Alas, no one bothered to greet him back...Most of them gave him a cold glance while the rest nodded their heads slightly at him.

'Heh, no one wants to associate with you.' Asna snickered.

'Well, I tried to be friendly.' Felix shrugged his shoulders lightly and went with the girls to find empty seats.

If the witches were hell-bent on opposing him, then he wouldn't bother himself anymore with faking politeness.

Cluck!

Suddenly, the staff door behind the podium was opened and a tanned beautiful witch with short hair had emerged.

Immediately after seeing her, every witch showed a frightened expression, dropping their nonchalance at once.

"I am teacher Djamila and I will be your Theory course teacher." Djamila informed with a stern look, making every witch lower head after having eye contact with her.

Only Felix didn't bother to lower his head as he kept having a charming smile on his face.

He was probably the only one in school who wasn't scared of Djamila.

Why would he when teacher Djamila's source of terror was her hellish exercises in PE class? He eats those exercises for lunch, unlike witches who hated physical workouts.

"Even though I have been appointed as your theory teacher, I will still be teaching physical education this semester." Teacher Djamila tightened her grip in front of the witches and warned, "So, elites or not, I expect all of you to attend those classes...Understood!?"

"Yes..."

The witches replied with disheartened tones, making teacher Djamila frown her eyebrows in dissatisfaction. Still, she let it slip by for now.

"I assume that you have read your 2nd-semester syllabus at least once in this holiday." Teacher Djamila said.

Everyone nodded their heads without exception. 

"Very well, I won't go through the base theory of rank 2 potions concoction but I will show you a demonstration." Teacher Djamila requested, "Please use this link to log in to the UVR."

Everyone closed their eyes and did as they were told.

When they opened them up, they found a potion-making station was already in front of teacher Djamila.

"As you all know, the dark reaction has yet to be fully researched. It goes against the laws of the universe since no matter which high-graded materials we chose to merge, they always end up as useless black goo after the catalyst forces their reaction." Teacher Djamila mentioned while picking two materials.

One was a dark green twisted stick and the other was a spherical red leaf, appearing like a balloon. 

"This is B grade bubble leaf and Twisty poisonous branch." Teacher Djamila informed, "It took Sage Monia at least 5 years of trials and error before finding out the perfect recipe to create a potion out of them."

Felix and the witches didn't even flinch after hearing so. They understood that creating recipes was a time-consuming project.

Even with the existence of the UVR, it takes a year at a minimum of constant attempts to find the perfect recipe for two ingredients.

It wasn't a joke at all to create a new recipe. Yet, most senior witches were still going for it since having a monopoly over a recipe was the dream!

They could earn billions just by licensing it to other witches, earning 3% to 5% of each sold potion.

"We will skip the preparation steps and jump straight into the atomic phase." Teach Djamila warned, "So pay attention, I won't repeat the demonstration again."

Immediately after saying so, the empty cauldron got filled with a bubbly red liquid.

"This is the catalyst, created from 10 drops of inferno lake and three cups boiling hot water."

She explained while bringing the prepared mixture of those two ingredients to the cauldron. It was mixed like a flat-out square.

Felix and the witches knew that this shape was a must to increase the success of the potion. Teacher Djamila held the mixture by the sides and placed it gently on the bubbling liquid.

Immediately after, the screen switched to showing the microscopic world.

Since the microorganisms had been taken care of by the Queen, the surface of the mixture appeared clean.

Teacher Djamila didn't remain in the microscopic world for even a split second as she kept zooming in ceaselessly until the molecules of each mixture had been displayed before all.

She caught them in the process of having their bonds getting broken due to the catalyst, forcing out a reaction of them.

If it wasn't for this specific catalyst, the molecules that made both ingredients wouldn't break apart and try to bind together.

Abruptly, a colored green light covered those molecules and kept expanding at a horrifying speed! The synchronized screen made it easier to see so by zooming out to show the new bounds of the green light.

