Chapter 109 – Looks Like This One’s ‘Obedient’

Mo Lan now understood the reason, so she had no choice but to come back and wait for the large hoe to rest.

Thanks to the large hoe’s lazy temperament, her hope of finishing the tilling today was thoroughly dashed.

The large hoe could afford to sit idle, but she certainly couldn’t.

Mo Lan took the watering can out of her cards.

She wondered what kind of temperament this can would have after Attuning?

She sat down in the field, cradling the watering can as she began the Attuning process.

The other young witches: “…”

How terrifying—Moira had worked the large hoe until it collapsed!

But once they themselves became proficient at hoeing, they couldn’t escape the fate of their hoes dropping their handles and quitting either.

Now it was their turn to feel stifled.

The hoes treated every master who exploited them with perfect equality.

By this time, Mo Lan had already completed the initial Attuning of the watering can.

She tried using mana to levitate the empty can, and it rose quite smoothly. It was a bit wobbly, but far easier to control than the hoe—after all, it didn’t need to perform any movements, just tilt steadily and sprinkle water.

“Looks like this one’s obedient!” Mo Lan thought to herself.

She shot a glance at a certain hoe lying dead on the ground, having gone on strike from exhaustion for the second time.

She had figured out its pattern by now: the thing worked for half an hour, then rested for half an hour.

It wouldn’t be moving again for a while.

At least the watering can was obedient. “Let’s start by sprinkling the herbicide potion!”

Mo Lan went to the medicine cabinet in the tool shed and retrieved a vial of herbicide potion.

The herbicide potion came in small glass bottles about as thick as a finger—one small vial could be diluted into a full can of water.

She poured one vial into the watering can.

Then she used the Spring Water spell to fill the can with clean water.

“All set!” Mo Lan stepped back two paces and channeled her mana, directing the round-bellied watering can, now full of herbicide solution, to float up again.

She directed it, directed it again… Hm? Why wasn’t the watering can budging at all?

She increased her mana output, and the watering can finally moved.

Only a tiny bit.

She increased her mana output further, and the watering can finally rose—about one meter, give or take. Any higher, and the mana consumption was so intense that even Mo Lan, an Advanced Sorceress with a total of 1,532 Mana, could barely sustain it.

“Forget it, one meter is one meter! The hedgehog grass around here is already flattened anyway.” Mo Lan directed the watering can to float around over the patches she had already tilled with the hoe, as well as the areas she planned to till next.

But the good times didn’t last. She had barely finished sprinkling herbicide solution over the tilled areas when the watering can became noticeably harder to control.

It wobbled more and more violently, sloshing out quite a bit of herbicide solution.

Mo Lan hurriedly increased her mana output a little more and reinforced her control commands. The watering can stabilized again.

But it held steady for less than three minutes before going wobbly once more.

Mo Lan gritted her teeth and continued increasing her mana output.

Oh? It stabilized again.

Only this time, it didn’t even last a full minute.

She tried to guide it downward, to set it on the ground, but the lower it went, the more it wobbled and resisted.

It was practically threatening that if she didn’t feed it more mana, it would dump every last drop of herbicide solution from its belly.

That was water mixed with herbicide potion—specially formulated for common field weeds. A single drop could kill a stalk of hedgehog grass dead beyond dead.

Splashing it out like that would be an enormous waste! Mo Lan felt well and truly caught between a rock and a hard place.

Fortunately, she was a Sorceress, and her mana reserves far exceeded those of ordinary young witches. She channeled another portion of mana into the watering can.

The watering can settled down again and submitted to her control.

But Mo Lan knew this thing couldn’t stay settled for more than a few minutes at a time. It was even less reliable than the large hoe—it needed constant feeding of mana.

She felt like some poor fool who’d gotten sucked into a pyramid scheme, her entire net worth locked in. All she could do was keep pouring mana into the pit and pray the watering can had a shred of conscience and wouldn’t spill her herbicide solution!

The moment the herbicide solution was fully dispensed, the watering can suddenly became easy to control. It stopped greedily devouring her mana too.

As if the pyramid scheme swindler had been the herbicide solution all along, and the watering can had nothing to do with it.

But Mo Lan wasn’t about to indulge it any further. She set it straight down on the ground.

She wiped the sweat from her forehead and plopped down on the ridge between the fields.

One glance at her Status Card told the whole story: she’d spent well over half her mana, and 98% of it had been swallowed by that watering can!

At least she’d managed to sprinkle the herbicide solution evenly across the field without too much waste.

The plots she planned to till had been sprinkled too.

This con artist of a watering can wouldn’t need babysitting for the time being.

Seeing her stop, Vasida—whose own hoe had just gone on strike—ran over and asked, “Moira, is the watering can easier to control? You looked like you handled it really smoothly—got it on the first try! But, um… why do you seem kind of unhappy?”

Mo Lan forced out an ugly smile. “If you’d been threatened by a watering can, you probably wouldn’t be very happy either.”

Eight hundred and sixteen Mana! Sprinkling one canful of herbicide solution, and this thing had devoured 816 of her Mana.

Even more of a rip-off than her card sales!

She had always been the one fleecing others—no one had ever fleeced her!

And it was just a watering can, at that. A watering can from cards she had made. A watering can she had Attuned herself!

“Huh? Threatened?” Vasida didn’t quite understand what she meant by ‘threatened.’

Mo Lan had a second thought—this was Vasida!

She quickly shook her head. “It’s nothing. Did you eat enough today?”

“Sure did! I even went to Breadfruit Grove this morning!” Vasida said.

“Then there’s no problem. Vasida, go ahead and give it a try! The watering can will absolutely give you a big surprise,” Mo Lan said. “Just be careful~ Whatever you do, don’t let your guard down.”

Looking around, among all the young witches, only Vasida—who never had to worry about spending mana—could personally experience the agony Mo Lan had just endured.

She couldn’t bear to put the other young witches through it.

“Hey! Sylph!” Mo Lan spotted a figure emerging from the tool shed and hurried over, pressing down on the herbicide potion in her hand.

Sylph’s mana was already insufficient as it was—best not let the watering can swindle her too.

Under Sylph’s puzzled gaze, Mo Lan said, “Sylph, listen to me—try it with clean water first! Don’t mix in herbicide potion right away!”

Sylph didn’t quite understand, but she did as told.

Then she discovered that the watering can, which had been perfectly obedient just moments ago, became a one-way street once water was added—it happily accepted all the mana she poured in, but it absolutely refused to budge.

After several attempts yielded the same result, she turned to Mo Lan beside her with a puzzled look. “Once you put water in it, why won’t it move?”

Mo Lan: “…”

She was wondering the same thing!

Her original idea had been that with just clean water, there was nothing to fear from the watering can’s extortion. If it got greedy, worst case she’d just let it dump the water on the ground—it was only water, no great loss.

Who could have guessed this thing would simply refuse to move at all?

If you didn’t know better, you’d think it was some kind of specialized sprayer—strictly for dispensing potions, never for sprinkling water!

It seemed this was a case of not releasing the eagle until it saw the rabbit. “How about you mix in just a tiny bit of herbicide potion and try?”

Sylph nodded, manually poured out most of the clean water, then added a small amount of herbicide potion.