achieve it, I’ll need at least half a year of study.” Zhulant’s voice seemed to be stating a fact, but Karris felt he was showing off.

However, Karris didn’t know that Zhulant’s heart was full of inferiority and bitterness. “Do you think that being with two—no, a group of monsters—I, an ordinary person, don’t feel any pressure?

What do you think I’m showing off in front of you for? If I don’t find some sense of superiority from you, I’m afraid I’ll lose confidence in the path of a witch!”

If Karris knew Zhulant’s thoughts, she would definitely beat him up severely. “You bastard, you actually want to find confidence from us geniuses? Who gave you such courage and guts?”

Gradually, Karris learned from Zhulant and focused her attention on them, only to find that she truly couldn’t keep up with their thinking, understanding only about thirty percent of what they discussed.

However, they communicated very quickly; she had just figured out one problem when she realized they had already discussed three or five problems and were moving on to the next.

They were all First-Tier Witch Apprentices, theoretically unable to cast cantrips with elemental attributes, but with the aid of magic books and exquisite magic control methods, they could perform many very simple zero-level cantrips.

But what did she see? Directly manifesting magic power in the form of threads, and then beginning to outline basic runes—what kind of magic control method was this? Karris felt a dizzy spell.

But what came next was even more terrifying to her: the two of them continuously refined the magic patterns, striving to construct a new cantrip model.

“Are you sure you’re not infusing too much magic? You know, a miss by a hair is a miss by a mile. This model is completely new, and the theory needs to be verified.

Are you sure it won’t blow up the entire place?” Lilith cautiously held the super-strong loli in her arms, slightly increasing the distance between herself and Little Will.

“So, you mean, give up?” Little Will countered, and Lilith shook her head repeatedly: “What I mean is, you go to the underground training ground to experiment, and come back and tell us when you have results.”

“No way, even if I go to hell, I should at least find a companion, otherwise it would be too lonely. And this model has your contribution, so how could I not let you see the effect of its first casting?”

Little Will chuckled. He had actually appraised it once with his Eye of Appraisal and sacrificed it to the God of Wisdom through the proxy spirit, gaining a hundred contribution points, and already had a general understanding of its effects.

The magic route construction was completed, and a ball of colorful light appeared out of thin air. Lilith and Little Will screamed in unison; the magic seemed to be a bit too much, dazzling their eyes.

On the other side, Zhulant and Karris wiped away tears, their faces filled with shock. They had actually improved a zero-level cantrip, although the effect seemed a bit—how to put it—it was clearly an auxiliary cantrip but had turned into a cantrip with decent destructive power and was extremely flashy.

“I want to go home. The witch profession is too profound. I’m not going to be a witch anymore.” Karris, with tears streaming down her face, asked dejectedly, “How on earth have you managed to endure for so long under their blows?”

“Endure for half a month, and then there’s an opportunity to vent, to transfer your powerlessness and frustration outwards.” Zhulant’s words left Karris momentarily stunned.

Half a month once, she mused after a moment’s thought?

Wait, this scoundrel isn’t talking about the bi-monthly gathering, is he? It seems, probably, possibly, it’s not entirely out of the question.

Learning their improved stuff, and then subtly revealing a tiny detail or knowledge point, would definitely shock those idiots speechless.

Wait, did Zhulant used to see me that way? Suddenly, I really want to hit someone, what should I do?