Chapter 36 – The Witch’s Book

So it turned out that it wasn’t only Sorceresses who could share their magic—other witches could too.

It was just that ordinary witches didn’t have Manifested Gifts, so their chances of developing unique magic were much smaller.

Mo Lan silently noted down these book titles as well.

The library wasn’t even open to them yet, and she had already memorized several books recommended by the Headmistress.

After successfully signing the contract for the Apprentice-level Grimoire, quite a few young witches put what they’d learned into practice. Just as they had with the Golden Pen Technique, they cast the spell with their minds, silently saying “Grimoire” in their thoughts.

However, only a faint phantom of a book appeared before them.

It was not the Grimoire they had imagined.

“Headmistress, what’s going on?” Vasida raised her hand to ask.

“What the Grimoire spell creates is merely an energy circuit, a functional core, or perhaps a spiritual skeleton. It still needs a vessel before it can become a true Grimoire,” Amisha explained.

“What kind of vessel?” an eager young witch asked impatiently.

“A blank book, of course!” As Amisha spoke, the remaining miscellaneous items beside the lectern scattered like flowers raining from the heavens, landing all around the young witches—on desks, on the floor, everywhere.

The next moment, the bell rang.

“This afternoon, we’ll start with making paper and learn how to craft a book. You’ll need these materials for that.

Don’t worry—this is just to familiarize you with the methods, in case you ever find yourselves without paper. You won’t need to do this by hand from now on.

Alright, class dismissed!”

Amisha left as soon as she finished speaking.

She left behind a group of young witches buried under materials.

Mo Lan looked at the animal hides, tree bark, and dried grass on her desk, the wooden boards and studs on the floor, along with all manner of tools.

The heart she’d been holding up finally sank.

After a while, she even felt somewhat relieved.

At least they didn’t actually have to make a real book, right?

Mo Lan obediently began sorting the materials.

They were all ordinary materials—Mo Lan couldn’t detect any trace of energy on them.

Drawing on Earth’s planetary memories, she was able to roughly categorize everything.

The young witches who had been hoping to relax saw Mo Lan’s actions and began sorting alongside her.

Although they couldn’t understand why things should be arranged this way, they figured that following Mo Lan’s lead couldn’t be wrong.

In order to keep up with Mo Lan’s pace, they didn’t even find time to ask her why she was sorting things this way.

So when Mo Lan finished organizing and turned around, she was greeted by the sight of identically arranged piles, as if copied and pasted. She couldn’t help but smile in surprise, then explained:

“I’m guessing these should be for papermaking, these are for bookbinding, these are tools, and as for these… I’m not sure what they’re for either.”

“Oh! So that’s it!” Iris had an epiphany, and even turned to Alba beside her to say, “See, I told you Moira arranged things that way for a reason!”

Cheryl poked her head curiously over the back of her seat. “Moira, you looked so practiced sorting those materials—do you know how to make paper?”

“No, no!” Mo Lan shook her head. “I just know a bit of related knowledge. I’ve never actually tried it hands-on.”

When afternoon classes began and the young witches attempted papermaking and bookbinding under Headmistress Amisha’s guidance, they discovered that Mo Lan’s categorizations had been almost entirely correct.

And when they saw how deftly Mo Lan handled the papermaking process—nothing like their own fumbling—they knew she had been modest before.

This was truly a perfect misunderstanding.

Everything Mo Lan knew about papermaking and bookbinding came entirely from Earth’s gifted planetary memories. When she had cooked before, she had either been making dishes she already knew or relatively simple ones, so the effect hadn’t been as noticeable.

It was only now, attempting papermaking and bookbinding, that she discovered Earth’s planetary memories were more than just a slideshow-like archive she could consult at any time.

While making paper, she could even hear the inner thoughts of countless papermaking artisans.

Every step, every detail to watch out for—all of it was crystal clear.

While it wasn’t quite the same as having truly learned the craft, it was equivalent to having countless master artisans coaching her in real time.

It was then that Mo Lan realized what she had inherited was not just memories themselves, but also the far more precious experience embedded within them.

The purpose of learning papermaking and bookbinding was to prepare for situations where a Grimoire might be damaged and there were no blank pages or books available for purchase.

So Amisha taught them the two most basic methods that used the most readily available materials.

One was stalk-fiber papermaking, essentially identical to Earth’s ancient papyrus-making technique.

The other was vellum, and Earth had similar methods as well.

The other young witches had only the Headmistress explaining from the side, and most of the time, she only corrected them after they’d already made a mistake.

Mo Lan, on the other hand, had the accumulated experience of countless Earth papermaking artisans, so she naturally avoided all sorts of problems.

In the eyes of the other young witches, it looked as though she’d done this many times before.

Without even trying, her image grew a little more impressive.

After learning stalk-fiber and vellum papermaking, they moved on to binding pages and making book covers.

This was even simpler than making paper. Binding was just sewing with thread—the thread could be cloth strips, grass rope, or tree vine. They were only taught how to twist grass rope.

Book covers were even simpler—two pieces of tree bark, two stone slabs, or even a single piece of animal hide would do.

The simpler the materials, the better.

During the crafting process, Amisha used magic to skip over the parts that required long processing or waiting times.

True to her word, she really did just want every young witch to understand the basics of papermaking and bookbinding—not to turn them into master craftswomen.

Before class ended, every young witch had produced a crude book.

Though it was just a cover with three to five pages inside, it had everything a book should have.

“Alright! That’s all for today. These books still need some processing before they can be used. Whatever you do, don’t place them into the Grimoire phantom prematurely—they’ll be damaged.”

After Amisha left the classroom, all the young witches breathed a collective sigh of relief.

The afternoon class had truly been no easy ride!

Even Mo Lan felt somewhat tired. She picked up her water pouch, took a sip, sat in her seat for a while longer, and rubbed her wrists before heading down the mountain with Vasida and the others.

Now that she had Honey Breadfruit Juice to drink, she no longer needed to fill up on Breadfruit alone.

After reaching the foot of the mountain, the three of them went to the Ingredient Collection Station together to pick up some ingredients.

Sylph went off to the farmland to chat with Bi’er, while Mo Lan and Vasida carried the ingredients back to the Dormitory together.

It had been days since she’d had a proper meal. For dinner, she treated herself well—though she was careful not to eat too much, saving room to drink a large pot of Honey Breadfruit water.

When she noticed that even after several sips of Breadfruit water, her energy aura hadn’t grown any brighter, she knew that the magic power she had previously overexerted had fully recovered.

Now that she was back in top form… perhaps it was time to take a look at the Book of Cards?