Ch.294Epilogue – The Empty King (4)

In truth, strictly speaking, the Witch School uses spells that are fundamentally different from those used by ordinary wizards.

Though they may appear similar, if one were to make a comparison, they’re as different as elemental magic and divine magic. The difference between a witch and a conventional wizard is as vast as that between a wizard and a priest.

Therefore, in principle, there should be no place for Gretel, a witch, in the Magic Tower, an organization exclusively for wizards. However, coincidentally, circumstances turned out to be extremely favorable for Gretel.

First of all, the Witch School represents a very classical and primitive magical system that serves as the origin for many forms of magic, making it a subject of interest for quite a number of wizards.

However, the Witch School can only be learned by those born with innate talent, and there are few such natural practitioners. Moreover, its primitive structure makes it easy for practitioners to become confused and fall into heresy, giving it the worst possible image.

Until the witch hunts hundreds of years ago nearly exterminated witches, their image was essentially that of potential heretics.

Of course, the frequency of witches falling into heresy was indeed particularly high, which contributed to their image being somewhat thoroughly erased.

As a result, while the Witch School has been almost forgotten in the present day, it still holds sufficient research value. This is why Gretel proposed integration with the Magic Tower based on research material acquisition and other conditions.

It’s undeniable that when a magic-obsessed monstrous wizard offered to research the Witch School, which had all but died out, permission was granted most willingly.

In any case, having gained the authority to establish and operate a branch of the Magic Tower as the head of the Witch School, she soon built the Witch’s Tower in a forest near the capital with the support of the Duchy.

Additionally, ancient witches in hiding, having heard rumors of an officially recognized witch organization, occasionally visited. Some shared their materials while others joined outright, establishing the foundation for the Magic Tower.

It was a splendid revival of the Witch School, something even the lord who had approved it merely to facilitate the production of magical tools could not have predicted.

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There exists a profound fundamental difference between the magic used by the Witch School and that used by conventional wizards.

If a wizard’s magic is academic, a witch’s magic is purely the product of individual training. If anything, it more closely resembles that of sorcerers, who are innate magic users.

However, since witch magic occupies a middle ground between completely innate magic and acquired magic, it is “primitive” in many ways, possessing characteristics of both.

First, without an innate aptitude for the Witch School, it’s impossible to learn even if one is born with magical talent. Yet, it also operates according to certain rules and theories.

Simply put, the spells of the Witch School have a lower floor but a higher ceiling compared to conventional magic.

While one doesn’t have to anticipate failure every time magic is used, its power fluctuates significantly, making it somewhat unstable for consistently producing reliable results.

Nevertheless, there is a reason why the Witch School receives support at the domain level…

That reason is the Witch School’s production capability—witchcraft technology.

Though they’re all called the Witch School, it’s actually divided into dozens of sub-schools, and Gretel specializes in witchcraft that creates and produces things.

In particular, witchcraft production technology possesses unique aspects and special characteristics compared to ordinary wizards, typically represented by alchemists.

Specifically, in certain specialized fields such as potion brewing.

In other fields, especially in industrial sectors where standardized mass production is key, the unstable Witch School typically struggles to be effective.

While magical brooms for flight are somewhat amenable to standardized production, it’s ultimately impossible for them to compete with wizards who specialize in this field.

From the beginning, the Witch School’s specialties are luxury custom magical tools and the production of special magical foods like potions.

For custom magical tools, this is perhaps closest to the essence of the Witch School’s witchcraft technology.

Due to its inherent instability, even applying the same magic under the same conditions results in different effects each time. But if there’s no need to repeatedly produce the same magical tool, that’s fine.

The market for mass-produced magical tools is already dominated by the Magic Tower anyway, so they focus on producing custom magical tools for a select few, leveraging their higher potential compared to ordinary wizards.

The most representative example is a magical tool in the form of an aerial motorcycle created in collaboration with the Metal School (priced at about 50 times that of a good bloodline warhorse). Another popular product is the “substitute doll” that takes magical attacks in place of its owner.

While producing and selling custom magical tools that can only be created using the unique characteristics of the Witch School, they also mass-produce certain items in their own way.

These are the aforementioned potions. After repeatedly selling similar products in villages, they developed this type of product sales to mass-produce and supply cheap, affordable potions.

In reality, a priest’s healing magic is, of course, not free.

It’s just that in some smaller villages or slums, temples provide free treatment out of pure goodwill, and in pioneer villages, they offer free treatment for a few years in exchange for benefits like temple construction.

One might call this greedy or wicked, but temples need operating budgets to function.

They must pay salaries to priests and temple workers, build new temples, conduct relief activities in slums, and operate orphanages.

Honestly, considering the temples’ hard work, it’s understandable, so people don’t complain about temples charging for treatment.

…In practice, even with this paid service, they still provide treatment without payment in truly life-threatening situations.

However… in this situation, there’s plenty of room for potions to fill the gap.

For commoners and the poor, healing remedies typically mean holy water, but the holy water accessible to these lower social classes functions little better than a first-aid remedy.

Wound disinfection, promotion of natural healing, purification of toxic substances on contact—with such a moderately broad range of applications, the effects aren’t particularly impressive, so holy water can ultimately only heal minor scrapes.

In fact, this is precisely why the Witch School’s low-grade healing potions have value as products.

The Witch School’s low-grade healing potions are truly inexpensive, mass-produced items. Even a novice witch can make them by boiling highland mint and mountain celery in a basic mana solution for about 12 hours.

As long as the concentration is properly controlled and the temperature maintained during boiling, virtually any witch can make them. The ingredients are so cheap that they’re sold by weight in containers, costing less than the bottle itself.

Of course, their effectiveness is correspondingly lower due to their low cost, but even the slightest magical healing effect can be the seed that saves a dying person.

To put it metaphorically, it can barely keep a dying person alive, and the fact that it can potentially save someone who would otherwise die is actually its clear advantage.

Thanks to this, as these affordable healing potions sell rapidly due to their clear cost-effectiveness, the Witch School that produces such potions and other products has expanded quickly.

Among the Duchy’s population, which recently exceeded 300,000, there are plenty of children born with aptitude, and the Witch School, having received government investment, was able to monopolize human resources through collaboration with public authorities.

In short, an educational system was established where they travel around the country in pumpkin carriages, visiting villages, and if they find talented individuals, they obtain permission from the parents and the children themselves to provide gifted education from an early age.

At least within the Duchy, few parents would refuse the opportunity for their child to become a witch, now recognized as a high-income profession, and children rarely reject the chance to become the magicians they admire.

As a result, young witches flourish in the Witch School, which can monopolize most of the nation’s human resources, while high-caliber talents that can be mobilized at the national level in times of need are being cultivated…

Among the Magic Tower schools with such a “close relationship” to the Duchy is the “Metal School,” which has become closely associated through Lord Malakai Falten.