Farley stuttered and was stuck, which was no wonder. Although she was quite insightful for her peers, she had never thought about these things.
"I care more about developing some habits and thoroughly understanding the knowledge I have learned." Claire helped her complete the answer.
Nice frowned, the expression on her face seemed to be asking, how could you actually help her out?
This cold and arrogant girl had been feeling unhappy since Bram Witch read out Farley's name. She felt that she and Claire were denied, and that Farley's election was an insult to their character.
In this situation, Claire actually went to help Farley. She couldn't understand what was in this girl's head.
"It seems that you have fundamentally understood the purpose of learning, Miss William." Bram said without turning his head. "It's the same reason. The assessment of the witches' association is not to pick out the people with the highest scores. The evaluation of you starts from the moment you step through that door... Observation, decision-making, action, and temperance are the four focuses of the assessment. It's really not difficult at all. As long as some of them can honestly follow the leader to complete the potion and not eat, the action and temperance will be counted."
[So you need to pass at least two of the four key points to pass this assessment.]
Hitzfeld curled his lips secretly.
She said there was something wrong with the food.
There are some smart girls among those girls who realize that eating will deduct points, but they are confident that it doesn't matter if they only eat a little. This is a big mistake.
As Sista said before - it is their will that determines the divergence of the paths of the extraordinary people. It is their will that determines what kind of extraordinary people they want to become.
So don't think that the most important qualities for the extraordinary people who focus on "seeking knowledge" must be temperance, discipline and honesty. The inability to control their appetite has swept them from the will to the main vein of "human desire", and the witches who focus on "seeking knowledge" will never give them any chance.
Just like Farley, although she did not succeed in opening the door, she undoubtedly made decisions, took actions, and exercised self-control. Her biggest deduction should be that she knew the food was problematic but did not tell her companions. This may be due to some bad taste, or she may want to be the first, but the witches obviously think this is a test within a test - you do what others say, so what? Do you have no brains?
"As one of you said, not eating for half a day won't cause any harm..." Bram's cold voice echoed in the corridor, "Is it worth it to be hungry compared to the goal that is about to be achieved... hehehe... If it is not worth it, there won't be so many people who forget to eat and sleep for knowledge, and even starve to death in the process of research."
"Starved to death?" Claire couldn't help but question, "Madam, is this true?"
"Kerstas Nandri Bruno, look up this name in the library when you have a chance." Bram was very disapproving. "It's true that not many people starve themselves to death, but suppressing one's instincts for the sake of knowledge... you have to engrave this feeling firmly in your bones."
When she said the last sentence, Claire saw a blush on her cheeks, and her sparkling eyes were full of suppressed desire.
[……] Hitzfeld felt that his judgment of the witch coven was a bit hasty, and the "seeking knowledge" route might not be a normal thing.
Witch Bram led the three people to the second underground floor, but found that there were three scratches on the big iron door.
"The layout of the building is the same as above, except that your bedroom is at the innermost part, and the other two sides are classrooms and laboratories." She opened the door and yawned, her expression unconsciously a little excited. "You will meet some new partners... get along well with them. To be honest, I am very reluctant to eliminate the official apprentices."
Claire entered the door first, and Farley hurried in.
Niss stared at Claire for a while, and finally took a step forward.
"One last question, Miss Prim has been targeting you time and again, why did you still come to her rescue?"
Bram's voice came from behind.
"It's just a personal question. It doesn't involve your future. You don't have to answer it if you don't want to."
The two people behind Claire stopped. Niss looked at her with curiosity, while Farley's eyes flickered.
"...I don't think it's necessary to take this targeting to heart."
After a while, Claire turned around and gave a reply.
This is the truth.
But she... but she had gone through so much hardship before she was chosen to enter Farrell Palace. The efforts she made and the intrigues she experienced were much more complicated than those of these little girls.
Therefore, this kind of blatant jealousy was meaningless in her eyes. Farley just wanted to show off and wanted to continue to be her number one. This was a bad nature unique to children and was within controllable range no matter how you looked at it.
"He suppressed his desire to stand out, suppressed his desire to teach her a lesson, remained calm from beginning to end, and even carefully made up a fake name for himself..."
Bram smiled at his apprentice, which was a rare moment.
"Miss William, you are very good."
At this moment, there was a hint of admiration in the look in Niss's eyes when she looked at Claire.
Farley lowered her head in shame, her golden hair falling down to cover her face, completely casting her expression into shadow.
