In the end, all I could do was watch Bai Yu leave in a rush.
The only proof she’d even been here was the identity card she’d left in my hand.
That was fast. Way too fast. What could be so urgent that she had to bolt like that?
I looked down at the card, turning it between my fingers.
Well… whatever. Even if I had no idea what the next step was, the only way to find out was to try.
---
Meanwhile, Bai Yu herself was striding away with a mix of worry and irritation flickering across her face.
Just yesterday, she’d received an unexpected message from a teacher—a woman who introduced herself as Professor Xi Lan. They’d barely interacted before, but the woman said she wanted to talk.
Teachers at the Academy were all witches at the Transcendence level, so of course Bai Yu took the invitation seriously.
But after sitting down with her, it became clear that Xi Lan’s real interest wasn’t in Bai Yu herself—it was in Yuehan.
Xi Lan admitted that she’d personally called several students whom the Witch School had been keeping an eye on. Connecting the dots, Bai Yu quickly realized it must have been this professor who’d arranged Yuehan’s “special admission,” bypassing the normal entrance requirements altogether.
Naturally, Bai Yu wanted to know why.
Why would the Witch School go so far out of its way for Yuehan—
Even ignoring her entrance exam scores to bring her in?
Sure, the offer was objectively good for Yuehan. It was the kind of opportunity anyone would dream of.
But at the time, Bai Yu had no idea whether Yuehan would even want to become a witch.
She assumed the professor wouldn’t reveal much—
But Xi Lan had been startlingly direct.
“Because Yuehan was already on the Demonspawn School’s high-priority recruitment list,” the professor said.
“And after looking into her background, we confirmed she’s an innate Psi-visioner.”
Bai Yu had been stunned.
The Demonspawn School was barely a few years old—a small, ambitious institute that couldn’t even compare to the Witch School. So why would the Academy care enough to investigate their recruitment list?
But that wasn’t the point. The real shock was the second part—
that Yuehan was an innate Psi-visioner.
Bai Yu had heard the term before, though she’d never studied it deeply.
She only knew what most people did:
Scientific reports—and countless case studies—had long proven that innate Psi-vision wasn’t some extraordinary gift.
It was an incurable disease.
No one could ever explain to a newborn who lacked all understanding of reality what “the real world” was, or what the “inner world” they saw through Psi-vision truly meant.
From the moment they were born, these individuals lived in a completely different reality.
They were born delusional.
People whose minds could never sync with the world that the rest of humanity shared.
But Bai Yu knew Yuehan wasn’t like that.
Yes—she’d shown similar symptoms once.
She’d even been institutionalized as a child, diagnosed with early-onset psychosis.
But she’d recovered.
Now, Yuehan was completely normal, except for being a bit reserved, with few friends.
But that was just the residue of her old life, nothing more.
She’d changed so much since then. Witchification had given her a new start, a reason to open up, and maybe, finally, a world that made sense to her.
Bai Yu had tried her best to argue with the professor’s theory.
She’d never personally witnessed Yuehan’s breakdown years ago, but Yuehan had talked about it herself.
And Bai Yu just couldn’t accept what Xi Lan was implying.
After all—there had never been a single recorded case of an innate Psi-visioner recovering. None of them had ever managed to step onto the path of Transcendence on their own.
How could someone whose perception of reality was fractured ever hope to correct it by borrowing Transcendence power?
Even witchification—supposedly capable of cognitive restructuring—still required cognition to work in the first place.
If someone was truly mad, no spell could make them sane.
Still, Bai Yu knew she was just trying to convince herself.
Because there was one thing she couldn’t deny—one piece of evidence that shattered all her comforting logic: She had personally seen Yuehan’s Psi-vision level on record.
And that data… was impossible.
It wasn’t the reading of someone untouched by Transcendence energy.
It was the mark of something beyond human.
There was only one explanation left—innate Psi-vision.
At the current stage, Psi-vision was divided into six tiers: Visionary, Insight, Veilshift, Mindrift, Supra, and Coreal.
A typical Psi-vision awakening, Visionary level, was nothing extraordinary.
Those people occasionally glimpsed fragments of the Inner World, shadows flickering just beyond the veil of normal sight.
