Chapter 114 – Magic Isn’t Omnipotent

Every time they manifested, the memory images were incomparably clear.

Her spellcasting material was rich beyond measure.

When other young witches cast spells, their thoughts were fuzzy and their instructions unclear. They needed to try again and again, refining details to sharpen their instructions. Sometimes they even needed incantations to guide their concentration and issue commands to their magical power.

When Mo Lan cast spells, she pulled crystal-clear image material directly from her mind. Her mana understood at a glance, so naturally it was easy to succeed.

The difference was like comparing a hand-drawn sketch to a photograph in terms of accuracy, realism, and rendering speed.

Take the Fertile Soil spell, for example.

Other young witches had to imagine what fertile soil looked like, its functions, its various characteristics, and then clearly render all of that in their minds so their magical power could understand.

Mo Lan, on the other hand, simply searched through her memories for fertile soil and compiled the results.

Who could possibly be more knowledgeable than a planet that had nurtured countless lives?

Only now did Mo Lan finally understand—she wasn’t without a cheat ability. The planetary memories gifted to her by Earth were the greatest cheat of all.

Once the young witches understood where the problem lay, they all began trying again.

Although there were fertile farmlands tended by Sprites not far away, not a single young witch went to look at the real thing and use it as a reference for casting.

Lady Amisha was right—not every spell had a corresponding physical reference to draw from.

They needed to learn to cast through memory, imagination, and language.

They had all seen fertile soil before; they just needed to recall it properly.

It didn’t matter if the memory was fuzzy—they could fill in the gaps with imagination.

While the other young witches crouched in the field, attempting the Fertile Soil spell over and over, Mo Lan remained on the ridge between fields, discussing the principles of spellcasting with Lady Amisha.

“Headmistress, if we can cast all sorts of magic simply by issuing instructions to our mana through memory and imagination, wouldn’t that make magic omnipotent? Why would we need so many different branches of magic? Couldn’t we just issue whatever instruction we want directly to our mana?

“Since we can use mana to make soil fertile, why not just cast a spell on the soil to make it pest-resistant, weed-resistant, able to produce bountiful harvests, and even boost the yield of magical plants?

“In theory, as long as the instructions are clear enough, shouldn’t magic be able to manifest whatever we envision?”

In a sense, magic was even more flexible than her Book of Cards.

You didn’t even need to understand the relevant knowledge or principles—you could achieve what you wanted simply by issuing a clear instruction.

Wasn’t that practically the same as having your wishes come true?

Since they already had the Fertile Soil spell, why couldn’t there be a super Fertile Soil spell that also repelled insects and weeds while boosting harvests?

Amisha didn’t think she was being fanciful at all. “It can’t be done. Magic isn’t omnipotent, and we aren’t creator gods. If the authority of creation were this vast—” She held up her hands to indicate a large sphere, then pinched her fingers to show a tiny fingertip. “—then the creative power of our witch and Sorceress Magic is only about this much.

“You can try it yourself. Use the kind of multi-purpose instruction you just described and see if it works.”

Mo Lan actually tried it. She first conjured in her mind the soil state she wanted to produce, made sure it was perfectly clear, and only then channeled her mana to cast.

A surge of energy did flow from the tip of her staff and seeped into the soil beneath her feet.

But in the end, this patch of soil didn’t become as loose and fertile as the one she’d treated earlier with the Fertile Soil spell.

The patch she’d chosen was on the field ridge—soil with weeds growing in it and little ants scurrying about. The weeds wilted slightly but didn’t wither. The ants slowed down a little but didn’t die, nor did they show any sign of leaving.

Whether the spell she’d just cast had any fertilizing effect at all, and how much, was hard to tell.

But the weed-killing and pest-removal effects were clearly negligible.

It couldn’t even deal with ordinary little weeds and tiny ants.

Had she not used enough mana?

Mo Lan tried again, injecting more mana this time.

But immediately, she discovered that the maximum she could inject at once was 1.5 Mana. Any more than that would simply dissipate.

It was as if the output port for her mana had a capacity of only 1.5 Mana. She could continuously output 1.5 Mana, but she couldn’t output 1.6.

“Is this… a limitation of the spell’s level?”

That 1.5 Mana was less than 0.1% of her total mana reserves.

“Exactly! Even if you train a single spell to Peak level, the maximum amount of mana you can channel during casting is only somewhere above eight percent but below ten percent of your total mana reserves.

“The duration of continuous mana output during casting determines how long the spell lasts.

“But the maximum amount of mana you can channel at once is what determines the spell’s final effectiveness.

“Since the maximum mana you can channel is limited, naturally you should focus all that power in one direction to maximize the effect!

“That’s why the Fertile Soil spell can only enrich soil, the Spring Water spell can only produce spring water, the Light spell can only illuminate, and the Flame spell can only ignite fires.”

Amisha continued, “If you were to add other functions to the Fertile Soil spell, you’d inevitably have to divert a portion of your mana to achieve those extra effects, causing the original fertilizing effect to weaken.

“Why do you think beginners always produce different results when they first learn magic?

“It’s precisely because some young witches have unclear instructions in their minds, sending overly chaotic commands to their magical power. The magical power receives all that extra information and expends itself on those extraneous things, so the effect they actually need is naturally diminished.

“For instance, the needed instruction is ‘fertilize,’ but their thoughts are scattered—the ‘fertilize’ command is vague and gets mixed up with ‘bountiful harvest’ or other instructions.

“Part of their magical power goes to execute ‘fertilize,’ part goes to execute ‘bountiful harvest,’ and another part doesn’t know what to do at all. Naturally, the effect is weakened.

“This is actually the same as deliberately adding multiple functions to a spell—the only difference is that one is intentional and the other is accidental.

“Rather than doing that, why not split it into two spells? One focused solely on fertilizing the soil, another focused solely on bountiful harvests?

“In fact, the various spells we witches use are the optimal casting instructions that our predecessors refined through endless practice—designed to produce the greatest effect from the least mana output.”

“I understand! Isn’t it like kneading dough?” Mo Lan said. “Each time we can only tear off a palm-sized piece, so we can’t make both bread and pastries from it. We can only use one piece of dough for bread and another piece for pastries.”

“That’s a good analogy!” Amisha affirmed her understanding.

“Then what if I don’t use the molds our predecessors provided to make pastries, but instead take the dough and shape a loaf of bread by hand—one that’s different from any existing mold? What would happen? Would it be an entirely new spell?”

What Mo Lan really wanted to ask was: if she didn’t follow the effects of existing spells but instead imagined an entirely new effect and issued that as an instruction to her mana, would it become a completely new spell?