"Speaking of which, there is one more thing this time. Shade, last time you said that your cat can turn into a doll and follow you through the time gate."
After a brief moment of emotion, the witch continued the topic.
"Yes."
Xia De nodded:
“Maybe it’s a little too simple.”
"Meow~"
The cat squirmed a bit in his legs, trying to find a more comfortable position.
“So I have new ideas.”
Miss Carina reached out her hand to Tifa, and Tifa took out a dark brown glass bottle that was very familiar to Shade from the pocket of her long skirt. In the bottle was a pure white cat smaller than Mia.
The stranger narrowed his eyes:
"Looks familiar..."
"I'm very lucky. Some time ago, I bought a bottle of semi-finished potion - Cat in a Bottle - from the local black market. This potion has been expired for thirty years, and the seller said that it was once contaminated but purified. But it doesn't matter, there is a potion master in the parliament. I gave one-sixth of the finished potion to the seller on the black market, and got it at a price that was almost free."
The witch's fair hands shook the bottle in her hand slightly, and the white cat "sleeping" in the bottle immediately melted into liquid in the bottle. Shade was now almost certain that this was the bottle of potion that Father Augustus had shown him. (Note)
Unexpectedly, after going around in circles, this thing appeared in front of him again.
"Ms. Carina, do you want to..."
Xia De basically understood it.
"Now this bottle of precious potion is basically usable. But because it has been expired for too long, its efficacy is greatly reduced and can only last for less than three minutes. I want to give it a try."
She uncorked the bottle and looked at Shade, who praised her:
"You really have some ideas."
"Yes, I want to test whether someone who trusts you deeply can be affected by your spell if he is transformed into a cat. If so, I will look for other ways to transform people into animals."
It sounds feasible, but it involves the degree of mental changes when the body is transformed, which belongs to the more advanced content of transfiguration, so careful experiments are needed:
"Miss Carina, you want to drink it yourself?"
"Of course not. My level is too high and the potion has little effect on me."
She uncorked the bottle and handed it to Tifa behind her. Tifa shook the bottle again, turning the liquid that had gradually solidified into a half-cat shape over and over again, and then drank the liquid after the white cat melted without hesitation.
Xia De opened his mouth slightly to express his surprise, and Mia widened her eyes in horror, but unfortunately no one noticed it.
After drinking the liquid, the bottle in Tifa's hand suddenly fell, and she covered her mouth in pain.
"What's wrong?"
Karina stood up and tried to support her, but Tifa shook her head in pain.
"Miss, I feel so hot..."
As if unable to bear the pain, the body slowly squatted down and disappeared behind the sofa. Even the witch who had seen the world showed a surprised expression when she looked behind the sofa.
Xia De had already stood up, holding Mia and walked around the coffee table to the back of the sofa where Miss Carina was sitting.
The black-haired maid was no longer there, her skirt, white stockings, shoes, hair accessories, garters, and underwear were scattered on the ground, and a pure white cat was curled up on the clothes in a daze.
It wanted to stand up, but its four short legs seemed unable to support its body, so it staggered and fell down again.
"Meow~ Meow~"
The little white cat opened its mouth slightly, but made a cat's meow. It looked at the surprised Xia De in confusion:
"This cat... is so beautiful. Oh, it really has turned into a cat."
"So what did you expect?"
The relieved witch asked.
"Become half human, half cat..."
Somehow, I suddenly thought of my friend Professor Manning.
"Meow?"
Mia on Shad's shoulder did not appreciate the beautiful appearance of this "Tifa cat" like Shad did. Her fur was standing on end, and she made an unprecedented threatening roar towards the Tifa cat on his clothes.
It was obvious that Mia felt that her position in the family was seriously threatened.
Mia kept waving her claws, so Shade moved it from his shoulder to his pocket. Then he bent down and picked up Tifa from the pile of clothes, then walked back to the front of the sofa and sat back in his original position.
"This is also the first time I've seen someone use this kind of potion."
Miss Carina looked very curious, and Mia took advantage of Shade sitting down to escape from his pocket and onto the sofa. Seeing Shade holding the white kitten, it continued to growl with its fur ruffled.
Shad reached out and touched Mia twice, and as her voice faded, he picked up the towel that had been prepared long ago and covered the pure white Tifa cat, who was still trying to stand on four legs.
A cat, probably smaller than Mia, was squirming under the towel. After a few seconds, Shade frowned and took the towel. The cat was still a cat:
"like water off a duck's back."
"It's within expectations. I would be surprised if it succeeded so easily."
The red-haired witch said, and then motioned for Shade to hand the white cat to her.
The newly appeared white cat Tifa and the orange and white cat Mia raised by Shade are both kittens. But I don't know if it's because of the potion, Tifa's body temperature is higher and softer. But this is someone else's "cat", so Shade handed the cat over.
