"Who's there!"

Eudora Moses, always a light sleeper, woke up startled by the sound and looked towards the window.

"Who's outside?"

This voice called her professor, could it be one of her students?

She got out of bed and went to the window, lifting the opaque curtain. In the pitch-black night, she only saw a stiff black shadow quickly moving away from her.

A faint magical fluctuation could be felt in the air, but that voice didn't sound human - neither male nor female, with ear-grating noise interspersed between the words.

"A puppet!"

Professor Moses realized, grabbing the wand by her bed.

The puppet was too far for her spell to hit. Without further hesitation, Professor Moses climbed out the window and gave chase.

From behind the chimney on the roof, Luo Wei watched Professor Moses chase into the distance. Certain that she wouldn't return soon, Luo Wei immediately jumped down and climbed through the window.

The bedroom was too dark, so Luo Wei used her magic wand to light a small flame, finally able to see the layout.

A spacious bed, a large wardrobe, and some small furniture like a dressing table, small wooden stools, and a coat rack.

Luo Wei's gaze swept across the room, and a silver glint caught her eye. The magic book was under the pillow on the bed, its silver corner exposed.

Indeed, for something so important, Professor Moses wouldn't keep it far from her side.

She quickly walked over and picked up the silver magic book from under the pillow.

But the moment she picked up the silver book, she suddenly noticed there were two pillows on the bed!

At the same time, the sound of a door being pushed open came from outside the bedroom.

Damn it!

Luo Wei glanced at the distance between herself and the window, decisively extinguished the flame, put down the magic book, and crawled under the bed.

With a "creak", the door was pushed open from outside, and a pair of large feet wearing soft gray slippers walked in.

"Strange, why is the window open?"

The person walked to the window, looked around, then turned: "Darling?"

"Where is she, did she go out?"

He walked to the bedside, seemed to bend down a bit, and picked up the magic book next to the pillow.

"Why did she leave the book lying around again?"

The man complained, picked up the magic book, and walked to the wardrobe.

Luo Wei couldn't see his upper body movements, but from his lower legs visible beneath the nightgown and the heels exposed in the slippers, she could barely judge that he was a man of about thirty or so, probably Professor Moses's lover.

The wardrobe was opposite the bed, a dark mass that couldn't be seen clearly, but the man opened the wardrobe door and put the book inside.

"Sigh, in the middle of the night, I'd better go out and look for her."

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Those feet walked to the door, opened it, and went out.

Luo Wei waited for a few seconds, heard another door opening sound from outside, then crawled out from under the bed and quickly walked to the wardrobe.

Opening the wardrobe door, she found it was full of magic books!

The left side of the wardrobe was for clothes, while the right side was clearly a bookshelf.

She let out a small flame and quickly searched through. The silver book was on the shelf, but she felt she might have an even greater harvest tonight.

On the top shelf, there were seven or eight parchment books. She pulled one out and looked - it happened to be an advanced magic book.

As if blessed by the gods!

This phrase flashed through Luo Wei's mind. She promptly tore out the inner pages of the magic book, leaving only the hard cover, which she stuffed back onto the shelf.

Having done all this, she didn't linger any longer and flew out the window.

On the barren slope, Professor Moses had trapped the puppet in place with a binding spell and flew over with a lightness spell.

She had initially thought this was a prank by some half-baked puppeteer, but upon closer inspection, she realized it didn't even qualify as half-baked.

The puppet's body was woven from several thin, long vines, dressed in a tattered hemp cloth, with a sheepskin face painted with features so ugly it was hard to look at.

"What kind of ugly toad thing is this?" Professor Moses couldn't help but curse.

The puppet was just too ugly. Not to mention the disproportionate limbs, one too long and one too short, but that face - why were there two red circles painted on either side of it?

With those two things added, it was inexplicably creepy.

She rubbed it with her finger and found that the puppet's face was also smeared with grease and flour, with eyelashes drawn so long it was scary on the mismatched eyes using charcoal.

"Must be the work of some stinky boy!" Professor Moses concluded, because only a stinky boy would draw something so ugly. Girls love beauty and are good at makeup.

If Luo Wei had heard this, she would have cried out in injustice - she was drawing Carslan big eyes, okay!

Professor Moses tore open the puppet's belly, revealing a crudely assembled pile of metal junk that looked nothing like a delicate creation.

A metal needle rested on a tin foil cylinder, continuously emitting a "zizi" sound, which was absolute torture for someone who loved quiet like her.

However, out of curiosity about how this broken thing could still produce a human voice, Professor Moses didn't stomp it flat. Instead, she picked it up and returned to the small villa.

"You're back. What did you catch?" A refined-looking man who resembled a pretty boy stood at the villa's entrance, the night wind blowing his nightgown's hem wildly.

Professor Moses, wearing an icy expression, threw the puppet on the ground: "An ugly thing with a sound-making machine inside. It also had a self-destruct device made of burning charcoal, which I extinguished with a water element."

"A clever idea. If the materials used weren't so ordinary, it might have achieved the effect she intended," the refined man said with a smile.

"She? Isn't it a stinky boy?"

"Oh, yes, a stinky boy. I misspoke," the refined man said gently. "It should indeed be a stinky boy. Darling, you're too harsh on your students in class. Look how much effort this child put into completing a prank!"

"Hmph, just wait until I catch him, the little brat!" Professor Moses said angrily.

The refined man smiled and let his gaze fall on the still clicking puppet: "Why don't we take this thing to show the professors who teach alchemy? It might be a great invention."

Professor Moses glanced at the puppet and nodded.

Meanwhile.

Luo Wei had finally obtained the long-dreamed-of magic book and could finally get a good night's sleep.

She had been staying up late for ten nights, sleeping only two or three hours each day. Sometimes, walking down the road, she felt like a wandering ghost. Even without the holy water baptism, she could ascend to heaven on her own strength.

Four days left. Would four days be enough for her to learn an advanced magic spell?

Luo Wei thought uncertainly.

With many eyes in the academy, she didn't dare take the spell book back to the dormitory, so she first returned it to the small courtyard.

In the quiet night, Troy suddenly opened his eyes, his fingers reaching for the sword by his pillow, listening intently to the faint sounds from outside.

Very light footsteps, slow breathing rate, leaning towards an adult, with soft and smooth exhalations - it was a woman.

He listened for a while, then withdrew his hand back under the covers, staring at the ceiling.

Luo Wei, what was she doing back in the middle of the night?

After a while, there was another rustling sound from outside, like window shutters shaking, or like bird wings flapping in flight.

Troy's mind stirred. He quietly sat up, got out of bed, and walked barefoot to the window.

To be continued