My physics masters couldn't possibly be grand mages.

As the morning light peeked through the gaps in the curtains, Xia was burying himself under the covers.

He had a very long dream.

There was no Tower of Truth, no magic, no Golden Family in the dream. There was only a desolate ruin, suffocating under a leaden-gray sky.

Those once towering buildings now stand on the earth like dead giants, the air thick with the smell of rotting flesh and burnt meat—a smell he knew all too well, so well that he could feel his stomach churning even in his dreams.

Something was moving in the distance, enormous in size, its outline blurred in the low-visibility clouds, but no sound could be heard.

He wanted to run, but his legs felt as heavy as lead.

Then someone knocked on the door.

"Char," Tesla's voice came from outside the door, neither loud nor soft, "Time to get up."

Xia opened his eyes, stared at the ceiling for two seconds, and then slowly his consciousness emerged from that world. He turned over, sighed, and sat up.

Perhaps it's because I went to 2072 yesterday, but some unpleasant memories have started to surface.

The aroma of coffee was already wafting up from downstairs.

When he finished washing up and came downstairs, Einstein was sitting at the dining table with a cup of coffee in his hand.

Today he wore a dark gray coat instead of the white robe with gilded tassels, looking like an ordinary old neighbor.

Tesla was standing in the kitchen doorway, stuffing a few sandwiches into a brown paper bag.

"Didn't you sleep well last night?" Einstein glanced at Char.

"It's alright." Xia rubbed his eyes, sat down at the dining table, and poured himself a cup of coffee. "It's just... I had a lot of dreams."

"I didn't sleep well last night either," Einstein said, taking a sip of coffee. "There was someone walking on the stairs."

He nodded in Tesla's direction. "I thought the old man had a problem with his bladder and often had to get up at night, but he said he didn't."

Einstein lowered his voice and said, "Probably for the sake of saving face."

"I heard you," Tesla's voice came from the side.

Char paused, as if remembering something. "Is it that... ghost that Meredith mentioned when she brought us here?"

Einstein didn't say anything. He stuffed the last piece of bread into his mouth, stood up, and dusted the crumbs off his hands.

"Whatever it is, this friend doesn't seem to have any ill intentions towards us, nor does he seem to have any intention of telling on us."

Char took a big gulp of coffee, which burned his teeth.

"Shall we go to the library after we eat?" Einstein asked.

"Together?" Xia asked.

"Together." Tesla placed the paper bag on the table. "Let's look for information about the 'Witch' today, starting with the East District."

The morning mist in the valley had not yet dissipated.

Three people were walking on the stone path leading to the library. Einstein walked in front, a pipe in his mouth, unlit. Tesla walked beside him.

Char walked at the back, carrying the brown paper bag, the sandwiches inside swaying gently with his steps.

A few early risers were scattered along the road. When they saw these three people, they instinctively made way for them and then whispered among themselves.

Xia vaguely heard words like "It's him," "That first place," and "Is that the sixth-ranked one in front of him?" but he didn't pay any attention to them.

—Actually, it's all an act; his tail is already wagging in the air.

The white stone building emerged from the fog.

There were only a handful of people in the rotunda. Behind the circular service desk sat a young woman in a gray robe. She looked up and saw Einstein, her eyes lighting up noticeably.

Einstein placed the badge on the table. The woman picked up the crystal wand and tapped it; the badge made a soft click.

"Identity confirmed: Albert Einstein. Sixth Order." Her voice was slightly tense, carrying a deliberately suppressed respect. "What assistance do you require?"

"No need," Einstein said. "We'll find it ourselves."

They didn't want to reveal their actual extreme lack of common sense about the magical world, so they rarely asked the front desk staff to find books.

Compared to their first visit, they were clearly much more experienced.

They were scattered in front of different bookshelves.

Char crouched down, his fingers tracing the spines of a row of books. "Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures," "Distribution of Ether Veins," "Study of Ancient Relics"... none of them.

He pulled out a book titled "The History of Summoning from Another Dimension," quickly flipping through a few pages. It contained records of ancient magicians attempting to summon creatures from other dimensions, but made no mention of "witches." He put the book back and continued his search.

On the other side, Tesla stood in front of a taller bookshelf, tiptoed, and pulled out an absurdly thick book, "A Compendium of Sealing Techniques." He flipped through it, his brow furrowing slightly, and then put it back.

Einstein stood by the window, a thin booklet in his hand, his grey-blue eyes scanning the table of contents. A few seconds later, he shook his head.

Xia Ya snapped out of his reverie, and suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a book. The spine had no gold foil stamping, no title, only a line of handwritten, almost faded words.

The Witch's Secrets.

"Found it," he said, his voice not loud, but exceptionally clear in the quiet corridor.