Since she also had a cat in her own manor, Miss Carina placed the little white cat on her knees and stroked it with a very familiar technique:
"This is the first time I've touched you like this."
She said jokingly to the cat.
Seeing that the cat was taken away by someone else, Mia recovered a little. She jumped onto Shade's knees and even patted the place where the white cat had just been lying with her paws. Then she lay down again, her little head against Shade's legs, looking at the cat being held across the coffee table.
The white kitten, still in a daze, didn't notice the hostility it was facing at all.
"Anyway, you can use this key from 3014 next time. If it has nothing to do with Miss Felena, remember to tell me and I will think of a way to find another key."
"Okay, use it in the early hours of Sunday morning."
Shad said.
In fact, according to the schedule, the new key could be opened on Saturday afternoon. But he also wanted to give himself a little rest. He was no longer as anxious about everything as he was when he first came into this world.
"Okay."
Miss Carina nodded, and seeing that Shade was staring at Tifa Cat, she asked curiously:
“Is there something wrong with this cat?”
"I just wanted to remind you that there is one minute and three seconds left until three minutes. Because the duration of the potion varies from person to person, you'd better take Tifa to the bedroom as soon as possible."
Xia De looked out the window. Although it was still foggy today, the sunlight in the early autumn morning was still strong. He could even see the dust falling in the sunlight.
"After all, when a cat turns back into a human, it has no clothes on... The supernatural system in this world is really reasonable. When summoning a skeleton horse, no harness will appear, and transfiguration does not include clothes."
"Knight, you are truly a gentleman."
The Duchess holding the cat commented, playing with Tifa's tail, and a smile appeared on her lips as she thought of something.
Nothing interesting happened today. Miss Carina stayed at Shade's place all day, copying Miss Felina's notebook in the study. She knew the characters of the Fifth Age, so copying was relatively smooth.
As for Tifa, she successfully transformed back into human form and changed back into clothes in Shade's bedroom. After she came back from the bedroom with her head down and her face flushed, pulling at the hem of her skirt, she did not speak to Miss Carina until she met the chef who was invited from the high-end restaurant on Silver Cross Avenue to bring ingredients to cook lunch here.
It was certainly inappropriate for a maid to treat her master like this, but Shad could understand that the dark-haired girl seemed very angry about Miss Carina playing with "her" tail.
"Is there anything peculiar about a cat's tail?"
Shad touched Mia's tail and it twitched. The cat looked at Shad and saw that he had no intention of touching the two rings on its tail, so it lay down beside him again and enjoyed the peace of the afternoon.
It was not until eight o'clock in the evening that Miss Carina, who was very fast, finished copying the notebook. She discussed the blank space in the notebook with Shade again, and looked at Shade's house while talking:
"You live in such a big house by yourself. It must be very tiring to clean it, right? Also, you don't wash your own clothes, do you?"
She saw the clothes hanging on Xia De's balcony in the morning:
"How about this, I will send maids to help you clean the house and wash your clothes every week. A young gentleman like you should be more respectable. In the past, you only used a room on the second floor, but now it's different, Shad. Instead of hiring a housekeeper who comes from nowhere, I would rather send a trustworthy servant to help you."
Her suggestion was quite good. Although Xia De was a little embarrassed, some rooms still needed to be swept and mopped every week even if they were not used, and the glass had to be cleaned every now and then, which was indeed very troublesome. Moreover, when he was doing the laundry a few days ago, he had thought about hiring someone to do these housework, so he nodded in agreement.
He found the spare key of the house and gave it to the black-haired maid in charge of this matter. He agreed that every Saturday afternoon, a servant could be sent from the Duchess's manor to clean the house. He would put the clothes to be washed in the basin in advance, lock the door that no one was allowed to enter, and leave a note to explain the areas that needed to be cleaned.
I chose Saturday because he is not at home on Saturday afternoon and cleaning will not disturb him.
As for security, Shad was not worried at all. His secrets were hidden behind the hidden wall in the basement. As long as he locked the study on the second floor, the most valuable things in the house were actually the furniture. But apart from the furniture left by Detective Sparrow, most of the furniture in No. 6 St. Teresa's Square was moved from Miss Carina's estate, so Shad was not worried about theft.
"But if this happens, I'll need to bring Mia with me when I go to the doctor every Saturday."
He stood at the edge of Saint Teresa's Square as night fell, waving goodbye to the departing convoy.
When I turned around and prepared to go home, I happened to meet my neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, who were walking their dog. The old man used to be a secretary in the Kingdom's Finance Department and obviously knew Miss Carina's motorcade.
He nodded cautiously to Xia De and said with a sigh:
“Young people today are really amazing.”
Xia De took this as a compliment to himself.