'Teacher Djamila's mental energy control sure is astonishing.' Felix thought in admiration, 'When will I be able to create such a massive protective dome in less than a second?'

The other witches kept their mouths shut as well, not wanting to break off Teacher Djamila's focus.

She was still in the process of expanding her dome bigger and bigger, putting as many molecules as possible inside for the next 30 seconds.

Since the camera was synchronized with her eyes, it didn't show what was going on the sides of the mixture.

However, Felix and some witches who were zooming in on the cauldron itself managed to notice a spooky sight.

The corners and sides of the square-shaped mixture had turned completely pitch-black!

Pieces of it had already started to fall off inside the bubbling liquid. Yet, the dark matter was still moving slowly to the center, appearing like a dark mist overshadowing a peaceful land.

However, immediately after reaching a 3cm radius around the center, it froze like there was a barrier blocking it from advancing forward and corrupting the rest of the mixture!

When Felix switched his vision to the screen, he saw a shocking sight of an infinite number of little black balls, covering the green light dome from above, below, and the sides.

Although he refers to it as a dome, in reality, it was more of a sphere that encased that entire portion from every possible direction.

'Ewe, they appear like a sea of little bugs.' Asna curled her lips in disgust at the sight of those little black things, trying their utmost best to break through the dome like their entire purpose was meant just to achieve so.

Alas, the moment teacher Djamila saw that the molecules had bonded successfully, she pulled out that small portion from the cauldron with her mental energy, slicing off everything else!

Immediately after they got separated from the catalyst, those little dark things had disappeared into thin air like their lifeline had been cut out of them.

Felix knew that without the catalyst, they couldn't stay for long. If it wasn't for so, they would have emerged right after teacher Djamila mixed the main ingredient with the subsidiary.

'Their existence is truly beyond comprehension.' Felix thought to himself.

He already asked Lady Sphinx about them and she completely ignored him.

He knew that there was a deep secret hidden here since the dark reaction clearly was targeted at alchemy in specific.

He didn't know why and he already burned many cells trying to figure it out on his own.

Alas, if trillions of witches couldn't discover the truth about the dark reaction throughout millions of years, how could he do it in a couple of days?

Hence, he gave up on the matter and focused on what's important...The demonstration.

"I have chosen this potion specifically since I had spent a year practicing it." Teacher Djamila brought the small saved portion next to her face and said, "This amount is the reward of my efforts...A measly 10% while 90% had been completely wasted."

Felix's eyelids twitched after hearing calling such an amount with that term.

He understood that rank 2+ potions require a massive amount of dedication for every single potion.

It wasn't possible to simply learn one recipe and jump into the other with a snap of a finger. That's because of the atomic interference phase requiring a lot of time to master.

Felix knew that if he ever attempted to repeat teacher Djamila's feat, he would utmost protect 1% of the mixture!

If he used his lightning passive, it might reach 3% or 4% if he was lucky.

That percentage was nowhere near good since the secondary positive materials wouldn't be able to help that tiny portion turn into a potion.

Speaking about the augmentation phase, teacher Djamila cleaned the cauldron from the concoction and poured a yellow sticky liquid inside of it.

Then, sprinkled some black dust and turned the fire to the max.

"Those two are the secondary positive materials for this exact potion. They are below B Grade materials. If you ever used B grade+ materials, you will be required to deal with the dark reaction all over again." She explained while throwing in the saved portion of the mixture.

Immediately after it touched the liquid, it sank within it and Teacher Djamila closed the lid.

"We leave it like this for 5 minutes." Teacher Djamila said, "This is where we usually pray to all the known gods and religions in the universe for the potion to succeed."

In other words, the potioneer couldn't make a difference anymore even if she wanted.

The efforts she did in the atomic interference phase were going to be the decider whether she gets a potion or a gooey substance...If she was lucky, that substance could be useful by being applied directly to the skin

This was the birthplace of the substances sold in the UVR...They were the byproduct of a failed rank 2+ potions!