Chapter 95: Ai Mi Er Requests an Audience

Dier was concentrating on brewing a potion while Ai Mi Er idled about. Her gaze fell upon the innermost bookshelf. Noticing there were no restrictions, she casually pulled out a book.

“Hogwarts First Year Textbook?” The words on the cover made Ai Mi Er pause, but since there were no restrictions, she assumed it wasn’t anything important. Thus, she casually flipped it open. Only then did she realize her grave mistake.

Though simple, the first-year textbook contained the foundation and enlightenment of the entire system. From it, one could glean insights into the system’s completeness and potential. Coincidentally, Ai Mi Er’s discernment wasn’t poor. She was immediately taken aback and hurriedly looked at the other books on the shelf.

“Charms, Potions, Herbology, Divination, Care of Magical Creatures, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, Flying… This is a complete magic system!” Ai Mi Er’s hands were trembling because she understood the value of these things all too well.

Witches belonged to the wizarding community. Although the overall number of wizards was insignificant compared to the Empire, their actual numbers weren’t small. In the Wizard Sanctuary, there was a town entirely composed of wizards, numbering several thousand, as well as a dedicated wizarding academy.

In addition, the number of people scattered throughout the Empire with wizarding bloodlines wasn’t small either.

Even so, the textbooks of the wizarding academy weren’t necessarily as comprehensive as the one in her hand.

No, that boy was definitely not the illegitimate son of some great noble. Unless… he was the Emperor’s illegitimate son? But that was absolutely impossible.

Owen had been careless, or rather, he had underestimated the importance of a system.

No system was developed by a single person alone. While the founder was important, it was the continuous stream of successors who truly perfected the system, especially in a world with backward productivity, inconvenient information exchange, and difficult knowledge dissemination.

Compared to modern education systems, the Hogwarts education system seemed quite backward. After all, there was the issue of the wizarding population base. However, it was still perfected over thousands of years by four legendary founders and countless successors. Its value was immeasurable.

Although Owen understood this somewhat, he didn’t attach enough importance to it. After all, in his previous life, not to mention the schools that practically force-fed knowledge into students’ heads, the internet and libraries alone held most of the world’s knowledge. Excluding the most advanced and confidential information, most knowledge seemed extremely cheap.

In this situation, textbooks meant for a bunch of teenagers really didn’t raise Owen’s guard.

But he had forgotten that the Hogwarts textbooks were the foundation of the entire wizarding world. Only a minority could truly make breakthroughs based on this foundation. In reality, most wizards couldn’t even utilize what they learned in school.

Ai Mi Er didn’t continue to browse these books. Instead, she fell into deep thought. Even when Dier passed by her several times, she remained oblivious, angering Dier to the point that she didn’t even call her for lunch.

When Ai Mi Er finally came to her senses, she ignored her rumbling stomach. After making her decision, she didn’t hesitate but chose to immediately find Dier, wanting to see Owen.

Although puzzled and reluctant, after seeing Ai Mi Er’s rare serious expression, Dier hesitated for a moment before taking her to request an audience with Owen.

At this time, Owen was fiddling with figurines in the secret chamber of the dungeon. Yesterday’s events had been quite a shock to him, and he almost picked up his long-abandoned crafting hobby again. Fortunately, thinking of Maya and Dier, he felt that waste was shameful and managed to restrain himself.

To distract himself, Owen had a sudden whimsical idea. Combining the puppets from puppetry and the paper figures from Onmyodo, he attempted to create his own moving figurines.

The small paper figures in Onmyodo were quite interesting. They possessed a spiritual nature and could proactively complete some tasks, making them indispensable assistants to Onmyoji.

But in Owen’s view, they were still a bit too simple. Besides, wouldn’t a moving figurine wife be much more appealing than a paper figure wife? So he began crafting small puppets and then used them for spiritual awakening and enlightenment.

Compared to the process of researching Shikigami transformation, Owen’s whimsical attempt this time was unbelievably smooth. The lifelike little maid figurine, about a foot tall, was clumsily moving her limbs and quickly mastered the ability to move. She started cleaning the table with a “heave-ho, heave-ho” as she ran about.

The little maid figurine was modeled after King Arthur, the female version of course. Because some of his thoughts were integrated during the spiritual awakening, halfway through cleaning, she picked up a screwdriver from the table and gestured with it, surprisingly looking quite proficient.

Although he hadn’t yet discovered any practical use for these small puppets, as long as they looked good, it was enough. So Owen enthusiastically planned to refine more. After all, it didn’t cost him any Progress Value. The quantity entirely depended on how long his interest could last.

But when he learned of Ai Mi Er’s request for an audience, Owen was stunned. In his mind, it should have taken at least a few more days before they met, either through her initiative or his, to lay the foundation for her future recruitment.

Even training a dog takes several months, let alone a mature and independent person. Shikigami transformation only allowed Owen to gain the upper hand; it didn’t guarantee victory. If he truly believed he could manipulate her at will just because of this, he would probably die without knowing how.

Owen was very self-aware in this regard. In his past life, he was a bit slow-witted and lacked ambition. He didn’t invest in his cunning, spending his days either working or reading novels. His skills couldn’t even fool a child.

Although his intelligence had improved in this life, scheming required talent, which he clearly lacked. He knew that playing mind games would only lead to his own downfall. Therefore, Owen didn’t blindly try to intimidate and recruit followers. Without the protagonist’s halo and the brainwashed follower halo, it would simply be an insult to everyone’s intelligence.

In reality, Owen’s method was very simple: use favorable conditions to win over and a mysterious background to restrain.

As long as they couldn’t figure out his true background, no one would dare to betray him easily.

After all, if your boss commutes by tricycle, you might dare to argue with them. But if they drive a tank…

However, this alone wasn’t enough. Deterrence was sufficient, but it might not be enough to retain people.

Therefore, Owen provided slightly better treatment based on the individual’s abilities. This way, as long as others couldn’t offer better treatment than him, they wouldn’t be able to poach his people.

Holding money in one hand and a gun in the other—it was that simple. But only Owen, with his golden finger, could do this, because the things he offered didn’t match his apparent strength. The cost was merely waiting for his Progress Value to recover.

Take the greenhouse for example. Even for a great noble, it would take many years to build, and the materials and favors consumed during that time wouldn’t be a small amount.

But for Owen, it only required waiting for a period of time.

But the plan had just begun. Why had Ai Mi Er come knocking so soon?

Judging from Ai Mi Er’s maturity, a single greenhouse wouldn’t be enough to easily lure her into his net. There must be something he hadn’t considered.

Owen immediately thought of Dier’s magic and potions, as this was the only thing a witch would truly value.

“In that case, I need to adjust my plan.”