Amelia sat bolt upright, flipping through the twins' assignments with a rustle and beginning her corrections.
Even reading at a speed that made one wonder if she was actually looking at them properly, her ruby-adorned red quill pen slashed mercilessly at any spot that seemed even slightly off.
During that moment, the sisters' gazes turned toward Amelia.
To Siwoo, apprentice witches were a stark example of the witches' obsessive madness and frenzy toward magic.
The Creation Witch, who had conjured something from nothing.
All witches lived in pursuit of reaching her godlike level of magic.
Just look at Amelia, who boasted a youthful bloom even after 150 years of existence—once a witch received her stigma, she gained immortality.
However, immortality didn't guarantee infinite progress for everyone.
Some hit an insurmountable wall, while others stagnated in eternal complacency.
After centuries of repeated failures, even the most stubborn witches had to admit it.
That no single individual could catch up to the Creation Witch's feats.
Any sensible person would give up at that point, but witches were anything but sensible.
So they made a decision.
If one lifetime wasn't enough to achieve the impossible, then repeat it endlessly—over and over and over.
Pass their research on to beings with entirely different ways of thinking and talents, and continue the work.
Witchcraft research pursued across centuries and generations.
The essence of that research was contained within a witch's stigma.
And those preparing to accept the stigma and carry on the next generation's work were apprentice witches like Odette and Odile.
Witches didn't just scorn others' lives.
To them, even their own lives were mere tools to perfect their magic.
The grading was finished.
"Here you go."
Amelia returned both assignments in less than fifteen minutes.
She didn't assign numerical scores.
It was her philosophy that magic, as an academic discipline, couldn't be quantified that way.
"As I always say, my corrections are just one possibility. Don't take them at face value—reflect on them endlessly and question everything."
"Yes, Professor!"
Even the strict Amelia became a remarkably capable professor once she stood at the podium.
She nitpicked every little thing about Siwoo in everyday life, but during lessons, she always acknowledged the possibility of paths beyond her own views.
Considering how immense witches' pride in their magic was, it was a remarkably flexible attitude.
The twins, who had taken back their assignments, dove into Amelia's corrections as if they were in a competition. The rustle of pages turning rapidly.
Judging by the speed, they clearly weren't reading properly.
Though talented, the girls were still green compared to a mature witch like Amelia.
"Seventy-one for me. How many for you, Odette?"
"Fifty-nine for me. I beat you today, sis!"
"Don't lie! There's no way the difference is that big!"
Odette wore a triumphant expression, while Odile snatched her report in disbelief.
"We can't just go by numbers! Look, mine only got tweaked by about a line, but yours had a whole paragraph rewritten. Here, and here too."
"You were the one who said we'd bet on the number of corrections, sis!"
Amelia's fingers twitched visibly at the sudden childish squabble unfolding before her eyes.
It looked like she was desperately craving a cigarette.
But Amelia never smoked at the podium.
Instead, she tapped the table to end the girls' silly bickering.
"Quiet down."
"Ah! Sorry, it's your fault, Odette!"
"Sorry, Professor... My sister's a bit immature."
Amelia said nothing more, simply waiting for the rowdy atmosphere to settle.
Without commenting on the assignments at all, she launched straight into the lesson.
"Before we dive into the main lesson, a question: Can men possess mana?"
Amelia always began her classes this way—with a question.
Odile and Odette, momentarily puzzled, chattered their thoughts.
"No, isn't that why only women become witches?"
"I think so too."
"To cut to the chase: yes, men do have mana. So why can't they inherit a stigma?"
The moment the topic of men came up, the twins' faces lit up with even greater excitement as they leaned into Amelia's lecture.
"Maybe because they're dumb?"
"Ah! That wasn't about you, Assistant Siwoo."
The giggling twins and Siwoo, who shrugged it off with a nonchalant expression.
Still, Amelia's lecture itself was engaging.
As befitted a high-ranking witch, she nailed the key points precisely.
"As many myths depict, the womb that nurtures the world belongs to the goddess. The symbolism and systems built up over long history naturally reflect in magic. Magic is both a tangible manifestation of mana and a collection of conceptual symbols.
Men can sire life but cannot carry it. Similarly, they can generate mana within their bodies, but they cannot bear the stigma that holds it."
Odile and Odette nodded side by side, as if they understood.
"But that doesn't mean we can completely exclude men from magical research. If our witches could manifest mana directly from our bodies, it would be a revolutionary discovery that upends mana theory."
"So today's lesson is about mana manifestation?"
"Exactly. To start, we need to examine the correlation between male bodily fluids and mana. Anything beyond that would be too advanced for your level."
