Witch, Fireball and the Evil God of Steam

"We didn't come here to eat."

Ethan said, "A few days ago, the Scholar ordered a pumpkin pie and had it sent to her study."

The young magician nodded, "There was such a thing."

"I want to know the exact time."

"It was the evening five days ago."

The Scholar has been dead for almost five days.

Ethan reached an initial conclusion. He imagined that on that evening, the Scholar ordered a pumpkin pie but decided to meditate for a moment before enjoying the food.

The investigation finally made substantial progress. The reason no one noticed this was because, in the five days following her death, the Scholar appeared in different ways before the Magic Masters. According to his observation, the Magic Masters of the Mage Tower didn't seem to like socializing and except for common meal times, they all stayed in their respective studies.

For them, not seeing someone for a few days was normal.

"What, just leaving like this?"

Rowena hurriedly said as she saw Ethan walking out of the dining hall without looking back, "You don't have to worry about me, I'm not eating here, they wouldn't dare harm you."

"I'm not hungry. If you are, you can eat while walking."

With a "bang," something that looked very hard appeared in Ethan's hand. Before Rowena could come to her senses, the cold and dry hard object was handed to her.

This thing should be called "magic bread."

Rowena looked at the bread in her hand and glanced at Ethan, who remained serious, "If you're hungry, you can use this to fill up."

She hesitated repeatedly, trying to bring the magic bread to her mouth.

"Crunch".

A strange sound was made when biting the bread.

She failed. The bread's surface remained intact, hard as the oath on the other shore and the Sword of Victory, with the drool on the "blade" seemingly mocking her overreach.

Only Miss Keroy could bite into such a thing.

But regardless, this was Ethan's kind intention. Rowena put away her ebony wand and held the magic bread in her hands as if wielding a sword, thinking this might be effective if swung hard. With the magician's fragile small frame, even getting hit with a bread could disorient them.

Now she was Knight Rowena, a Magic Master skilled in powerful physical attacks.

"Great detective, what do we do next?"

"Find the motive of the murderer."

"Motive? Maybe it's about the Scholar's inheritance."

Rowena said subconsciously, "Each successor is personally appointed by the Scholar, and others have no right to interfere. I've heard that assassination attempts on Scholars have happened during power transitions before, but they mostly failed."

If a Scholar died before clearly specifying a successor, the issue of selection would turn into a voting system, where the pure-blood clan deeply rooted in the Mage Tower could hold sway.

"That possibility cannot be ruled out. You will be in charge of this part of the investigation."

"Huh? Me?"

Rowena was stunned, then hesitated and said, "Alright, I'll give it a try."

She was brewing an initial plan—if anyone didn't cooperate with her investigation, she would offer them magic bread!

Without Rowena following along, the Magic Masters they encountered became much more talkative.

They generally believed the Scholar was murdered last night, during which they saw the Scholar at more than one place in the Mage Tower, sometimes organizing casting materials, sometimes going to eat in the dining hall.

When Ethan asked whether magic could achieve an illusionary effect, the Magic Masters all fell into thought.

No, this wasn't an illusion.

The Magic Masters' attitudes mostly became somewhat agitated, as if their authority was being questioned.

They first explained to Ethan that the "Transformation" spell indeed contained many magic tricks that could cause illusions, but they were the finest magicians in the world, and even the teaching materials of the "Transformation" spell were compiled by them together.

No one could use illusions to fool them, especially consistently fooling them for five days!

Ethan did not refute, which at least showed that the caster's methods were extremely sophisticated, seamless even, so much so that even these well-established Great Mages couldn't see through them.

That, in addition to the faint thread hanging over Silver Fox and the Vice-President, made him more convinced of his suspicion.

But, Rowena said that it had been several hundred years since a Saint had appeared among the followers of the God of Trickery.

Even the current Scholar, who had been greatly anticipated, failed.

With her death, all was concluded.

However, Ethan learned an unexpectedly important piece of information from the Magic Masters—they mentioned that since the Scholar returned to the Mage Tower, she almost confined herself daily for meditation in the observatory until then. The Scholar hadn't been so devoted to meditation for over a decade before.

As she aged, it seemed the Scholar had given up unrealistic fantasies, focusing instead on expanding and developing the Guild.

Ethan returned to the observatory once again.

The Scholar's books and collections were scattered all over, most of which were her manuscripts written in an incomprehensible language. Rowena mentioned that this was an encryption method used by the Magic Masters, especially the pure-blood clan, who didn't like sharing their research findings with others, so they created such spells.

Only the author can understand their insights within.

Ethan found the Scholar's recent manuscripts from the pile of books in disarray, with the dense symbols corroborating the Magic Masters' claims.