Chapter 2289: Mathematics Problems

Chapter 2289: Chapter 2289: Mathematics Problems

Margaret really did look exhausted. Miss Sylvia had Shard sit beside her, and the blonde Princess tilted her head and leaned directly against Shard’s shoulder, while Miss Sylvia took the seat opposite the two of them.

The young Witch knew they still had plenty of time ahead, so there was no need to cling to him every second:

"Looks like you didn’t get any rest this afternoon either, Shard."

She lifted the porcelain teacup and teased.

"Yeah. I’ve been tracking the Vampire Kind with my friends. I don’t know yet if the Investigation will lead anywhere, but at least I learned a lot of interesting things along the way."

He replied as he took the teacup Margaret handed him:

"I’ve received reliable information that the Thirteen Rings Light Chaser is most likely in Moon Bay. He’s Investigating Elf Legends—so strange. How did he even confirm Emilia’s Race?"

The young Witch chuckled:

"Looks like Bella’s ’revenge’ plan will have to be handled more carefully. But it’s not that big a problem. In the Light Worshipper Training Association, aside from that Thirteen Rings, there’s only one Twelve Rings, and the rest are below Ten Rings. Even if we can’t beat a Thirteen Rings, stalling him for a while is no problem."

Shard nodded and didn’t dwell on these vexing matters:

"Are you getting used to things here? Is there anything you need me to take care of?"

"Oh, Shard, you’re already so busy yourself—how can you still be thinking about helping us?"

The blonde Princess asked softly:

"Go take care of your own business. Teacher Sylvia and I can handle what we have on our hands right now. If we really need help, we’ll come find you."

The Black-haired Witch added:

"Shard, do you want to take a look at the business ledgers? This time we really made five or six years’ worth of pocket money in one go. It’s nothing compared to Galina and the others’ Wealth, of course, but at least from now on we won’t have to pinch pennies when we want to do things."

She started to get up to fetch the ledgers, but Shard stopped her:

"Forget the ledgers. And if there’s any dividends or whatever, you don’t need to give me a share—just keep reinvesting it into production."

Miss Sylvia gave him a look that said "I knew you’d say that":

"Right now the business is mainly spread through Velindale and the surrounding area; the farthest we’ve gone is here in Moon Bay. It’s not that I don’t want to earn more—it’s that the factory simply can’t keep up with demand."

Margaret also laughed and said:

"Shard, you would never guess how popular this product is. Even Mother and my sister have privately asked me if we can produce stockings specifically for Royalty."

She stood up as she spoke, sounding a little shy:

"I didn’t expect you to come by at dusk. Hold on a moment, I’ll go change into Teacher Sylvia’s latest product."

Then she lifted her skirt and quickly left the room.

"Girls these days really aren’t reserved at all. But that’s what a true Witch should be—knowing how to seize what she wants is never wrong."

Miss Sylvia said with a smile. She walked around the tea table and sat down beside Shard, her black lashes fluttering a few times:

"Did you miss me, Shard?"

"Of course. Do you need me to prove it with a kiss?"

The Witch laughed and wrapped her arms around him:

"Not just yet, because right now I need that mouth of yours... to tell me how far things have gotten between you and Bella. If you’re willing, a little demonstration would definitely be more straightforward than just talking."

"Uh..."

Shard glanced at the door:

"Margaret will be back soon."

Emma Sylvia laughed:

"Don’t worry, she won’t be back for at least half an hour. I put a lock on the trunk where the important items are. She has to solve my math problem to open it.

I’d bet anything Margaret will be too embarrassed to come back and ask me for the answer, especially with you here. From what I know of Her Highness the Princess, she’ll need at least thirty minutes."

Shard strongly suspected she’d planned all this in advance, but he didn’t have much room to think. The passionate lady had already kicked off her shoes and curled herself up on the sofa.

Right now her legs were wrapped in ordinary black fabric; that more intimate garment was of course not something she wore all the time. She noticed Shard’s gaze drifting downward, her lips curling into a smile. With a casual wave of her hand, Space rippled faintly, and a pair of black stockings that should have been locked in the trunk was precisely teleported into her hand.

The Grand Witch of Space wore a smug expression as she shoved the item in her hand into Shard’s palm:

"Come on, tell me—what exactly is going on between you and Bella? When we were chatting idly about you last night, her reaction was really something. A Witch who devoutly believes in Fate, in the end still caught in Fate’s web... Talk while you help me put these on, of course—and don’t forget you have to take off the original pair first.

Oh~ just thinking that Galina gets this kind of treatment every day, I almost go mad with jealousy."

No matter what had just happened in the study, by the time Margaret finally worked her way through that math problem and came back, Shard and Miss Sylvia were still sitting face to face across the coffee table. Both of them were holding teacups, and several more cookies had disappeared from the plate.