But their memories of it would fade within hours, like dreams dissolving with the morning sun.
Researchers called this a form of self-defense, a gradual adaptation mechanism that let the human mind adjust to Psi-vision slowly.
But Yuehan’s recorded level was Supra.
That was… absurd.
Even Xi Lan herself, a transcendent witch and an elite instructor, had admitted that her own Psi-vision only reached Veilshift—and that even the next stage, Mindrift, was something she dared not approach.
Mindrift wasn’t like the other ranks; it was a threshold.
You either crossed it and ascended to Supra, or you broke—permanently.
And that kind of “breaking” wasn’t just madness or psychosis; it was irreversible. There were no known recoveries.
Just like innate Psi-visioners, once you fell, you never came back.
That’s why most students, even after achieving Transcendence, never chased higher Psi-vision levels.
Nobody wanted to spend years studying and surviving only to lose their mind at the finish line.
Bai Yu understood that perfectly.
And the Earthvein monitoring data didn’t lie.
It had been verified and escalated all the way to the Academy’s upper council—and the final conclusion was the same:
The data was correct.
Yuehan was an innate Psi-visioner.
In fact, she might be the only recorded case of an innate Psi-visioner who’d ever recovered.
Her potential was terrifying—possibly greater than the top student in the entire cohort.
Nonetheless, potential was one thing; what the Academy planned to do with her was another. Bai Yu had been anxious about that,
However, Xi Lan had given her a promise:
“Anyone who tries to experiment on Yuehan will have the entire faculty to answer to. She’s not just a subject—she’s living proof. The first of her kind. And a living miracle is far more valuable than a dead one.”
So for now, Yuehan was safe.
At least, safe enough that Bai Yu could breathe.
Her irritation came from somewhere else entirely—from the fact that Yuehan’s existence had already sparked tension between the Witch School and the Demonspawn School, who were furious about losing such a rare “specimen.”
That was the real source of the storm brewing behind the scenes.
The professor hadn’t told Bai Yu much about the Academy’s internal struggle. She’d only hinted—just enough for Bai Yu to piece together what was really going on.
In short, Bai Yu’s “early interception” of Yuehan had thrown her right into conflict with the Demonspawn School.
Officially, the whole mess had been reclassified as a student dispute.
Of course, even if Bai Yu hadn’t stepped in first, the Witch School would’ve intervened eventually—
Yuehan had already received an official admission letter. There was no way the Academy would simply hand her over.
Still, this could only lead to one inevitable outcome: a direct clash between the Witch School and the Demonspawn School.
At first, Bai Yu couldn’t take it seriously.
The idea of those two institutions being on the same level was ridiculous, like some random community college trying to pick a fight with an Ivy League university.
But after hearing the professor’s tone, watching her guarded expression, Bai Yu began to realize there was more to this than petty academic rivalry.
The professor didn’t say much—just a few words that pulled at a memory Bai Yu had tried to forget.
It had happened some time ago.
Back then, Bai Yu had stumbled upon something she didn’t understand—a fragment of information, a “truth” that made no sense.
She hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but soon after, the Academy summoned her. They made her sign a confidentiality pact—non-negotiable.
That was when she realized the world she lived in wasn’t nearly as simple as she’d believed. Some knowledge wasn’t meant to spread; some truths weren’t meant to be remembered.
All she’d seen back then were a few phrases. They seemed nonsensical, really, until now.
“World Script Theory.”
“Children of Fortune.”
The memory made her throat tighten. She swallowed hard.
And then she remembered what the professor had said to her before leaving that day:
“There’s a reason I reached out to you. Not just because you’re involved in this situation—but because you once brushed against the truth. I don’t know how you feel about that, but I’d like your cooperation. If you agree, I’ll explain what really happened. But you’ll need to sign another pact first.”
“Think of it as insurance—for your friend, Yuehan. I can tell you care about her. She’s only a peripheral figure in this event. Once the spark is lit, she’ll fade from the scene. All you need to do is play your part.”
Her words were clear enough.
The professor knew what Bai Yu knew, but neither of them could ever say it aloud.
Even among witches, even within the Academy itself, there were secrets too dangerous to name.