Chapter 28

The arena has always been an expensive facility, requiring massive annual expenditures to maintain, a true money pit, so most witch families rarely bother setting up their own—they’d rather rent public arenas.

But Dorothy’s household did have a private arena, a hobby of her stepmother; though this former battlefield veteran had since switched to becoming a research witch, she still often got itchy hands and wanted to spar a few rounds, and as the chief steward of Haiyuedao, she had no shortage of money, so she simply installed a private arena at home.

Dorothy rarely used it herself, though—it was mostly her stepmother and Alice who fought there, the mother-daughter pair often passing their leisure hours after tea and meals with a “motherly love, filial obedience” duel.

The arena was set up in the backyard; as the group walked from the residence toward the backyard, Alice quietly sidled up to Dorothy.

“Sister, are you really going to duel Senior Sophie? Why are you so desperate? Calm down.”

The little witch whispered cautiously beside her elder sister, her emerald eyes flickering with worry.

“Huh? Senior? Alice, you know this Sophie too?”

Dorothy stared at her sister in surprise, then asked curiously.

“Is she that famous?”

That couldn’t be right—she was a super-homebody who lived on the magic web, supposed to be on the absolute cutting edge of news, yet she’d never really heard the name “Angel Witch” before. She wasn’t that famous.

“Of course I know her! Who in the Witch Academy doesn’t know Senior Sophie? She’s super famous—a prodigy who skipped grades, reached the fifth year of the advanced class in under ten years, and is even the Student Council President. You’ll probably see her give a speech at tomorrow’s opening ceremony.”

The little witch glanced with admiration and awe at the pure-white witch not far behind, then introduced her to her sister.

Dorothy finally understood.

So she was just a school celebrity. That explained why she’d never heard of her on the magic web—this kind of niche fame rarely made headlines or reached the general public.

Just like how most people in her past life couldn’t remember the name of the top scorer in the college entrance exam.

But tracing these clues through memory, Dorothy quickly unearthed some useful information.

She had indeed heard of Sophie before—just skimmed over it while reading other news, never paid special attention, so it was no wonder her memory was faint.

Now she remembered: a few years ago, the Mystery Daily had reported that a new student at the Witch Academy was a prodigy Angel Witch with twelve innate talents and 18,000 mana—this must be Sophie.

Tsk. Though she’d known Angel Witches were prodigies, this level of absurdity still shocked Dorothy—this talent would rank among the top ten in all of witch history.

If she didn’t die young, Sophie was guaranteed to become a Peak Witch; with effort, she might even compete for a seat among the Thirteen Sages.

Bad. Don’t think anymore. The more she thought, the more certain she was she’d lose.

Boosting the opponent’s confidence and undermining your own before a duel was never a good idea. Dorothy quickly gathered her focus, stopped thinking, and began psyching herself up.

In reality, she was just an ordinary witch, visible everywhere, with nothing special except her beauty—but on the magic web, she still had some influence, far surpassing someone like Sophie.

In reality, she rarely fought, always timid—afraid of injury, afraid of pain, afraid of losing and being humiliated—but on the magic web, you could lower or even fully disable pain, and everyone used pseudonyms; losing didn’t matter since you didn’t know the other person in real life, so no shame, so what was there to fear? It was just a virtual reality duel game. Dorothy had never been afraid of anyone in games—she’d just go all out.

Well, maybe not *all* out. Early on, she’d been just like a newbie, getting brutally slaughtered by veterans—but as a two-life homebody, the only real advantage she had was her optimistic attitude. Others, after being crushed, would quit; she kept going, always eager to fight, because in her past life she’d endured countless punishing games—she’d even survived the malice of that old bastard.

She was the type who got more hooked the harder the challenge.

It’s just a game. What’s there to be scared of?

Besides, she had a talent boost right now.

【Diligence Compensates for Lack of Talent (SR): You are not a genius, but through effort you can narrow the gap between yourself and geniuses. Your unyielding will refuses to be broken by failure—you always learn from defeat and grow stronger. Whatever does not kill you makes you stronger.】

This was the talent passed down to Dorothy by her father Adam—and it was why Adam, a mere mortal, had risen to become a high-level mage even among witches.

Though it was only an SR-tier talent, SR-tier talents were typically reserved for silver races like elves or merfolk. That Adam, a mortal inferior even to iron-race beings, could manifest such a talent was already astonishing.

Adam had once worshipped and admired the power of witches, studying and imitating their evolution abilities, eventually cobbling together this inferior counterfeit of a witch evolution trait.

Of course, “inferior counterfeit” was Adam’s own assessment. To Dorothy, this talent wasn’t a cheap knockoff—it was a completion of witch evolution.

After all, witches’ evolution traits mostly enhanced physical hardware, leaving mental aspects—willpower, experience, mindset—untouched.

This often led to absurd situations: for example, some young witches feared mice, so they evolved cat traits—gaining feline strength and mouse-catching skills, yet still recoiled in disgust at the sight of mice, unable to strike.

Like the duel between Alice and Isabella earlier—those two young witches kept making the same avoidable mistakes. They knew they shouldn’t make them, but once they got excited, they forgot.

In short: they never learned.

Strong willpower, practical experience—these things couldn’t be instantly acquired, even by witches. They needed years of life to slowly accumulate, learn, and summarize before truly becoming strong.

Adam’s “Diligence Compensates for Lack of Talent” was a rare mental talent that directly affected these mental software aspects.

Human bodies aren’t strong. Humans grew and thrived by repeatedly summarizing knowledge and experience from past failures—a talent shared by all intelligent races.

Adam went further, strengthening and elevating this ability into a true talent specialization. Even among witches, few could achieve such a feat—mental talent specializations were notoriously hard to master. To accomplish something so extreme, Adam certainly lived up to his former title of genius mage.

Too bad he was only human, not a witch. His weak race ultimately held him back—if he’d been a witch, Dorothy thought her father might have had Sage potential.

Fortunately, the previous generation planted trees, and the next generation enjoyed the shade. Dorothy was lucky to inherit her father’s talent.

So though she’d been crushed and humiliated by veterans on the magic web at first, every crushing defeat allowed her to steal a little technique from her opponents. Through years of accumulated failure, thousands upon thousands of battles, the novice Dorothy grew at a terrifying pace—her combat skills improved visibly.

Dorothy started playing magic web duels at age ten. For the first three years, she never won. In the next two, she had wins and losses. This year, she lost none—winning every match, she swept the recently concluded Magic Web Youth Duel Championship and claimed the hidden achievement title: Duel King.

Hmm. I’m strong. Super strong.

The young witch, timid and never fought in reality, psyching herself up—through constant mental suggestion, she began to feel just a little of that magic web dominance, gradually lifting her head, straightening her posture.

Right now, she felt she might actually be able to do this.