Chapter 39: 37. Witch Academy
Upon hearing the Angel Witch’s inquiry, Dorothy also breathed a sigh of relief, finally able to escape that damned awkwardness. She quickly replied.
She had considered the question of which academy and major to enroll in for a long time, even going out of her way to gather a bunch of information about Witch Academy. Now, this combination was the decision she made after careful selection.
It was a daunting task, given that there were simply too many academies within Witch Academy – the catalogue alone was as thick as a dictionary, and the various majors offered by each academy were so numerous they drove one mad. Dorothy had buried herself in the material for a full month before finally settling on her current plan.
The so-called Witch Academy is not just the name of a single school, but a collective term for a cluster of schools that form an academy alliance.
This is fairly understandable, as all age-appropriate witches from around the world need to attend Witch Academy for a compulsory education of 20 years. The current total population of witches in the Witch World is about 50 billion, with roughly 500 million school-age witches.
What kind of school could house 500 million students? Even the thought is unrealistic.
Thus, the current Witch Academy system has been established.
In Dorothy’s hometown in her past life, elementary and middle schools were scattered across towns nationwide, with only universities being relatively clustered.
Actually, from the perspective of teaching efficiency and quality, school clusters tend to be more effective, allowing for easier and more convenient exchange of teaching staff between schools, and creating a better academic atmosphere,
But there’s no helping it; ideals must always make concessions to reality. It’s not like you can send kindergarten children to boarding schools, forcing parents to only see their children once every few months, right?
However, in this fantasy world, the distance between family and school is no longer a problem, all thanks to teleportation circles that can solve all troubles.
Therefore, the school cluster system became feasible, and all schools in the Witch World were built together. Adding the essential surrounding commercial districts to the schools, it eventually formed a massive Nation of Schools – Witch Academy.
In this magical Nation of Schools, over eighty percent of the population are students, and of the remaining twenty percent, nineteen percent are faculty and professors from various schools. The last less than one percent are representatives of large business conglomerates that have settled here.
As for how the one percent of merchants serve so many citizens?
Well, there’s no shortage of exotic races serving as servants, employees, and slaves everywhere—it’s just that they are not considered citizens.
If you were to include these exotic race individuals who work in various services, the total population would easily reach several billion more.
Another point worth mentioning is that although the original intention of establishing Witch Academy was to educate young little witches, witches place such high importance on education that often only the most learned witches can become professors.
As a result, the quality of professors at Witch Academy is absurdly high, with big names everywhere. If you can’t fill a cabinet with various medals from home, or if you haven’t published hundreds of papers in world-class academic journals, you’d be embarrassed to say you’re in research here.
And with so many big names concentrated in one place, a marvelous reaction naturally occurs. Just a casual chat between them could provide each other with inspiration, and from this exchange, a world-shaking new discovery could emerge.
Over time, various research institutions also sprang up throughout Witch Academy, with many of those great achievements that changed the world being born there.
The strong academic and research atmosphere attracted even more scholars and experts, which brought an even more formidable faculty to the Witch Academy.
Nowadays, apart from its educational duties, the Witch Academy was also the research center of the Witch World, a realm of knowledge, a heaven for all scholars.
At the same time, the Witch Academy had become one of the largest Witch Territories in the Witch World, ranking third in the Council of Thirteen Sages.
Thinking of this, Dorothy sneaked a glance at Sophia beside her.
"The founder of the Witch Academy was the initial Divine King, and now most of the managers of the Witch Academy are Angel Witches; it’s almost become a family business for them, no wonder she could become the Student Council President,"
she thought to herself.
But then she started to worry.
"Hiss, I just beat her up some and made her lose face; she wouldn’t hold a grudge, would she?"
Putting herself in the other’s shoes, Dorothy felt a chill in her heart, thinking she was doomed.
It was common knowledge that the Student Council wielded terrifying power within the Witch Academy; although nominally the highest decision-making body was the School Committee, composed of the headmaster and various deans.
But those big shots hardly had the leisure to manage a bunch of wild kids daily—they barely had enough time for their research. So, generally, the School Committee was only convened for major school matters, and the responsibility for maintaining the normal operation of the academy was given to the student self-governance organization—the Student Council.
It was said: You Student Council members are all future Witch Lords; start practicing your management skills from now on.
Indeed, this did train people, after all, it wasn’t easy to manage the millions there without real talent.
The bar to enter the Student Council at the Witch Academy was quite high; typically, only the most outstanding students from each school could join the Student Council. To become the Student Council President, you had to have all those genius witches under you listen to you, which was no easy task, considering geniuses were mostly arrogant, acknowledging no one but themselves.
Almost all former Student Council Presidents were among the most outstanding students in the Witch Academy, either extremely powerful, able to suppress all and tolerated by none; or possessing overwhelming charm, able to shake her delicate frame, making everyone bow in admiration.
So, what kind was Sophia?
Could it be that she had a particularly strong background?
But then again, why would an Angel Witch take an oath of fealty to Euphilia, the Dragon Witch? Don’t witches usually seek mentors of their own race?
Dorothy let her mind wander with wild thoughts.
Meanwhile, the Dragon Witch and the Angel Witch caught each other’s glance, both seeing confusion in the other’s eyes.
"What the heck? Brust? Newest? Aren’t those both research academies? And you’re telling us now with that combat talent of yours that you actually want to be a Research Witch?"