The Villain Princess survived the Imperial Riot

"One of the two teacups contains a confusing agent."

Volume 43: The Dreamer: . Castling

Climbing the mountain path, streets stretched out on either side, and enclosed buildings nestled within the mountain's caverns. Atop the buildings sat a hemispherical shell, its concave arc extending toward the rising moon. Tens of thousands of smooth, delicate pieces of crystal glass adorned the curved surface, resembling waves rising from the mountain's peak.

Ceremony classroom.

The vast room was already about half full. On the curved podium, a hexagram painted in the center, the midday sun, refracted through the crystal glass, cast a dazzling glow. The concentrated shadows of light slowly shifted along the lines of the hexagram, interweaving dots and lines, creating a shimmering brilliance.

Hestia, Chloe, and Viola sat in the front row. There was a desk-like storage table on the side of their seats, and in front of them was a small open space of about 4 square meters, covered with parchment scrolls.

In addition to teaching, the Academy of Arcane Magic also has many arcane research and experimental projects, which gather nearly 9% of the arcane sorcerers in Cloudtop City. Therefore, more than people come here to observe. Arcane scholars in the fields of alchemy and potions also hope to seek some enlightenment from the teachings of a wise man.

"So why did Valle give Dean Garcia the confuse drug?"

"I don't know. Perhaps Valle wants something from Garcia? Worms can seduce anyone. Perhaps Valle is a worm, and he simply wants to lead Garcia astray."

Hestia and Chloe were sitting across the table from each other, whispering in each other's ears.

Seeing this, Viola suddenly felt the frustration of being ignored by the princess. Neither the moth nor the medical association seemed to be something she could participate in.

But if she was such a useless little person, how could she be looked upon by the princess?

The black-haired girl was determined to get the princess to look her in the eye, even if it meant having her stall smashed and being humiliated like on the first day. At the very least, she hoped to be a useful maid, someone who would make the princess say, "You're better than me."

Turning worry into motivation, Weilin Aola took out a copy of "Classic Discussions on Advanced Arcane Magic" from her bag and began to review her notes seriously.

Although Lady Aynive was a spiritual practitioner, she was a hermit on the spiritual path, the path of manifestation, and was capable of leading her on the path of wisdom. However, the little maid still needed more psychological preparation and had not yet decided whether the secret treasure of omniscience was more suitable for pursuit or whether the aura was more suitable for the spiritual path.

Madam Ainiwei said that she was equally suitable for the Path of True Faith of the Lamp-Hidden Branch Path or the Path of Obscurity of the Lamp-Hidden Branch Path, but those two paths currently belonged to the realm of radiance and were beyond the scope of her teaching.

Theoretically, there are countless paths between the roots, but the brilliance of the gods and elders will cover up the paths under the "shadows" like a bright candle, so that later secret practitioners can only know their domains.

Soon, a graceful gentleman with thick blond hair walked up to the podium. He was over sixty, but he still had the health and vitality of a strong middle-aged man. He rested his leather-gloved hands on the podium, glanced at every member of the audience in the spacious classroom, and calmly accepted the thunderous applause.

Hestia closed her eyes and her consciousness sank into the border of the Witch's Book.

The chaotic interweaving of spiritualities made Hestia unable to distinguish which secret cultivators those hills, grasses, trees, and bandages crawling on the ground belonged to. But it seemed that there were at least a dozen wanderers in this hall.

"worm……"

Hestia saw disgusting blue-black mycelium spreading on the "podium" filled with white bones. The mycelium was tangled into eggs, as if hatching worms. The unique spirituality made the princess conclude that the traces ahead belonged to worms.

However, the mycelium was entangled with the white bones and centipede-like orange-red bodies, and it seemed as if the secret cultivator who controlled the corpses and bodies was hiding among them.

"Which one is Garcia?" Hestia regained consciousness and rubbed her chin in thought.

"What did your Highness say?"

"Do you think Garcia could be a secret cultivator?" asked the princess.

"Qi Daleng is probably Ba. I've heard that the Royal Medical College seems to have inherited the realm of the Eternal Dao. Garcia is both a member of the Medical College and the former president of the Yunling Medical Association. He can't be just any old man." Chloe thought for a moment and added, "It's also possible that he's a master of arcane magic."

"Yeah." Hestia nodded.

Regardless of whether the independent arcane system is related to the secret treasure, in the Arcane Alliance, arcane warlocks who have integrated "Mayfly" are divided into ten levels.

Levels 0~1 are arcane apprentices, levels 2~3 are arcane masters, levels 4~6 are arcane mentors, levels 7~8 are arcane masters, and level 9 is the Forbidden Tower, which is comparable to the myth.