Siwoo sensed it—the moment had arrived. Amelia issued the command in a voice devoid of emotion.
"Assistant, disrobe."
"Yes, ma'am."
The time of humiliation had come.
In name, he was an assistant, but in class, Siwoo was treated no differently than a teaching aid.
One that had to bare even his genitals under curious stares, no less.
As he shed the lab coat, Siwoo's naked body was revealed. The flimsy garment came off in under five seconds—it was designed for easy removal from the start.
"Wow..."
"Oh..."
Though they'd seen it several times before, the twins scanned Siwoo's nude form with sparkling eyes.
For sisters raised in a cage-like environment to become witches, this was their one and only sex education.
It was the body of an average adult man—neither overly fleshy nor heavily muscled.
But his hefty package was impressively large, no matter where you went.
Even unaroused, as it was now.
Fortunately, no comments flew about the size.
"It looks so smooth every time."
Siwoo's body was utterly hairless.
Whenever he was used as a teaching aid like this, he soaked in a tub filled with a strange depilatory solution for clear visual identification.
Siwoo cooperated with the experiment, head bowed and hands clasped behind his back.
Asserting any rights as a subject would fall on deaf ears. They'd just say to be grateful they left his head hair intact.
"Focus, don't get distracted."
Was it because Takasho had given her an earful earlier today?
Amelia's cheeks, usually impassive, seemed faintly flushed.
"Men can manifest mana through their own will, but the most intense generation occurs during ejaculation. It's so pronounced you can detect it without precise instruments."
Amelia lifted Siwoo's limp member with a slender teaching pointer.
Handling another man's dick like seaweed.
"Mana generation is closely tied to mental arousal. And the act of 'sowing seed' ingrained in male instinct triggers instinctive arousal. Today, we'll observe it visually."
She dressed it up in fancy words, but it boiled down to something simple.
Public masturbation until ejaculation. A true pervert like Takasho might love it, but not Siwoo.
The first time they'd collected semen under the guise of making magical reagents, Siwoo had wallowed in self-loathing for a week, sleepless.
Amelia placed a silver pendulum and chalkboard on the table.
First, she swiftly drew a magic circle on the black chalkboard with chalk.
The chalk she held wasn't ordinary.
It was mana chalk, made by mixing lime powder with gold dust and special reagents to enhance mana conductivity—for drawing magic circles.
Of course, it was an exorbitantly priced luxury Siwoo couldn't even glance at; that tiny stick cost more than his annual salary.
In an instant, the black board filled with runes, geometric shapes, and lines.
Amelia drew perfectly straight lines and curves, measured as if with a ruler, without any tools. She placed the pendulum, dangling from a tripod, over the completed magic circle.
"A simple magic circle to detect mana generation. The structure's obvious, right?"
"Yes, Professor."
"Are we making him ejaculate now?"
To Siwoo's eyes, it wasn't a particularly complex circle. The twins had no trouble grasping it either.
With this setup, the pendulum would start swinging toward the source the moment mana manifested externally.
And the amplitude of the pendulum swing would depend on the mana output.
As expected, the twins just glanced at it without comment.
They seemed eager to see a stranger's semen spurt out.
Siwoo let everything go.
Calm settled over his chaotic mind.
Fuck it, whatever. Hadn't jerked off in ages thanks to all the stress—might as well drain it now.
With that thought, he awaited Amelia's signal.
Once she gave the cue, he'd have to masturbate in front of three watching women.
"Yes, but we'll proceed differently from previous experiments."
"Guh!"
A sudden pale hand reached out.
Amelia, sleeves rolled up, had grabbed Siwoo's member directly.
Ignoring his shock, she quietly fondled the still-soft shaft.
"Until now, we've induced ejaculation through manual stimulation by the caretaker—no, Assistant Shin Siwoo. Today, I'll demonstrate direct induction."
"Can we try it too?"
"I wanna give it a go!"
The twins let out excited squeals, leaning forward over their desks as if ready to climb over.
Siwoo was dumbfounded. Meanwhile, he felt blood rushing to his lower abdomen from Amelia's subtle touch.
"Watch my demonstration first."
"Uh, Associate Professor Amelia...?"
Siwoo had learned to stay silent through most absurdities.
But even for him, Amelia's sudden move was beyond expectation.
Her sky-blue eyes, seeming to hold the heavens, met his gaze.
As always, they held a detached air, yet deep within flickered an enigmatic emotion.
"Is there a problem?"
"I-I can do it myself."
"That's for me to decide."
With those words dismissing his objection, Amelia's hand began to move slowly.