Chapter 27: Genius and Ordinary

Euphilia had always been accompanied by this attendant; Dorothy had noticed yesterday that a white-haired figure had been sitting beside her.

But previously, Dorothy’s attention had been entirely drawn to the overwhelming aura of the Dragon Witch, leaving little focus for anyone else.

Now, this was the first time she carefully observed her mother’s attendant.

To her surprise, it was unmistakably the pure-white girl she’d briefly met in the bookstore.

“What was her name again?”

Dorothy thought, recalling that the girl had once mentioned her name.

“Sophilia.”

Just thinking of it, the young witch felt something odd.

“Euphilia and Sophilia—those names are so similar, differing by only one syllable.”

Looking again at their identical emotionless, blank faces—hmm, if not for one being the Angel Witch and the other the Dragon Witch, they’d look more like mother and daughter.

That’s what Dorothy thought in her mind.

But she didn’t care much about it; even if the misunderstanding between mother and daughter had been resolved, feelings couldn’t be manufactured overnight—they required time to grow. At least for now, she didn’t feel close to her biological mother, so she certainly wasn’t jealous or competing for affection.

She simply studied the pure-white girl who had approached her, mentally assessing her strength.

One thing was certain: this Angel Witch, her age, was incredibly strong—so strong it bordered on absurd, even monstrous.

Back in the bookstore, her intuition had unintentionally glimpsed a fraction of the girl’s power; from that tiny sliver alone, she could tell the girl’s angelic transformation was already extremely advanced, possibly over halfway complete.

To be so young yet so highly evolved—there was only one possibility: she was a genius equal to her mother, a prodigy born with a dozen or more innate talents.

And what about Dorothy herself?

Ha. The young witch recalled her pitiful three innate talents and rolled her eyes, refusing to say more—human differences could sometimes be greater than those between humans and dogs.

Mom, you must’ve been scammed by that fortune-teller who promised you’d give birth to a daughter surpassing your own talents.

Dorothy certainly didn’t feel like a genius. Of her three pitiful innate talents, one was a bonus gift from her Chuanyue —her otherworldly soul’s inherent ability. Strictly speaking, she only had two true innate talents from her parents, inheriting the lowest one from each side—she was a guaranteed bottom-tier non-lucky user.

Fortunately, though her number of talents was low, their quality was high: one SR, two SSRs. Overall, she was decent—far from prodigies, but still outstanding among ordinary witches.

Now Euphilia wanted her, an ordinary witch with mediocre talent, to defeat a prodigy-level genius witch. Mom, you really have high expectations for me.

Fortunately, the Dragon Witch still had some sense; she didn’t demand Dorothy defeat Sophilia immediately, but gave her a deadline before graduation—a twenty-year pact.

Even so, it was still extremely difficult. Not everyone has the protagonist’s fate to reverse their fortune in three years east, three years west. Most people spend their entire lives unable to bridge the gap of innate talent.

Even though Dorothy was a Chuanyuezhe , she dared not treat herself as the protagonist. This witch world was absurdly powerful, and her golden finger was pitifully weak—she simply couldn’t inflate her confidence.

【Otherworldly Soul: Your journey across time and space has elevated your soul, enhancing your talents in spirit and intuition. Your unique experiences have also made you sensitive to changes in time and space.】

Sigh. Sixteen years had passed, and Dorothy had waited sixteen years without awakening a system or finding a grandpa or grandma’s lingering soul in her ring. Her only true Chuanyue bonus was this one talent.

What about her past-life knowledge and experience? The scientific knowledge from nine years of compulsory education?

Ha. The knowledge of a low-level civilization barely a few thousand years old, still clinging to its home planet, meant nothing before witches—a disaster race with a history of hundreds of thousands of years and dominion over the multiverse. Whatever you knew, they knew; whatever you didn’t, they knew better.

In a race of near-universal geniuses, her Chuanyue identity gave Dorothy no superiority. On the contrary, she’d always feared her origin being discovered by witches, since her identity card clearly listed this experience as an innate talent.

Fortunately, after entering the Mage Academy, Dorothy checked the “Comprehensive Catalog of Innate Talents” and found that Otherworldly Soul, while among the rarest, was by no means unique—dozens of witches in history had possessed it.

The book specifically noted that witches were exceptionally tolerant of their own kind: no matter your past or origin, if you were a witch in this life, that was enough. No one would harass you over your previous life’s experiences, so those with this talent needn’t worry.

This relieved Dorothy—and simultaneously deflated her. Apparently, she wasn’t the only Chuanyuezhe in this world. Though they might have come from different worlds and weren’t exactly hometown buddies, they were still predecessors. She investigated their records and sadly found none of them seemed to have protagonist fate.

Though several predecessors became Peak Witches, not one became a Sage, let alone reached the pinnacle of the witch world to become Witch King.

If you can’t stand atop the world, how can you dare call yourself a protagonist?

From then on, Dorothy fully accepted her fate: perhaps she truly was just an ordinary witch.

But now, this bizarre lineage suddenly made her anything but ordinary.

Which ordinary witch has a mother demanding her daughter defeat a prodigy within twenty years?

Whether I die now or later, same thing—gur, just tie me up and get it over with.

Dorothy really wanted to say that. She felt like giving up entirely.

But surrendering her freedom so easily left her resentful. What’s wrong with being an ordinary witch? Does that mean she deserves to be bullied? Last life, she gave up and ended up a useless gaming shut-in. Now that she had this fresh start, to give up again would be a waste.

Besides, this didn’t seem entirely impossible to overcome.

“Should I test the waters first?”

Having never fought anyone in this life, the unskilled Dorothy looked at the pure-white witch facing her and issued a challenge.

“Of course, Miss. I’ll go easy on you.”

Sophilia nodded, kindly offering this assurance.

Dorothy: “......”

Ugh. That same clueless, tone-deaf stupidity—you’re clearly Euphilia’s real daughter. Adam must’ve swapped babies back then.

Feeling slighted, Dorothy angrily stood and marched toward the family’s private dueling arena.

Ha, underestimate me, and don’t blame me when you get crushed.

The young witch, champion of the Mage Network Youth League and holder of the Duel King title, puffed out her cheeks, thinking to herself.