Chapter 40: These Witches Have Already Twisted Themselves into Pretzels

A study schedule pushed to its limits feels like torture from within. But look back later—and time has flown by like a white horse galloping past.

“Jiang Cha‑chan, are you really okay?”

A month later, He Qin couldn’t bear to watch it any more. She saw the girl who entered the academy full of energy, talkative and lively, gradually devolve into someone unkempt, with two big dark circles under her eyes, wearing rabbit pajamas and roaming the living room like a zombie late at night, scavenging for food.

“Jin Bao, you didn’t see her schedule. It’s diabolical! How she’s still alive is only thanks to her large mana pool.”
The blonde loli snapped a commentary.

Wait, you ask: Why are they staying up late every night?

“We’re grinding! Just pushing through! Eventually, Cha‑bao will grind us to death!”
After all, these two had barely slept all month! Even the night-owl roommate they hardly saw in a week was now seeing them every day!

“I think Jiang Cha’s work ethic is worth learning.”
Estelle looked at Jiang Cha with admiration—and then added her true thought:
“Also, that strawberry-flavored spirit recovery potion she made is so good.”
“Can we order some more?”
“Ah? Oh—yeah, we can.”

Only then did Jiang Cha react. Holding a hot dog in her mouth, motionless, she nodded vacantly.

This wasn’t because she was dazed by staying up.
Witches don’t suffer mentally from a month without sleep. Besides, this group of grind‑kings had been treating spirit potions like water the whole month.

The truth was: her brain was running full load on computations. Her thinking circuits were maxed out, with no CPU left for daily cognition. She could only remain in an expressionless haze.

“Then I want peach flavor.”
He Qin hesitated, then joined in the order.

“Me, me, me! I want Cha‑bao flavor!”
The blonde loli also raised her hand, joining in the mischief.

“Okay.”
Jiang Cha still nodded vacantly, without catching that Lina’s words were absurd. She gulped the hot dog, sat back on the sofa, and continued reading.

“Lina‑chan, what are you even saying?”
Even He Qin only gave a symbolic scolding. After a month of similar scenes, she’d become used to it.

“Sigh~ This child’s done for. What got into Cha‑bao to push herself this hard?”
“…”
“Crap. I can’t reach her anymore. Estelle, do you still have one of those crystal ice grenades?”
“…”
“You fool too? Then He Qin, lend me your magical puppet…”
Lina turned her head and saw three girls lost in focus. She sighed in loneliness.

A battle witch on the omnipotent path and three witches on the omniscient path—this kind of scene was unavoidable.

“Whatever. I’ll keep training spell speed then.”
Moments later, the only semi-conscious Lina also closed her eyes, letting her spirit energy draw intricate spell models in the void—and then letting them dissipate.

This had been their daily routine for a full month.

Though all four were in the living room, there was not a sound between them.
…

“Estelle’s asleep?”
At 8 a.m. the next morning, Jiang Cha closed her book and exited “focus mode.” She saw the two pairs of focus goggles on her desk, glanced at the blonde loli sleeping on her lap, and turned to look at He Qin working in the kitchen.

“Yeah, she’s weak—she needs scheduled rest.”
“A prematurely born witch… the early period really did hurt her a lot.”
Jiang Cha sighed.

“Not just premature birth. Estelle’s innate magic is also one of the more physically damaging types.
Speaking of which, Cha‑bao, you’re a naturally awakened witch—also a kind of premature witch—but your body is in great shape.”

“Cha‑bao is just a pure freak. Her awakened magic instantly pushed her mana to the 60,000s. How could she ever be frail?”
The blonde rubbed her eyes drowsily, stretched, and yawned, but didn’t skip her commentary.

The next moment, she snapped back to her usual hyper state and hopped to the kitchen:

“He Qin-mom, what’s for breakfast today?”
“I told you, don’t call me ‘mom’… today we have sandwiches.”

Witches’ growth phases usually have three stages.

• Stage 1: Infancy, from birth to around 3 years old. Mana grows rapidly until the limit of one’s innate talent is reached, then slows.
  For example, Lina started with over 8,000 mana at birth, and by age three she had 35,000. It took years to barely surpass 40,000 now.

• Stage 2: Adolescence, typically from 14 to 18 years old. He Qin is in this stage, and her mana is surging. Three months ago she had only ~27,000. Now she’s over 30,000.
  It’s expected that by the end of her adolescent phase, her mana might double to the 60,000 range.

Lina hasn’t entered adolescence yet, but since she’s on the omnipotent path (training intensively), her mana growth when she does reach adolescence should be faster than He Qin’s. She might reach 80,000–100,000.

• Stage 3: Becoming a Great Witch and building one’s traits. (We won’t get into that yet.)

Now, because Estelle was a prematurely born witch, it means that her mana at the end of infancy didn’t reflect her full potential. Once adolescence ends, the mana she missed out on before will “catch up.”

So even if it looks like she has 20,000+ mana now, later she might surpass He Qin.

Awakened witches are a bit different—sometimes similar to premature ones, but not identical.

Perhaps due to interstice influence, these naturally awakened witches’ mana growth in adolescence is even faster than normal witches.

If Jiang Cha continues her dual-path (omniscient + omnipotent) pursuit, by the end of adolescence her mana might reach ~150,000.

That’s terrifying—since many Great Witches on the omnipotent path have mana in the ~200,000 range, after their third-stage development.

“Why do I keep becoming the freak, huh… By the way, Lina, you asked me last night for a spirit‑potion order, right? What flavor did you want?”
The little blonde treasure usually doesn’t need to get spirit potions from Jiang Cha—her family supplies her custom mid-tier potions.

But, as she put it, “drinking the same flavor every day gets boring.”

So when she asked Jiang Cha for an order, her demands changed the most—unlike He Qin and Estelle, who basically drink one flavor only.

“Your flavor~”
“Herring-can flavor, right? I get it.”
Jiang Cha nodded, expressionless, and took the order—but Lina looked shocked, clutching her face with her hands:
“Cha‑bao, is your next flavor not a bit too heavy?”

Jiang Cha: “…”
That blonde loli was just begging for a smack. Once you push her to rolling-eyes territory, she behaves.