"Is it really not necessary tonight? I will accompany you to Oxenfurt Manor?"
Luvia sat next to Shade and asked again, but Shade shook his head:
"You stay here with Sirius. Tifa, Miss Swift, and Miss Hayley Aurora will also stay. If you really need help, the witches will call you."
He held Little Mia in his arms. After having lunch at noon, the cat immediately felt sleepy:
"When I come back from Oxenfurt Manor, I might need your help to look after Mia. It's quite hard work."
Luvia smiled:
"Sirius, you called by name... Yes, in your opinion, taking care of your cat is much more important than dealing with demons."
Hearing the voice coming from the stage, Shade stood up and walked over along the side stairs with Luvia. Seven or eight long brown lacquered wooden tables were gathered together, and the tables for preparing potions and maintaining alchemical items were separated.
Miss Hayley Aurora, who was wearing gold-rimmed glasses, was not wearing a relatively serious lady's formal dress today, but a purple mandala dress. She was holding the staff and looking at the items on the table with some confusion.
There were three candles on the table, one silver, one gold, and one black. Miss Hayley Aurora was discussing with the high-level sorceress, Miss Avril, who had accompanied the witches into the center of the swamp during the Pantanal War, which candle should be used to "light up" the staff:
"Different lights will grant different strengthening properties to the staff. The golden candle strengthens the teacher's control over 'light'; the silver candle grants additional effects in dispelling evil and curses; and the black candle can expand the range of the spell. But unfortunately, only one kind of light can be accepted at a time."
Seeing Shade and Luvia coming over, Miss Hayley Aurora explained with some confusion. Miss Avril first greeted Shade respectfully, and then suggested:
"I often hear young ladies praise Mr. Hamilton's light, which is quite dazzling. During the Battle of Pantanal, I was also fortunate enough to see your moonlight. How about trying it with your light?"
Luvia on the side also encouraged Shade to give it a try, so Hailey Aurora tilted the long wooden stick that was as tall as a person, and Shade held the diamond on the top with his left hand and stretched out his right fingertips:
"Silver Moon."
The faint moonlight from the fingertips touched the top of the staff, and the silver moonlight seemed to fill the inside of the diamond in an instant. As the diamond emitted a light like real moonlight, three rune chains intertwined into chain marks appeared on the originally smooth surface of the oak staff, writing praises for the moonlight in the language of the elves.
“It was very successful.”
Luvia smiled and said:
"It's a pity that Yin Luna can only come to see us in the evening, otherwise we could let her come and give it a try."
“The moonlight is so beautiful.”
Miss Haley Aurora was still staring at Shade's fingertips. Her soft sigh was heard by Shade. Seeing Shade looking at her, she blushed and turned her head slightly, which made Luvia's smile even brighter.
After saying goodbye to Hayley and Miss Avril, Shad and Luvia chatted as they went behind the scenes of the stage, then turned into the corridor and decided to see what everyone else was doing.
"You just said that you would entrust Mia to me after you return from Oxenfurt Manor."
The purple-eyed girl looked at the cat sleeping soundly in Shade's arms:
"So after returning from Oxenfurt Manor, you're going to check on the Chosen One?"
"Of course. Even if we solve the demon, what happened tonight is only the beginning. We'll see how the situation is. If it's not too dangerous, you can go with me. I'll let the other girls in the opera house take care of Mia."
"Are you finally willing to take a girl like me, who has no fighting ability, to a dangerous battlefield?"
Her words were definitely sarcastic, and Shade knew that Luvia's fighting ability was definitely not weak.
From the backstage corridor, we turned into Public Dressing Room No. 5, and then entered Performance Hall No. 2 from the backstage. There were no fewer busy ladies here than next door. Miss Carina's followers occupied this place, and Tifa was leading them to prepare potions and check spellcasting materials.
Although the group had made sufficient preparations before setting out from Tobisk City, they still needed to make further preparations before the war.
“It’s like returning to the Fifth Era.”
When Shade and Luvia walked onto the stage together, the female fortune teller joked:
"Before the witch emperors set out on their campaigns, the court witches and magic advisors helped prepare weapons and spellcasting materials."
"The environment here is not even as good as the courtyards of the Witch Emperors of the Fifth Epoch."
Tifa put down the small bottle in her hand and greeted them. It was very interesting that most of the girls here were still wearing black and white maid dresses like Tifa, instead of wearing casual clothes like Miss Aurora's followers.
"However, the young lady's palace in Saradir County can be compared with the courts of the Witch Emperors."
Shade had always heard that Miss Carina was almost a true queen of the duchy in Saradir County, so she had a rather grand palace. However, he had never actually seen it, but had only seen a distant view of the palace, which was praised as "a building that can only be owned by the Elf Kingdom."
"What are you doing?"
Luvia asked curiously. On the table in front of Tifa were potion bottles, alcohol lamps, test tube racks, and some magic-driven centrifugal, distillation, and calcination devices. Although the equipment was not as complete as in the basement of the Augustus priest, it was enough to deal with most scenarios.
"Prepare the potion 'All Poisons' for the young lady. This potion can deal with most poisons and neutralize the conflicting toxicities in other potions."
After more than 1,800 years of development in the Sixth Era, potion science itself has become quite mature and systematic. As long as you don't drink too many potions, you don't have to worry about the toxicity of modern potion formulas. But if you drink multiple potions together, you need to consider the toxicity caused by pharmacological conflicts.
"Oh, I know this. Non-chemistry majors at St. Byron's won't learn this kind of potion until their seventh year."
Luvia said, Tifa nodded, her pretty eyebrows slightly frowned:
"The preparation of 'Wan Du Ling' is very complicated, and the potion is only valid for one week. We did some preliminary preparations in Tobesk and prepared the potion precursors that had not yet been processed. I wanted to prepare the potion with Martha this afternoon, but I found that we forgot to bring the most important 'Colorless Honeysuckle'."
