Chapter 84 – Eek

Chapter 84: Eek~~~

Sunday morning, six o’clock. The sky was still dark when Mo Lan carried her basket out of the dormitory.

It was time to prepare next week’s Breadfruit Cake and juice.

Usually at this hour, she could only fumble her way to the Breadfruit Grove by the glow of streetlamps.

Once inside the grove, she’d still need a moment to adjust before she could barely make things out under the moonlight.

But today, she had the Light spell.

The orb of light on her wand illuminated her surroundings as bright as day.

The only inconvenience was that holding the wand made it a bit awkward to pick Breadfruit.

She could only temporarily stick the wand into the ground at the base of a tree.

This was when the Light spell’s advantage of illuminating without glaring really showed itself.

The light shining up from below the tree didn’t interfere with her climbing at all.

With such excellent lighting conditions, Mo Lan’s fruit-picking speed improved considerably.

By the time the sky brightened, she was already carrying her last basket of Breadfruit back toward the dormitory.

Vasida, who had just stepped out with a yawn, planning to head to the Breadfruit Grove for breakfast, bumped into her outside the grove. “Morning! Moira…”

Spotting the glowing orb tucked into her basket, Vasida rubbed her eyes.

“Wait—Moira, don’t tell me you’ve gone and learned the Light spell too?”

“Mhm! Just learned it,” Mo Lan said.

“Weren’t you busy organizing the reading and math books?” Vasida asked, puzzled.

“I finished organizing them yesterday morning and handed them to the Headmistress,” Mo Lan said.

“Didn’t you say there were seventeen or eighteen books? You finished that fast?”

“The Transcription Spell is very convenient.”

Vasida was, as usual, stunned by the speed at which Mo Lan got things done.

She herself had worked really hard this week.

She’d finished reading the Spring Water spell section in 《Fire, Light, and Water》, and had even attempted the Spring Water spell for the first time last night—though without success.

She was planning to look through 《Babbling Brook》 next week to figure out where the problem lay.

She’d also set aside the entire day today to write the four essay assignments from last week.

They were all problem-summary essays. She’d recorded the lectures, so they’d be easy enough to write. If she pushed herself today, she could definitely finish them all.

She’d originally been feeling rather pleased with herself over this week’s accomplishments—finally not having to pull all-nighters to catch up on assignments.

But then there was Mo Lan. She’d already finished writing seventeen or eighteen books and learned the Light spell on top of it.

Suddenly, Vasida—who still had four essays unwritten, still hadn’t mastered the Spring Water spell, and had been feeling so smug about it—felt a bit foolish.

Setting everything else aside: “Moira, you learn magic way too fast! Did you get the Spring Water spell on your first try? Don’t tell me the Light spell was also a first-attempt success?”

Mo Lan nodded. “Can’t you just follow the steps in the book?”

“I did follow the steps in the book, but I still failed,” Vasida said.

“Failed how exactly?” Mo Lan asked hurriedly.

In truth, she’d also felt that her own spellcasting came too easily—succeeding on the very first try every time.

But when she thought about it carefully, nothing seemed wrong. She’d simply followed the book’s instructions to the letter.

“My wand got wet, but there was no spring water!” Vasida said.

Mo Lan furrowed her brow and analyzed the situation.

“It sounds like a complete failure.

“The three key factors affecting Spring Water spell casting are: water magic talent, Will and intent, and emotion and release.

“We’re Sorceresses, so water magic talent definitely isn’t the issue. Emotion and release only affect the spell’s output quality—they don’t really determine whether it succeeds or fails.

“So the only possibility is that something went wrong with your will and intent.

“When you were casting, what did you envision the spring water looking like?”

“Just… spring water!” Vasida said.

No matter how Mo Lan pressed her, Vasida couldn’t articulate anything beyond that. She only knew it was spring water—wet, the kind that comes out of a water tower.

“No wonder! Your perception and understanding of spring water isn’t deep enough, which means your intent isn’t clear enough,” Mo Lan said, now understanding where the problem lay.

“Perception? Understanding? Doesn’t all water look the same?” Vasida still didn’t get it.

She’d used and drunk so much water in her life—how could she not understand what water was?

“Water and spring water are different things.

“The water in streams and rivers, seawater, well water, rainwater, mountain spring water—these are all water, but they’re all different from the water of the Spring Water spell.

“The Spring Water spell’s water is completely pure, without any impurities whatsoever—it’s water formed purely from condensed water elemental force.

“Beyond being wet, water is also flowing, transparent and clear, drinkable…”

Mo Lan described a whole litany of water’s properties to her, then told her:

“You need to first understand the effect the magic is supposed to produce before you can properly cast it. If you yourself don’t know what the spring water you want to create should look like, your Mana will be like a headless fly—it won’t know what to do either.”

Vasida half-understood. “Water really has that many differences?”

“Of course!” Mo Lan said.

She also understood now. The reason she could succeed on her first try wasn’t that the magic was simple—it was that the memories from Earth in her mind gave her a thorough enough understanding of light and water.

So she could easily transmit clear casting intent to her Mana.

A witch’s magic was fundamentally Will-driven. Her talent was fine, and her Will was crystal clear—there was no reason for failure.

But for the other young witches, forming clear casting intent wasn’t easy, because their understanding of things wasn’t deep enough yet. They still needed to observe more.

No wonder 《Babbling Brook》 contained so many descriptions of spring water’s properties that had seemed, to her, somewhat redundant!

Mo Lan sighed—she’d simply not read enough. “You haven’t read 《Babbling Brook》 yet, right? After you finish it, try observing water more closely. That should really help with learning the Spring Water spell.”

“Mm!” Vasida very much wanted to rush back and read the book right away, to see if she could succeed this time—but unfortunately, she still had essays to finish today.

Every time this happened, she couldn’t help but envy Mo Lan, who never had to write those garbage essays again thanks to her superhuman memory.

“Moira, are you sure your memory isn’t a Sorceress talent? If only it could be developed into Sorceress Magic!”

“Probably not.”

This was something Mo Lan was powerless to help with.

Her memory didn’t consume any Mana at all—it absolutely couldn’t be a Sorceress talent, and it couldn’t be developed into shareable Sorceress Magic.

The Sorceress who might possess a similar talent was Traci, owner of the Omniscient Book. Unfortunately, her Speed-Memorization Spell consumed permanent Mana, so she didn’t dare use it casually.

Even for Vasida, who could restore Mana through eating, what she recovered was only expendable Mana.

So Mo Lan didn’t bring this up.

“Ah well! I’ll stop chatting—I need to hurry and eat some Breadfruit, then get back to work on my essays!”

Vasida waved at her and headed off toward the Breadfruit Grove.

Mo Lan continued carrying her Breadfruit toward the dormitory.

She’d barely taken three and a half steps when she heard a piercing “Eek!”

The scream drilled straight into her eardrums, making her head spin.

Mo Lan instinctively turned to look at Vasida. “What—” was that sound?

Before she could finish, there were two more little witches crumpled on the ground outside the Breadfruit Grove.