Lord: I have built a witch's sanctuary.

Chapter 1 Departure

On the boundless snowfield, the wind and snow were like knives.

Two figures trudged through ankle-deep snow, the biting wind whipping up snowflakes that lashed against their thin winter clothes with a soft "crackling" sound.

The man walking in front was tall and straight, but his steps were slightly heavy.

His name was Lorraine. His once black hair was now completely white from the wind and snow. His face betrayed little emotion as he stared intently at a blurry silhouette in the distance amidst the snow.

—A lonely outpost.

The girl following behind him was named Anna; she was his maid.

Her face, red from the cold, was streaked with tears, and her lips moved as she finally broke the silence with a sob.

"Young Master Lorraine... I'm so cold... and I'm so hungry..."

Anna's voice trailed off in the cold wind, almost swallowed by the sound of the wind:

"I'm sorry... It's all my fault. If I hadn't broken the Countess's favorite vase, you wouldn't have..."

"You shouldn't have protected me in the first place. Now look what's happened, you've been dragged into this mess and ended up in this godforsaken place too..."

"The family won't even give us a thick cloak or enough food... They just want us to freeze and starve to death here!"

Lorraine paused for a moment, then said softly:

"Complaining won't make us eat another loaf of black bread, Anna."

"Let's keep going, we're almost there."

He gazed at the faintly visible outpost, its warm orange light stubbornly penetrating even through the blizzard—the light of the outpost's demonic fire.

Lorraine's thoughts settled down.

He wasn't from this world. After transmigrating to this world, he learned that it was a world rife with disasters.

An unusual natural disaster known as the "Moment of Anomaly" will descend without warning, bringing dense fog, blizzards, and blood rain...

In these bizarre weather conditions, countless grotesque and twisted monsters are born from the void, reaping all living things.

Humanity's only chance of survival lies in sending pioneering barons to establish baronies centered around sheltered sites.

At the heart of the site is the ever-burning "magic fire".

Only the light of the demonic fire can shield travelers from the encroaching chaos of the moment, providing them with a small, safe haven.

His family banished him to the White Wolf Station in the northern snowfields, ostensibly to bestow upon him a title and make him a stationmaster, but in reality, they left him to fend for himself.

Because maintaining the burning of the demonic fire requires two conditions: either there is a "witch" who has signed a contract with the stationmaster and uses her own spiritual power to prolong the life of the demonic fire;

Alternatively, one can only continuously invest expensive "magic crystals" to maintain the flame, like burning firewood.

But where could he, a bastard who had been stripped of all resources, find a witch willing to sign a contract with this desolate wasteland?

The meager amount of magic crystals his family gave him probably wouldn't even last through this winter.

Once the magic crystals are exhausted and the magic fire is extinguished, they will be torn to pieces by the monsters in the next "Moment of Metamorphosis".

Lorraine struggled to pull his heavy leather boots out of the snow, shook off the loose snow, and said to Anna, who was hugging her arms behind her and chattering.

"If you're hungry, eat something."

"But... young master..." Anna looked at the lonely building, her eyes reddening, her voice trembling, "We've even finished the last piece of black bread, and the magic crystals the family gave us..."

She counted on her frozen fingers, her face growing paler with each calculation.

"We won't make it through this month."

Anna looked up, her eyes filled with despair: "What can we do when we get to that wretched place? Just wait to die?"

Lorraine stopped in her tracks.

Then he smiled.

His smile was so bright in the swirling snow that Anna even wondered if the young master had gone mad from the cold.

"Anna, do you know?" Lorraine turned around, her tone surprisingly relaxed, "I've been waiting for this to happen for sixteen years."

"……what?"

Anna was stunned.

Lorraine stretched out her hand, letting the snowflakes fall into her palm.

"What do you think would happen if I stayed in the family?"

Anna counted on her fingers: "I've always seen how good Madam is to you, so she should really like the young master, right?"

Lorraine shook his head. When he first transmigrated, he also thought it should be this way, and even actively changed his former playboy persona. But he gradually discovered that his mother's gentle gaze revealed a trace of hatred.

That was an expression that a mother shouldn't have, yet it was unmistakably revealed on Lorraine's face after she pretended to be asleep.

His dissolute lifestyle seemed preordained, as if he was waiting for someone to take over his life.

"Anna, if the lady truly loved me, she would plead for me instead of throwing me into this freezing cold to survive at every opportunity."

"In that family, if I came in last place in a test, they would say, 'The illegitimate child is hopeless;' if I came in first place in a test, they would say, 'The illegitimate child is cunning.'"

His voice was calm, as if he were telling someone else's story.

"Breaking a vase? Unforgivable. Eating an extra piece of meat? Disrespectful. Walking a little too loudly? An insult to the family."

Lorraine shrugged. "See? No matter what I do, it's wrong. What's the point of me acting? Isn't it exhausting?"

Anna opened her mouth, but for a moment she didn't know what to say.

As the maid of Young Master Lorraine's illegitimate son, she suffered endless humiliation within the family.

I thought I would spend my whole life in contempt and denial.

But now...

The young master Luo Lin in front of her was completely different from the quiet and timid boy in her memory who was always silent in the family.

He stood ramrod straight, and his words were filled with a pride and confidence that even the eldest sons of the main family lacked.

It was as if being expelled from the family had not broken him, but rather removed some kind of shackles from him.

Nevertheless, the harsh reality still made Anna feel uneasy.