Aside from the things Margaret temporarily couldn’t notice—Shard had a few extra items in his pocket, and the fabric on Miss Sylvia’s legs had been swapped for another pair—nothing else in the room had changed.

"Teacher, your trunk was locked. It was really hard for me to open it."

The Blonde Princess put on a pitiful tone, but as she walked to the coffee table, she lifted her skirt hem, revealing her feet and everything below the knees. Then she turned around once, letting Shard see that pretty pair of flesh-toned fabrics whose semi-openwork pattern was formed by alternating thickness.

"Very pretty."

Shard whispered his admiration. Margaret sat back down beside him and quite naturally placed Shard’s hand on her leg:

"Yes, this is one of Teacher’s proudest creations. But the idea of using layers of different thickness in silk to form patterns was mine. What were you talking about just now? The Chosen One business, or the next phase of the plan?"

She was only asking casually, but Miss Sylvia still shot Shard a look, signaling him to answer.

The Outlander had always been good at handling sudden situations:

"Math problems."

He said with firm conviction:

"Yes, marvelous mathematics."

"What kind of math problem?"

The Princess kept her curious look, while Miss Sylvia pursed her lips in a smile as she watched Shard, curious what he would come up with. The young Grand Witch was hardly afraid of her student finding out what she and Shard had been doing; she simply thought the whole thing was amusing.

"Hmm... methods for solving systems of equations."

Shard continued to nod with certainty:

"Miss Sylvia believes that the methods for solving multivariable systems have already been fully explored, and that the remaining fancy methods are just flashy tricks that don’t count as probing the essence of mathematics.

But I first brought up number sequences, then mentioned ’Determinants’. You fix the number of unknowns in the system, then extract, from each equation, the coefficients in front of those unknowns. You form a Determinant in the shape of (number of unknowns) × (number of equations), and then..."

He took out his notebook and gave a simple demonstration. Once he had written out the final answer and checked it against the result from the usual method, he went on to briefly talk about the relationship between "matrices" and Determinants, the rules of transforming Determinants, the significance of Determinants in determining volume and coordinates in multi-dimensional space, and their importance for solving problems in multivariable calculus.

If it weren’t for the high likelihood that "Quantum Mechanics" was not applicable to this World, Shard would have liked to talk about the impact of Determinants and matrices on computations in Quantum Mechanics. Though he had been in this new World for more than a year, thanks to his improved memory he hadn’t forgotten any of the knowledge he had learned back in his Hometown.

In fact, the concept of the "Determinant" had already been proposed in this World, but it still hadn’t seen much application or research. Back when he first arrived, the Outlander, entertaining the idea of making a living by doing mathematics, had not only attended several forums and lectures, but also gone through books on the subject, so he had a fair grasp of this World’s mathematical development.

As for what he explained, Margaret was confused from the very beginning. Miss Sylvia, on the other hand, had her eyes growing brighter and brighter. When Shard finished, she leaned across the coffee table and grabbed his hand:

"Shard, stay and keep me company tonight, alright?"

"Hm?"

Of course, Shard did not end up spending the night. But before leaving, he used the Arcane Technique of the Moon Library to manifest part of the knowledge from his memory onto a book’s pages, and then had Miss Sylvia directly imprint those pages onto paper through Mind Writing.

Shard was quite worried that this young Grand Witch would stay up all night because of it.

Margaret did try to keep Shard for dinner, but he turned her invitation down because he still wanted to go visit Miss Benanis and Ciris.

Margaret did, however, escort Shard downstairs to the ground floor of the estate, where they shared a kiss before she let him go:

"I’ll see you tomorrow night, Shard. I’ll find a way to dance a waltz with you."

The Blonde Princess waved goodbye to Shard. Watching him toss out the Crystal Shoes and vanish into the Sunset, she felt boundless anticipation for the banquet the following night.

"Mia, let’s go to Moon Bay for dinner!"

There was no one at home this evening. Shard took the stairs two at a time, then scooped up the cat lying belly-down across the back of the sofa. Before the cat could react, he was already carrying it down to the basement.

But since there was both Shard’s company and dinner to look forward to, the cat did not object to going out with him at dusk. And so, man and cat stepped out of the Dragon Nest together, then took a carriage to the Goethe Grand Hotel in the city.

Because that little detour had wasted some time, by the time the carriage stopped in front of the most luxurious hotel in Moon Bay City, the gas lamps along the street were already glowing a warm yellow.

The best hotel in the City of Wealth was naturally extraordinary. The Goethe Grand Hotel stood at the Five-Forked Road in the East City Upper District, right next to Moon Bay Bank and one street away from the Dawn Chapel. In the night, every window of the hotel shone with bright Glimmer, almost lighting up the entire intersection. Even in the Steam Age, such a scene was quite astonishing.