"Martha" refers to the young lady with long black curly hair beside Tifa, who is in the middle ring and also dressed as a maid. Shad often sees her in the Carina Manor in Tobesk.
"Colorless honeysuckle is a plant that can only grow in the north. It can't be found in the Randall River Valley, right?"
"Yes, maybe we can ask other witches, maybe they have extra, or check the local black market. If that doesn't work, we can only use ordinary honeysuckle as a substitute, but that will reduce the efficacy."
Miss Martha said, and Luvia looked at Shade:
"Miss Lathers hasn't come back yet. Anyway, it's okay. Can we go ask other witches for help? Or, aren't you familiar with the local area? How about taking some time to go to the black market? But if you do that, you won't be able to do anything else."
"There is another way. Wait a moment."
Xia De said that he did not choose the first two methods, but closed his eyes and searched for the knowledge in his head.
The knowledge brought by the witch's remnant is quite complicated, and most of it is incomplete. Until now, Shad cannot say that he has fully mastered any of the principal, Felina the librarian, Orlanod the Ice Witch, Chloe Yin the Witch Emperor, Violet the Undead Witch, Theresa, and long-haired Luvia.
However, he seemed to have some knowledge about the "Wanduling Spirit". He searched his mind and soon got the answer:
"Ordinary honeysuckle can actually be used as a substitute to achieve the best medicinal effect. However, it requires silver powder, Stryker high-efficiency catalyst, and a little egg white for filtering. I'll write the formula for you."
He found a piece of paper and pen on the messy desk and started writing. Luvia watched from the side. She did not doubt the authenticity:
"Did you learn this from our priest friends?"
"No, I learned it from a witch in the past."
In fact, this is Luvia's knowledge.
"I've never heard that 'Wan Du Ling' can be configured like this."
Miss Martha sighed:
"Even if this is knowledge from the Fifth Age and not our own creation, this formula alone is enough to publish a good article."
Shade suspected that this knowledge would only appear in the future after the Sixth Era 1854. However, the time point of the Sixth Era in the present world had not yet reached that year.
After dealing with the issues with Miss Carina's followers, Shad exchanged a few more words with Tifa, and after accepting a kiss on the cheek as a blessing for tonight's actions, he left and continued to wander around the opera house.
"When Tifa kissed you just now, the other maids were laughing."
Luvia said, very interested:
"I actually really want to know what Miss Carina thinks of the relationship between you and her personal maid/apprentice."
"Hmm... This question is really hard to answer."
Xia De thought seriously for a while before giving an answer, and Luvia did not ask any more questions:
"I've always thought that Miss Carina is too lenient with her apprentices... It could also be because they have a good relationship, and Tifa's methods are stronger than we thought."
"Luvia, let's not talk about me anymore. How about we get back to the topic?"
Shade asked, and went back to the backstage corridor with Luvia. Everyone had something to do, and there were quite a few girls walking along the corridor carrying boxes or potions.
Xia De also curiously asked the accountant of the opera troupe who was pushing the food cart whether there were also potion materials on the food cart. Then he found out that she was going to the basement to deliver afternoon tea to the four big witches.
"Let's get back to the point... What do you think is the possibility of God descending tonight?"
Luvia asked, immediately getting to the most serious topic.
"Almost 100 percent. It's not that I don't have faith in the church, but ... it's my sixth sense."
Shade said, and Luvia nodded thoughtfully:
"Then the next question is, are you ready to destroy Oxenfurt, then destroy the guardian, and then use the flowers of the four seasons you collected to let Miss Lathers perform the ceremony?"
Xia De slowed down his pace and looked at her:
"Have you misunderstood my plan? I never thought of making Sirius the chosen one."
The purple-eyed girl smiled and asked:
"Why? Because the Guardians are more useful to us? Or because you have figured out how to reverse their madness?"
“Neither.”
Xia De frowned slightly:
"In my opinion, the act of making Sirius the chosen one is no different from Mr. Lathers's act of leaving the entire Golden Dawn to her more than ten years ago without saying a word. Although I admire and respect the Guardian, and I know that Mr. Lathers may have had his own difficulties back then, I look down on this kind of behavior."
"Shade, Shade, that's why you attract more and more girls."
Luvia sighed softly, and added before Shade tried to explain:
"But I still like you, my knight."
She moved a little closer to Shad, and the sleeping cat meowed in its sleep. It was not disturbed at all by Shad and Luvia's talking.
The two continued walking forward, this time arriving at the performance hall occupied by Miss Sylvia's followers. Miss Sylvia herself had no apprentices, and had been a witch the shortest, so she didn't have many followers, but it was still very lively here.
Most of Miss Sylvia's followers have spatial talents, or at least can use a spatial ability. When Shade and Luvia found this place, most girls were maintaining alchemical props and preparing potions at the edge of the stage, but the five highest-ranking girls were on the stage, using yellow and red paint mixed with gold powder to draw a huge pentagram ritual array.
Densely packed runes were filled into the gaps of the pentagram, and it was unknown whether this was done intentionally, but in Shade's eyes, the pentagram actually looked more like a spider web. Shade didn't even have to look closely to feel that the space was shifting subtly due to the formation of the ritual array.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Hamilton."
The one who greeted Shade was Miss Sylvia's personal maid, who was also Miss Sylvia's assistant as the princess's personal doctor. She was 26 years old and an 8th-ring sorceress, Miss Decket.
"Good afternoon. Luvia and I are just taking a look around. Do you need any help?"
"Miss said that you can prohibit all special spatial phenomena except your own within a certain range. So can you activate the thaumaturgy and let us complete the next step?"