However, mages cannot enter the Dreamworld and completely transform mortal bodies. They may be able to delay their own aging, but they will still die at the end of their lives.

The mage did not communicate with his dreams, and his spirituality remained hidden for a long time, which was even darker than that of ordinary hidden cultivation. Hestia was not sure whether she had really "seen" Garcia.

Around her, spider arms were almost wrapped around her body.

"Don't get close to me, the heater in the room is very hot." Hestia said coldly.

Chloe was secretly sniffing the bath fragrance on the princess' neck when she suddenly saw a pair of disdainful eyes and felt wronged.

Weren't you the one who came up here first?

Such delicate skin, why did it happen to be born on a celestial dragon?

Even if the person in front of her was a noble from a famous family, Chloe would have taken off her shoes and sat on him. However, he was a Celestial Dragon, and the gap between Celestial Dragons and ordinary nobles was even greater than the gap between nobles and untouchables!

If the Emperor of God was still on earth, this group of people would be the descendants of God favored by God, the kind that would be infused with the power of the tower at birth!

Chloe glanced at the princess resentfully, then looked towards the podium, feeling a little drowsy as she listened to Garcia lecturing on something she couldn't understand.

"Why are you sleepy?"

Hestia frowned. Logically speaking, the women of the Cocoon Sisterhood were so energetic that seven or eight of them could do it continuously for a whole day and night. It was normal for an emotional Yui Ceremony to last for several days in a cocoon.

He fell asleep so easily, could it be that he got contaminated with something dirty?

"What was being said on the stage made me dizzy. I could only make out a few words with a Shia accent. What are you so proud of?" Chloe complained.

"Could it be that there are too many technical terms? You haven't been to school, but even secret practitioners should have some knowledge passed down, right?"

It would have been fine if she hadn't asked. Hestia's words made Chloe like a feral cat on alert. She said in a hostile and resistant tone, "Didn't I research those clues and potion ingredients? Are you questioning my knowledge?"

"It's indeed a cause for concern," Hestia said, unfazed by Chloe's bristling. She sneered, "What do you think of me, a princess?"

"Before I left the village, I not only learned a lot of hunting skills, but also attended three years of compulsory primary school in town." Chloe emphasized in a low growl.

"That's the country bumpkin."

"I'm also a well-known figure in Mengsu—" Chloe emphasized in a low voice.

"I remember that compulsory education in the Empire lasts for five years, right?" Hestia asked. "Can you even drop out of elementary school?"

Relying solely on arcane scholars was insufficient. During the reign of the Divine Emperor, a sweeping educational and military reform swept across the two capitals and thirteen regions. Even a soldier operating an artillery piece was required to master mathematics, arcane principles, ballistics, and other disciplines. Soldiers who could merely fire a gun were useless except for suppressing unruly civilians, only to be utterly vanquished by the various nations' secret cultivators and their puppets, familiars, and summoned creatures.

If the imperial soldiers are like this, how can you control mortals if you don’t have a little knowledge of secret cultivation?

Not to mention that most of the magic arrays used by secret practitioners have extremely high mathematical requirements. Mathematical geometry contains dream mappings, and a slight error can lead to a huge mistake.

"I just killed a magical beast and saved the cocoon girl when I was thirteen, and then I accidentally embarked on the path of Taoism overnight!" Chloe was anxious, "Otherwise, I would have graduated from college by now!"

Chloe knew that she was a rough girl from the village. She started hunting small monsters with her parents in the Kaslat Highlands at the age of ten. She was a natural hunter.

But she particularly liked women who were steeped in the world of books, especially those sisters who had a touch of orchid fragrance in their conversation. She still remembered the contemptuous look that the landlord's daughter gave her when she was studying in the town.

Although she later pulled off the man's shoes to make him surrender, she still tried her best to conceal her rough and flamboyant nature, not wanting others to see it.

Even women who like women prefer educated women. Sorry, an illiterate country girl who speaks Abba and Mambo and doesn't understand anything, and an educated girl from a big city really have nothing in common.

More importantly, Chloe knew that she was not particularly good-looking, had an unusual fetish for feet, and was not gentle enough when doing it. Therefore, even the ladies in the sorority did not think much of her.

For example, Lu Wei.

But the more she couldn't get it, the more she liked it. Chloe was crazy about the educated lady!

"So you didn't finish elementary school for three years?" Hestia curled her lips. "No wonder your accent is so strange. I mean, don't cocoon girls have to learn High Elven and ancient insect language?"

"I am the moth heir, not the cocoon girl."

"Then how will you be Sister Lian Di in the future?"

"Who said I'm going to do it—" Chloe paused, then muttered, "Anyway, when I'm having a ceremony with Marilyn, I can always gain some knowledge. With more knowledge, maybe I'll be able to do it. Marilyn was a visiting professor at a church university, so I'm a professor too."

