Chapter 79 – The Witches’ Mathematics
by spirapira“Clap clap clap!”
“Wonderful lecture! If we’d had Moira back in our day, we wouldn’t have been tortured by essays for so long!”
Up in the sky, the senior students who had been drawn in by Mo Lan’s lesson all felt they had benefited enormously, and couldn’t help but applaud.
Some second-year young witches who still hadn’t figured out how to write essays even now pulled out paper and pens to take notes on the spot.
The reading comprehension and test-taking techniques refined under exam-oriented education made them feel as though they’d found a treasure.
Mo Lan suddenly found herself worrying about the young witches’ level of education.
When it came to reading comprehension and literacy, she could tell the Academy was putting genuine effort into their training.
But what about arithmetic?
The Academy didn’t seem to have a math class!
The 《Young Witch’s Primer》 probably only covered some basic numbers when it came to mathematics!
The young witches were born knowing the meaning of each number in Witch Script.
But recognizing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 didn’t mean they could do arithmetic!
Wait—when she’d been selling Cards before, had the young witches actually understood what interest was, or what installment payments meant?
She couldn’t help but ask Vasida and Sylph, who had been the first to finish revising their essays:
“If I had a Card priced at 100 Mana worth of disposable magical power, and you needed to pay in four installments, how much Mana of disposable magical power would each installment be on average?”
“Moira, have you developed a new Card? What kind of Card?” Vasida asked.
Sylph was also looking at her with a face full of curiosity.
“…” Mo Lan shook her head. “Just help me calculate how much Mana each installment would be on average.”
Vasida and Sylph: (o°ω°o)
Mo Lan took a deep breath. “You two can’t calculate it, can you?”
Vasida and Sylph weren’t sure why they felt a little guilty, but after a moment’s thought:
“Isn’t it normal not to know how to calculate that? What young witch would know how to do that? Isn’t it all written out in the contract? You just follow what’s written there!”
Mo Lan looked toward the other young witches.
The young witches who had been eavesdropping with perked ears silently lowered their heads even further—don’t mind them, they were still working on their essays.
Up in the sky, the older students silently turned their brooms around and zoomed away.
Mo Lan closed her eyes. And here she’d thought her Card sales had been such a success!
It turned out her customers hadn’t even understood installment payments. No wonder they’d all chosen the installment plan whose repayment details she’d spelled out explicitly in the contract.
She truly didn’t know whether to call them carefree or just too trusting of her.
Today, she absolutely had to get to the bottom of the young witches’ math ability!
“Let me ask you this: if you have 100 Mana of magical power and spend 25, how much is left?”
“75!” The young witches answered instantly.
“If your magical power grows by 2 Mana per day, how much does it grow in a month?”
“2, 4, 6… 60 Mana!”
“…”
“If the maximum magical power you can fully channel when casting the Spring Water spell is 1 Mana, and your total magical power is 50 Mana, what is your Spring Water spell level?”
“(`△´)”
“Is that something we’re supposed to know?”
The young witches’ eyes had already turned into swirling spirals.
“How could you not need to know this? If you can’t calculate percentages, how do you know your own magic level?”
Mo Lan didn’t understand, and the young witches understood even less:
“Of course we don’t know it ourselves! Doesn’t everyone just find out when they go to the Witch Council to take the professional witch certification exam?”
Mo Lan suddenly remembered—the young witches had always relied on observing the brightness of their energy Halo to gauge how much magical power they had.
They didn’t even know the precise numerical value of their total magical power, so how could they possibly calculate ratios!
She asked several more math questions and discovered that the young witches had no problems with addition and subtraction.
They could even be called quite proficient at it.
They had an excellent grasp of the quantity each number represented. Whether decimals or whole numbers, they calculated all addition and subtraction with great accuracy.
But that was the extent of it. They couldn’t figure out multiplication or division, let alone percentages or interest.
When doing cumulative addition or subtraction, they even added or subtracted one by one.
Mo Lan was deeply troubled by this.
With math this bad, would they really not get swindled out of their money in the future?
“Headmistress, Headmistress! Does our Academy have a math class?”
“What’s a math class?”
Mo Lan: “…”
She was half-tempted to quiz the Headmistress with the same questions she’d just asked the young witches.
But with so many young witches around, she held herself back and simply explained what mathematics meant.
“What you’re describing—only human mages, goblins, and certain demons study that in any depth! Our witches’ average arithmetic ability is already considered quite good on the Continent of Valen. Unless you run into a mage, a goblin, or a demon, there’s no need to worry about being cheated!”
Mo Lan: “!!!”
The witches’ math level was already considered good?
Was mathematics really this neglected on the Continent of Valen?
No wonder Lilith always said she was a worse swindler than the goblins.
With everyone’s math being this terrible, nobody could even get their accounts straight! How was anyone supposed to swindle anyone?
She actually felt slightly relieved.
At least the young witches wouldn’t be getting cheated everywhere they went.
After all, many people on the Continent of Valen couldn’t even do addition and subtraction properly!
“However, you make a good point. Now that your Status Cards allow real-time monitoring of one’s own mana levels, if the young witches could calculate mana ratios, they’d be able to know their magic proficiency more conveniently and accurately.
I’ll discuss this matter with the other Amishas.”
Mo Lan’s eyes lit up. “If you need it, I can provide a basic math primer!”
She had ready-made materials in her Earth memories—she just needed to adapt them into a version suitable for the young witches.
Elementary school-level math would be more than enough for the young witches to dominate the world of Valen.
“In the world from your previous life, was mathematical knowledge very common?”
“Of course! A twelve-year-old’s math knowledge would probably be enough to dominate the world of Valen!”
“…”
The young witches listened as Mo Lan and a Headmistress voice that had appeared from thin air went back and forth, their expressions gradually turning to horror.
Was Mo Lan’s previous world one where everyone was basically a goblin?
Even goblins weren’t this extreme!
And besides, they weren’t goblins!
Mathematics sounded like anything but fun—every time Mo Lan asked one of those questions, they went dead silent!
Unfortunately, they could rage but dared not speak up.
Mo Lan, who commanded the arts of Cards and essay-writing, was their bread and butter. They couldn’t afford to offend her.
At this moment, every young witch spontaneously mastered the angels’ prayer skill.
They prayed that the other Lady Amishas would not agree to add a math class!
Vasida spotted the spire of the Castle’s clock tower and instantly found her savior. “Moira! Class is about to start! Let’s hurry to the classroom!”
The other young witches nodded vigorously. “Yes, yes, yes! Our essays are pretty much revised!”
Please stop talking about math—just hearing about it was enough to terrify a witch!
“Headmistress, I still have some ideas. Let’s discuss them in detail after class.” Mo Lan was still eager to continue, but class really was about to begin.
The Amisha she was currently discussing math education with was not the same one who would be teaching them Fundamentals of Magic Theory shortly.
Their memories were not shared in real time, after all.