Bram didn't bother them anymore, and the three of them continued walking inside, and sure enough, they found a public dormitory at the end.
The layout of the hall was similar to the one where they had been tested above, the only difference being that there were many more arched doorways, and each doorway had a triple bedroom. They chose an empty one and went in, choosing their beds.
In this way, Claire William's days as a witch apprentice continued to unfold before Hitzfeld's eyes.
The schedule here is very tight, and apprentices have to spend a lot of time every day to understand a bunch of messy knowledge.
Mathematics, chemistry, medicine and pharmacy are the focus of study. In addition, they are required to memorize a large amount of key historical and geographical facts. Their daily schedule is packed to the brim, and they even have to squeeze in time for eating and going to the toilet.
The most noteworthy thing here is the reward mechanism of the witch coven.
If an apprentice can learn to go a day without eating or a day without sleeping, she will receive a Serrated Spring Leaf.
If you gather seven Serrated Spring Leaves, you can go to Bram and exchange them for the materials for a low-level potion - now is not the time for the assessment, and those materials are very valuable to the apprentices.
At first, Hitzfeld suspected that the witches' coven was simply trying to make trouble for people and was trying to force things to happen.
After all, you are encouraged to work day and night and forget about eating and sleeping... It's amazing that you can do it, but can your body handle it?
However, as the days passed, she was surprised to find that those top apprentices who strictly adhered to the rule of forgetting to eat and sleep did not collapse physically!
You can see their weakness, their cheeks are sunken due to lack of food, and they have dark circles under their eyes due to lack of sleep, but she saw with her own eyes a crazy girl who had not slept for seven days in a row, which is obviously unscientific!
Even if her willpower held up, her body should have collapsed long ago.
[The influence of 'mystery'?]
Hitzfeld groaned in his heart.
She is right.
All the extraordinary people on Earth are on the wrong path.
Chapter 54 Mysterious Feedback
Known: Listening to and absorbing the basic knowledge of the "human desire" route will cause subtle changes in people. The most obvious change is a surge in appetite. For specific examples, see Claire William.
So we can infer that the knowledge about routes and roads in the extraordinary realm may contain "mystery". From the moment you hear it and try to summarize and understand it, the "mystery" has already affected you.
Applying this theory as a formula to the witches' coven, all questions are explained - since the knowledge of the "human desire" route can have such an impact on people, the knowledge of the "seeking knowledge-research" line contains mysterious power... isn't this normal?
The apprentices who worked day and night were secretly protected by a mysterious power, which ensured that no matter how they abused their bodies, as long as they could hold on, they would be fine.
Hitzfeld felt that only this speculation could explain everything, and the "researchers" of the witch coven were actually a group of lunatics.
What’s the difference between them and the ghoul family at Farrell House?
The ghouls indulge their desires, while they try their best to restrain them.
Both of them can receive mysterious blessings from this behavior, which is a kind of "cultivation" for them!
[This system is not perfect.] Hitzfeld concluded from his observations.
She now knew exactly how the extraordinary people pursued the mystery.
Mystery is invisible and intangible.
For the ghoul, it's in the flesh. For the researcher, it's in the discipline and knowledge.
All extraordinary people choose a path according to their will, then solidify their own settings, forcing themselves to be the craziest actors on this path, and then they can get mysterious feedback in the process.
Whenever this feedback accumulates to a certain level, they can use some auxiliary herbs or rituals to sublimate the entire life form of the person, including but not limited to the increase of strength and agility, the improvement of reaction speed and thinking speed, the increase of lifespan and recovery from injuries.
This is [Upgrade].
It seems to be a perfect system, at least there is a basic logic that can help it be self-consistent, but in Hitzfeld's view, the three paths of [seeking knowledge], [human desire], and [alienation] are all detours around human nature.
The pursuit of knowledge is to completely suppress this nature, human desire is to not restrain this nature, and alienation is simply to be a slave to nature, and you can be as crazy as you want.
Isn't it too extreme? If these people were given a psychological assessment, they would all be severely mentally ill. They have no idea what they have paid for the pursuit of mystery. Perhaps their hearts have long been polluted.
[From this perspective, the biggest difference between the Earth and what I know is that there is a ‘mystery’.]
While unimportant plots were quickly skipped over, Hitzfeld always liked to calm down and analyze things.
[These lunatics do this because they can get feedback and gain power from it... It's all because of the existence of 'mystery'.]
[But what exactly is the 'mystery'... This question is like asking why we drink water when we are thirsty. It seems to be a kind of rule, and there is no way to trace it back.]