Einstein and Tesla both looked at him.

Char took the book off the shelf and walked to the reading area.

He placed the book on the table and opened it to the first page. The paper was yellowed, but the handwriting was still clear.

Einstein walked over, stood beside him, and glanced down at him.

"Open it and take a look," he said.

Char flipped to the table of contents.

Part 1: The Birth of a Witch - The Transformation Ritual from Human to Non-Human.

He glanced at Einstein. The old man nodded his chin, gesturing for him to turn over.

The pages made a soft, crisp sound under my fingertips.

He began to read.

"Witches are not born."

He paused for a moment, then continued reading.

Three hundred years ago, a war broke out between the Tudors and the Bauhinia that lasted for twenty years.

The cause is long forgotten; some say it was about territory, others about trade routes, and still others about a humiliated envoy in the courts of both countries.

The war lasted for twenty years, and both countries were impoverished.

Tudors lost three provinces, and the Bauhinia burned down seven cities. Neither side won nor lost; however, when the armistice was signed, both sides harbored resentment.

After the ceasefire, a strange disease began to spread in the Bauhinia country.

Those infected first experience general weakness, then develop black patches on their skin, and finally die from violent convulsions. The disease is extremely contagious; it takes no more than half a month for the entire village to be infected from the first case.

It can't be cured, and nobody knows how to cure it.

War, famine, plague—people couldn't explain or cope with these hardships, and panic spread like wildfire. People began to search for reasons—someone had to be held responsible for all of this.

They set their sights on women who lived alone, did not socialize, knew how to brew herbal medicine, were too beautiful, too ugly, too old, or too young...

"It's a curse they brought."

What started as mere gossip escalated into accusations and eventually into a trial.

The Tudor and Bauhinia churches issued witch hunt edicts almost simultaneously. For each "witch" captured, the church would reward ten gold coins. Those who provided clues would be rewarded with three coins.

With such a generous reward, informers sprang up everywhere. Daughters told their mothers, neighbors told their neighbors, and husbands told their wives.

No one knows exactly how many people were burned to death.

The book didn't include any numbers. It only wrote one sentence: "The smoke from the stake obscured the sky, and even the sun turned red."

Char's fingers tightened slightly.

"However, the real tragedy occurred in Ngapali, a small town north of the Bauhinia..."

That winter, seventeen women accused of being "witches" were imprisoned in the city of Vissan. They were locked in a dungeon, awaiting their burning at the stake in the spring.

The oldest was 73 years old, and the youngest was only 12 years old.

The twelve-year-old girl was named Ella. She simply told her neighbor, "Your sheep will die tomorrow," and the next day the sheep really did die—it was actually in labor and should have died much earlier. But the neighbor didn't believe her.

Life in the dungeon moved slowly. There was no light, no sound, only the clanging of chains and the incessant coughing.

Every day, Ella would ask, "When can we go home?"

No one answered her.

After the spring arrived, the day of execution came.

Seventeen people were tied to the stake. The pyre was doused with oil, and the torches were lit. The square was packed with onlookers; some laughed, some cursed, and some threw stones at them.

Ella was tied to the middle pillar. She didn't cry, she just kept trembling.

The torches were raised.

Then--

The handwriting on the pages suddenly changed here.

The font was no longer neat and tidy; it was slightly distorted. Only then did Xia realize that the book was actually just a handwritten copy.

"The women in the dungeon, during their three months of imprisonment... they prayed. Not to the church, but to the darkness. To the depths of the earth, to those 'things' that no one dared to mention."

"They did not pray for salvation."

"What they prayed for was... revenge."

The moment the flames ignited, the wails of the seventeen people merged into a piercing, inhuman scream.

It didn't come out of the throat.

It comes from underground.

It was from the crack beneath their feet that led straight to the abyss.

The book reads: At that moment, the sky above the city of Visang cracked open.

A dark red light shone through the crack, like a giant eye slowly opening.

Then, something that didn't belong to this world poured out of the crack...

In the city of Visan, 37,000 people died overnight.

The seventeen women on the execution platform were also gone.

There were no corpses, no ashes. Only charred iron chains and an empty stake remained.

Since then, every few decades, disasters have returned silently like a tide.

Without warning, without cause, overnight, a village, a town, even an entire province became a dead zone.

And at the heart of disaster, there is always one person.

a woman.

No one knows where they came from.

Until one day.

Someone recognized a face amidst the ruins of a massacre—

That face belonged to the twelve-year-old girl from Visang City.

Ella.

Later people learned that the seventeen women who were burned to death in Visang did not actually die.

They made a contract with something.

It turned into something.

An extremely powerful being that exists somewhere between humans and magical creatures.

——Witch.