Each of Vilgefortz’s decisions had the power to send tremors across the globe. He did not have the time to play the role of a father, even if Olivia was like a daughter to him.
Therefore, he asked this of his personal assistant, secretary Lydia van Bredevoort.[1]
Lydia was a sorceress and talented painter. In the hallowed hallways hung her landscape paintings, one of them being a painting of a date between Cregennan of Lod and Lara Dorren. [2] These were the ancestors of Ciri and Olivia. Ciri’s “elder’s blood” had been inherited from the demon sorceress Lara.
Lydia had survived an experiment accident at a hefty price of major burns, a fragmented chin and spot variation between her pharynx and larynx. However, she had turned down the regeneration incantation while maintaining her normal appearance with the Magic of Illusion.
She loved Vilgefortz, but he did not feel the same. They were too proud to disclose their feelings to each other, each satisfied with this unspoken, yet stable state of relationship.
Cirilla was too mischievous. Unlike Olivia, she did not take private lessons, but with other children of the nobility. She was called”the young lioness of Cintra,” and her influence among the other children of the nobility was strong. Everybody scurried about to fulfill her demands.
Surprisingly, she acceded to her younger sister’s words. Perhaps it was because of her extremely gentle nature. This younger sister gave her sister everything good she found and treated her as the perfect princess. When she grew up, it was her deepest wish to be the knight protecting her younger sister.
Therefore, she was not bothered by how her younger sister was the more popular of the two. They shared a tacit understanding to the point where their mind was one.
Whenever mischievous Ciri met her younger sister, she would cause some trouble and have Lydia complain her grievances to Vilgefortz. She would not stop elaborating on how he had been most fortunate to have Olivia as an apprentice, not Ciri. She would rather have her skin burnt for the second time than care for Ciri.
Children innocently caused trouble, it was their nature. Naturally, bright and obedient children like Olivia would be a favorite.
At that moment, Lydia was having a private class with Olivia. Olivia had managed to accumulate sufficient theoretical knowledge and was ready to start her first practical lesson of magic.
In Olivia’s game system, a new side mission popped up: meditation.
Sorcerers must perform meditation to sense the magical elements. Armed with their theoretical knowledge, they would guide the elements and fuse them. During the process, they had to complete it with gestures and incantations before they released the magic.
It was a known fact that the descendants of stronger bloodlines could enter the state of meditation faster than the others, hastening their magical development.
Olivia had not been gifted with Cirilla’s bloodline, who had great potential in magic. Cirilla was even stronger than Vilgefortz, which gave him more reason to possess her.
However, source sorcerers needed more effort in training before their skills matured. Vilgefortz had ignored Ciri, with the hope that others would not notice Ciri’s talent. It would be easier for him to work his plan out soon.
She even passed down her painting techniques to Olivia, and was pleasantly surprised to find Olivia highly talented in the drawing …
“Meditation is not as easy as painting. Anyone could sit down cross-legged, but it was more like using the mind to grow wings on the back of a person. From there on, some might instantly know how to use those wings, but some would have no clue on how to proceed. In the Thanedd Island of Temeria, there was a Sorceress Academy that was highly sought-after by aristocratic children. Only one out of a thousand could meditate successfully.” Lydia had to give Olivia a heads-up as she was not the descendant of a strong bloodline. Chances were that she might fail miserably.
The Sorceress Academy was Aretuza, located in Thanedd Island, northwest of Gors Valen of Temeria.[3][4][5] It was built on the reefs of Thanedd Island.
Somewhere to the north was a rival academy. It was nothing like the Sorcerer Academy of Ban Ard.[6] This sorceress academy only accepted female candidates. It had turned Thanedd Island famous as a sacred place.
It was an honor to be accepted as a student of this academy, at the price of hefty tuition fees. There was a merit system to award students who performed well in classes to reduce tuition fees or waive them altogether. It was a school with students coming from a variety of backgrounds, from descendants of noble families such as Margarita, [7] or the impoverished like Yennefer. [8]
The education quality made those fees worth it. Their highly respected alumni and graduates often found a job within days. Its school principals were formidable sorceresses who had graduated from the school itself, such as the previous principle, Tissaia de Vries and the current principal Margarita Laux-Antille [9]
As for alumni, everybody should know of Triss Merigold of Maribor and Yennefer. [10]
However, sorceresses had to look over their shoulders constantly. There was a witcher who was known as The White Wolf, the butcher of numerous sorceresses… [11]
Olivia started to meditate on the method thought by Lydya. Wanting to test her magical talent, she did not spend any skill point in meditation. Sadly, it turned out that she was indeed an ordinary person who possessed no gifts in meditating.
Lydia’s face was downcast, although she had expected it…
Translation Note:
[6] Ban Ard is a Kaedweni city known for its mining and magical academy. Although Ard Carraigh is its capital, Ban Ard is the true pearl of Kaedwen.
[9] Tissaia de Vries (d. 1267) was a sorceress and a member of the Chapter of Sorcerers. She was one of the rectors at Aretuza and the author of The Poisoned Source. She was also extremely obsessive about her appearance and things in general. Tissaia was the one who took a young Yennefer of Vengerberg under her wing. It was she who fixed Yennefer’s hunchback and cured her of her various afflictions. During the coup on Thanedd Island, it was she who teleported a heavily wounded Geralt and Triss away from the hands of the approaching Redanian army. After the coup on Thanedd Island, Tissaia committed suicide slitting her wrists. Together with the other losses, her death spelt the end of the Council, making way for the Lodge of Sorceresses.
[10] Triss Merigold of Maribor was a legendary Temerian sorceress of the 13th century. Called Fourteenth of the Hill by her contemporaries because she was erroneously thought to have been killed during the Battle of Sodden Hill, she passed into history as Merigold the Fearless. A member of King Foltest’s royal council along with Fercart and Keira Metz, as well as a founding member of the Lodge of Sorceresses, she was involved in politics for most of her life.