After thinking for a long time, Hitzfeld felt that all this was not gradual.
Because she looked at the historical facts that Claire and others learned on a daily basis, and the knowledge points about modern and contemporary history in them matched the knowledge points in her memory.
They are the same, there is no difference.
This shows that the past has not been changed. From ancient times to modern times, there may be no "mystery" in human history. They have not been contaminated by "mystery" before, and all this will not take long.
So what changed that?
Who brought the "mystery" or did it simply come on its own?
Thinking of this, she immediately suspected herself - she suspected that it was she who broke into the small auditorium, took away the Divine Eye, and opened the seal, causing such drastic changes on the earth.
[No...] But she quickly denied this speculation, [Hitzfell Manor existed before I did this, there has always been something strange about that place, it's not because of me, it was before me...]
No guilt, at least it was easier. She couldn't figure out the origin of the mystery for the time being, and the main perspective got up again, so she simply turned her attention back to Claire William.
I have to admit, Claire works very hard.
She knew how rare this opportunity was, and she might still be thinking about the 50,000 pounds she owed Sista. Even Bram praised her crazy enthusiasm for studying.
It's easy to say that you should forget to eat and sleep, and it's true - as long as you persist in your will, the mystery will give you feedback, hanging your body, making you look like you are about to die but not dead.
But this is too dangerous after all, and even real witches can't control that speed. So the reward mechanism at this stage is just to encourage and cultivate the habits of apprentices so that they will not forget to abide by the rules in the future.
Witches need to sleep too.
Bram sleeps two hours a day, while weaker witches must sleep three hours a day.
According to what Bram boasted to them, the head of the witch club, Meng, only needed to sleep for fifteen minutes a day, which made him a true immortal.
Apprentices are growing up, and their need for sleep is particularly huge. Most people cannot insist on three hours of sleep every day, some give themselves a grace period of four hours, and some keep three hours for a while, catch up on sleep after a few days, and then continue the cycle.
Claire is one of the latter. She is currently on the "three-hour sleep system". It is not yet 4 ., but she has already gotten dressed and gotten up.
The process was difficult at the beginning. Hitzfeld followed her perspective and got up and lay down, got up and lay down... After repeating it three times, she woke up and let out a suppressed moan.
Hitzfeld knew she was getting mysterious feedback.
Invisible and intangible, the power seems to come from the void, and may give people the feeling that "I have become a little stronger." It is this thing that attracts all the extraordinary people to go crazy.
Claire was completely awake. She picked up her books, opened the drawer, took out a glass bottle with a hole in the cap, and went to the classroom to start studying.
She wasn’t the only one who came to the classroom.
There were four or five people sitting here scattered around, all buried in books, and didn't even notice her presence.
Putting the glass bottle aside, Claire sat down and opened the book, her stomach growling.
The bottle cap moved.
Turning her eyes over there, Claire saw the bottle cap being pushed open, and a fist-sized, shiny black spider came out from inside, moving its limbs to ride on the book.
This is the black magic spider she received. Until she becomes a witch and dies as that, if nothing unexpected happens, it will be her closest companion.
"Claryn." She called out the spider's name.
This is to commemorate the assessment that changed her life.
The black spider Clarean had a ferocious appearance, but its front chelicerae held a piece of biscuit crumbs.
It seemed very reluctant to part with it, but after Claire's belly rumbled again, it firmly held the cookie pieces high up.
"Eat it." Claire smiled.
"I can still hold on."
Hitzfeld watched and shook his head.
There are not many students who can receive rewards, and among this group of apprentices, Claire is the most outstanding one.
The crazy apprentice who hadn't slept for seven days had already fallen ill and was recuperating. This kind of thing simply couldn't last long...but Claire hadn't eaten for three days.
She was rewarded with a lot of serrated leaves, but her real gain was not this, but the continuous feedback she received during the process of resisting hunger.
Claire's appetite is obviously different from that of ordinary people, and it is more difficult to resist such nature, but once it is done, the feedback received is exceptionally rich.
She had undoubtedly discovered this, but she didn't say it, and no one knew...including Bram, they were all unaware that "Miss William's" physical condition was rapidly changing towards an inhuman state.
This is playing with fire.
Hitzfeld didn't think that was a wise move.
She didn't know what would happen to those who practiced both paths, but whether it was the ending given in the flashback or the fact that Sista and others didn't mention this possibility at all, the consequences would undoubtedly be very bad.