"..." Hestia was speechless.

No wonder this guy became the new lawnmower more than ten years later. Maybe his seniors looked down on him?

After a brief exchange of whispers, Garcia's voice echoed through the speaker system at the podium:

"The most important achievement of Life Transmutation is restoration. Many alchemy and potion experiments can achieve similar effects. However, there is one thing that is difficult to resolve: an object or organism's rejection of foreign substances.

"I wonder if you've read my 1798 paper in the Royal Journal of Medicine. It mentioned a recent discovery in medicine: that all life originates from a certain primordial factor..."

After saying this, the young people in the hall immediately smiled meaningfully and began to whisper.

Garcia paused, smiled, and shook his head. "That's probably not what you're all thinking of, the conception of man and woman, but something more fundamental, a great gift bestowed by God. Everything you know—trees, flowers, grass, snakes, insects, rats, ants, birds, beasts, elves, dwarves, and even us, humans—is the creation of the Primordial Factor. We were once one, and He caused us to continue and differentiate, forming this complex world."

"Academician Garcia!" a scholar raised his hand and asked, "You mentioned 'He,' which seems to mean God in Old French. Are you preaching something?"

"Preaching? Oh no, you know, there is no two suns in the sky. My research results have been recognized by the Royal College of Medicine." Garcia pressed his palms, signaling the scholars not to make trouble.

He continued, "What I mean is, the Primordial Factor could certainly be a great miracle of the Radiance or the God-Emperor. Oh, no, I think it must be. After all, the Radiance brought color to the dark and empty world and sent the Apostles of the Rising Sun to redeem the world, didn't it? But this is not the point of our discussion. The point is, if rejection is due to differences, then can we try to extract the Primordial Factor and cultivate it into the repair agent we want, inject it into the injured body, and gradually help them adapt to the rejection process? Although we are different, we have the same roots. Disease and aging will not be a problem..."

An enlightened priest voiced his doubts: "According to your assumption, the Primordial Factor is nearly omnipotent—it can reproduce life. If it can be extracted, then all aging, exhaustion, and death will come to an end. No... rather, since we possess this Factor, why do we ultimately die? Death is a gift, allowing us, kindhearted people, to return to the Lord's Kingdom. So, can I assume you're challenging the realm of God?"

The priest seemed gentle, but every word he said was a trap.

Damn it, you dare challenge Huiguang's religious authority? Even if you're open-minded, you must be exposed!

Where are those idle dogs in the Censorate? Why don't they arrest such a big heretic?!

"Challenge? No, we are just worshipping the gods more devoutly. I must emphasize that all my lectures and teaching programs will be approved and stamped by the Royal College of Physicians," said Garcia.

"So, have you extracted that primordial factor?" The priest frowned.

"Of course, but it exists in certain impurities. I am only using its tiny bit of power through the impurities."

Garcia's words caused a commotion, and he clapped his hands and gestured to the audience.

Immediately afterwards, a man in tie walked onto the podium pushing a cart. On the cart were glass containers containing various mammals such as mice, cats, dogs, etc.

"This time, I'm going to demonstrate to you a hypothesis I proposed two years ago, with the help of my assistant, Maxime Valle," Garcia said with a meaningful smile. He opened a container and picked up a pitiful white mouse with his bare hands. "Where exactly is our soul located in the body? In the heart, in the brain?"

With a "click", Maxime Vallee swung the scissors and cut off the mouse's head neatly, with blood splattering everywhere.

Garcia remained unmoved. Instead, he placed the mouse's head between the runes on the stone slab and pinched its whiskers. "According to known theories, the soul is born in the embryo and forms along with the body. Children occasionally see ghosts because their immature souls are still drawing 'nourishment' from the outside world and haven't formed a closed system with the body. But even what we call ghosts are special beings attached to magic particles or unknown particles, rather than the pure 'souls' we understand."

"You want to prove the existence of a pure soul?" asked a scholar.

"No, no, what I want to say is that the Primordial Factor is the beginning of everything."

Garcia took out another mouse and said:

"These two mice have been chronically injected with impurities carrying the other mouse's original genes. In this sense, they already possess a blood relationship closer than that of brothers. As you know, the most obvious rejection reaction is to the 'soul.' This is truly the realm of the gods. It is said that only priests of the Church of Radiance and evil heretics can summon the lost Deathwhisper.

"So now I have to repair the souls that are gradually disappearing and let them heal in new bodies."

As he spoke, he cut off the head of the mouse in his hand and moved the two mouse bodies in different places.

Even Hestia in the stands was stunned: "No way, can you do this without using secret techniques?"

……