Chapter 8 – The Bloodthirsty Lilith

Vasida nodded vigorously, her head bobbing like a chicken pecking at rice.

“That’s right! I really did try my best to respond to everyone, but I just had no energy left.”

“I’d just had a huge meal before coming to the academy.”

“Normally, that would keep me going for at least two or three hours!”

“I didn’t expect that as soon as the talent test ended, I’d start feeling hungrier and hungrier.”

“Thankfully the banquet started quickly, so I finally managed to recover!”

Having seen how she’d been eating earlier, the young witches all believed her now. They understood she wasn’t ill-tempered or antisocial—she’d simply been starving.

With the misunderstanding cleared up, quite a few young witches came back to exchange names with Vasida and greet her properly.

This time, Vasida behaved much more normally.

After she’d gone around to the long tables of each year group to explain and apologize, then returned, Sylph asked her curiously, “Have you always gotten hungry this quickly?”

“Mm-hm!” Vasida said, looking somewhat troubled. “My mother took me to see a healing witch before, and there’s nothing wrong with my body. But after the talent test, I suspect it might be because I’m a sorceress… Do you all really not experience anything unusual in your daily lives?”

Sylph shook her head. “My appetite is perfectly normal.”

She looked toward Mo Lan, who also shook her head. “Same for me.”

“It’s not necessarily just a big appetite or getting hungry fast—it could be something else entirely!” Vasida said.

“Why do you think it’s because of being a sorceress?” Mo Lan asked.

“Because my talent manifestation… is a stomach pouch!” Vasida said. “After I manifested it, within just a few minutes, I felt like I was starving to death.”

As she spoke, she manifested the stomach pouch again.

The motion of manifesting it looked exactly as if she were pulling it right out of her belly.

Mo Lan finally realized why Vasida’s talent manifestation had seemed familiar before.

The flesh-colored exterior, the crescent shape—wasn’t that a stomach?

Her talent manifestation was her stomach?

No, that wasn’t quite right either.

Even for a sorceress, internal organs couldn’t just leave the body at will.

And Vasida didn’t appear to be in any discomfort.

“Maybe it’s your second stomach!” Mo Lan ventured boldly.

Not long after Vasida manifested the stomach pouch, that familiar wave of hunger found her again. She hurriedly dismissed it and began eating rapidly.

This time, as she devoured her food like a whirlwind, not a single young witch thought she was being rude. Instead, they felt genuinely sympathetic.

Iris noticed that most of the other young witches had basically finished eating, so she suggested:

“Everyone, help pass the other dishes over to Vasida!”

And so the first-year witches all sprang into action.

They each grabbed clean plates, picked out foods they thought were delicious, and brought them to Vasida.

Vasida refused nothing. Whatever was placed on her plate, she ate it all.

This treatment was far better than before, when she’d been too desperate to care about anything and had just gnawed on plain bread.

The commotion at the first-years’ end also caught the attention of the upperclassmen.

Most of them hadn’t finished eating yet either—many were leaning back with full stomachs, yet still continuing to eat.

Lilith came over carrying a plate piled high with food. She stood beside Vasida, eating from her own plate while observing the situation.

As Vasida ate more and more—even more than before—with no sign of stopping, Lilith remained relatively composed. The first-year witches, however, could not stay calm.

Eating this much—wouldn’t she burst? In Iris’s words, Vasida had already consumed several piles of food taller than herself.

“Senior Lilith, shouldn’t we report Vasida’s condition to Lady Amisha?”

Mo Lan felt they should let the Headmistress take a look.

The Headmistress was experienced and knowledgeable, far more so than any of them young witches. If Vasida truly had some problem, the Headmistress would be able to handle it.

Honestly, she’d never quite understood how Lady Amisha had left the hall so quickly—the new students hadn’t even figured out what was going on yet.

Lilith shook her head.

“If there were real danger, there’d be no need to report it—Lady Amisha would appear immediately.”

“You should know, since the founding of the Witch Academy, not a single young witch has ever perished within its walls.”

“However, if it’s not a matter of life and death, we have to handle it ourselves. Lady Amisha generally won’t intervene—it’s also a form of training for us.”

Mo Lan was flabbergasted, “???”

She felt she’d had a very serious misconception about the Witch Academy.

Everything short of mortal danger, handle it yourself?

This was definitely not the ivory tower school she’d imagined from her previous life.

“Besides… Vasida’s guess isn’t wrong. Her current condition might truly be caused by her talent manifestation.”

Lilith rubbed her chin and said:

“Every Sorceresses talent manifestation is unique.”

“Developing a talent manifestation can only be done by the Sorceress herself, through gradual experimentation.”

“Even Lady Amisha can’t help her with that.”

“From what we can see so far, the act of eating is able to alleviate her current condition, so at the very least, there’s no danger.”

“Because her magical power is gradually filling up, albeit rather slowly.”

“Talent manifestations can cause side effects like this?” Mo Lan was utterly astonished.

Talent manifestations were absolutely one of a Sorceress’s most unique and most powerful abilities.

“It’s not really a side effect, per se. In the early stages, when you don’t yet understand the characteristics of your talent manifestation, situations like this can occur.”

“Take me, for example—ever since I was little, I’ve been particularly fascinated by blood.”

“My mother and I thought for a while that it was the influence of my father’s bloodline. My father is a vampire count.”

“When I was young, my father even secretly let me drink blood.”

“But for me, the pleasure of drinking blood didn’t compare to the pleasure of playing with it.”

“It was only after the Bloodthirst Needle appeared, and after a series of experiments and tests, that I realized—it wasn’t that I was interested in blood. It was my Bloodthirst Needle. It likes to play with blood.”

Lilith manifested the Bloodthirst Needle, plunged it into her own arm, and quickly drew half a tube of blood.

“See? Doesn’t it look happy?”

Except for Vasida, who was still busy eating, every young witch took a unified step backward, trembling.

It was just that Senior Lilith looked a bit unhinged like this.

Without a word of warning, she’d jabbed a needle straight into her own artery and drawn her own blood without so much as a flinch.

When she pulled the needle out, the blood nearly splattered across everyone’s faces.

The puncture wound was unusually large too—bloody and absolutely terrifying.

Yet Senior Lilith acted as if she hadn’t even noticed, staring at the blood in the tube with unbridled excitement, even inviting everyone to look.

As if the red liquid in that tube weren’t blood at all, but some kind of precious gemstone.

Seeing her juniors huddled together like frightened quails, Lilith burst out laughing, her prank having succeeded.

“Alright, alright! Lilith, stop scaring the juniors!”

An upperclassman who couldn’t stand watching any longer came over, dabbing at Lilith’s arm with a handkerchief while explaining to the young witches:

“Don’t be afraid—Lilith was just teasing you! She can already control minor bodily healing.”