"Young master... although Anna is stupid, I think you are right."

She nodded vigorously, pulled a small self-defense dagger from her pocket, and gripped it tightly.

"But... I've heard that rightful heirs are given a witch by their family to sign a contract with the lord to protect their territory. We have nothing here..."

"But... but if monsters really attack the site, Anna is willing to be the first to step forward and buy you time to escape!"

The girl's eyes were incredibly determined, even though her hand gripping the knife hilt was trembling slightly.

Lorraine looked at her, a warm feeling washing over her.

He suddenly smiled mysteriously. "Who said we don't have witches here?"

Anna was taken aback.

Lorraine gave her a deep look, his gaze seemingly able to see into her soul: "Anna, if you behave well in the future, I can also make you a witch."

"I...became a witch?"

Anna was first taken aback, then the light in her eyes quickly dimmed, turning into bitterness and sadness.

She knew that Young Master Lorraine was just trying to comfort her.

Becoming a witch requires extremely demanding talent, one in ten thousand. How could an ordinary maid like myself possibly possess such talent?

Moreover, even if she had talent, it wouldn't have mattered.

Each witch's path to advancement is a unique secret, and the process of exploring these paths is extremely arduous.

It requires the lives of countless witches, one after another, to try and fail.

The magic power within a witch is extremely unstable; if the ritual goes wrong, the out-of-control energy will become a ticking time bomb.

At best, the witch will die instantly and turn into blood; at worst, a violent magical explosion will occur, leveling the entire territory.

Only powerful lordly families can control one or two fixed paths to advancement.

As an illegitimate child, Young Master Lorraine was not qualified to inherit the family's few paths to becoming a witch.

Even if he were to miraculously obtain some unknown path to advancement, the awakened witches are all incredibly diverse, so how could he possibly know that the path he takes is exactly the one he needs?

That's simply impossible.

Even knowing it was a lie to comfort herself, Anna still felt her eyes welling up with tears.

At least, her lord is genuinely concerned for her.

"Yes, young master!" Anna sniffed hard, sheathed the dagger, and perked up. "I'll definitely do my best! Please assign me a task; we need to get the site up and running as soon as possible!"

"Okay." Lorraine nodded approvingly. "Your task is to search for supplies at the station. Perhaps there isn't nothing here. Go and see if the former stationmaster has left anything behind."

"Yes!" Anna accepted the order, waved her little fist, turned around and ran towards the outpost, her back view full of energy.

Finally, the two arrived at the outpost.

Pushing open the wooden door, a warm breeze rushed in, dispelling the chill that clung to my bones.

The outpost was simply furnished, with only a stone trough in the center where a demonic fire burned fiercely. Apart from that, it was empty, without even a bed, only some scattered straw.

Anna looked around, and the hope that had just been ignited was doused with cold water by reality.

"Young Master, there's nothing here..."

"Who said that?" Lorraine smiled confidently. He walked to the corner of the room, near the fireplace, and tapped the dusty stone floor with his toe.

"Anna, use your dagger to scrape away the dust and cinders here."

"Yes, young master." Despite her doubts, Anna immediately complied.

She knelt on the ground, painstakingly cleaning with her small self-defense dagger. Soon, an almost invisible crack appeared on the stone slab.

"Young master, there's a crack here!" Anna looked up in surprise.

"Pry it open," Lorraine commanded.

Anna inserted the dagger into the crevice and pried hard. With a "creak," the stone slab was actually pried open.

She used all her strength to move the stone slab aside, revealing a dark hole in front of her. A cool breeze, mixed with the smell of dust and dried food, wafted out from it.

Below the cave entrance are several steps leading underground.

Anna, her heart pounding, cautiously peered down, then let out a soft gasp of surprise.

It was a small cellar!

Inside the cellar were several bags of unidentified grains, dried meat strips hanging from the ceiling, and several sealed wooden barrels.

To her even greater surprise, there were two thick fur cloaks wrapped tightly in oilcloth and some firewood piled up in the corner!

"Master! It's food! And...and a warm cloak!" Anna cried, tears welling in her eyes. She crawled out of the cellar and looked at Lorraine in disbelief. "How...how did you know about this place?"

Lorraine smiled mysteriously, picked up a fur cloak and draped it over Anna, wrapping it around her cold body.

"The previous stationmaster wasn't stupid either; he always left himself a way out."

Feeling the warmth from the cloak, Anna looked at Lorraine's composed and confident profile, her eyes filled with awe and admiration.

At that moment, she felt that although the two of them had been exiled here, the future was not entirely dark.

Watching Anna happily go off to organize the supplies, Lorraine's smile slowly faded.

He turned and walked to the haystack, taking out a palm-sized, antique book with a cover made of an unknown leather from his pocket.

He turned the pages of the book, but there wasn't a single word on them.

Without hesitation, Lorraine took a faintly glowing magic crystal from his pocket and gently placed it on the page of the book. The moment the magic crystal touched the page, it transformed into a stream of light and merged into it.

Then, lines of golden text, as if they had come to life, slowly emerged on the blank pages.

It was a book that only he could see, the "Witch's Codex".

The rules on the homepage of the secret manual clearly state—

[By offering a standard magic crystal, you will gain an opportunity to ask a question and receive an accurate answer.]

[The scope of the questions includes, but is not limited to: the advancement path of any witch with potential.]

Before setting off, Lorraine's first question was: "Where at White Wolf Outpost can I find anything to help me through the initial crisis?"