Chapter 125 – One Must Not Spurn the Headmistress’s Generosity

Clone No. 69 of the Headmistress, who had just been disgruntled about not being invited, swallowed hard.

The other Headmistress clones exclaimed: “Wow! Now that’s real generosity! She’s actually going to treat all of us clones?”

“Each one of these cards sells for over a thousand disposable mana! This Mo Lan girl doesn’t seem nearly as money-grubbing as Lilith made her out to be!”

“Don’t forget, she sells everything at five times cost. Each card only costs a few hundred to make. All of them together don’t even add up to ten thousand—she’s spent a few thousand mana at most.”

“No. 69! Hurry up and go get the cards so we can try them! We won’t let her take a loss either—we’ll pay her the retail price in disposable mana. The girl’s young and short on mana to spend! We’ve been cooped up in the Academy for decades now, and it’s been ages since we’ve tasted anything new!”

…

Clone No. 69 of the Headmistress nodded, opened Mo Lan’s dedicated light screen, and stepped through.

Mo Lan had been waiting for several minutes without receiving any response from the Headmistress. She had nearly convinced herself that the cards she’d spent a fortune producing were going to gather dust—when suddenly, a Headmistress appeared right beside her desk.

The face was familiar, but the witch’s robe was a style she hadn’t seen before. Mo Lan asked: “Clone No. 69?”

“Mm!” No. 69 Amisha waved her hand to summon a golden pen and wrote out a contract. “Sign it!”

Mo Lan’s heart rate spiked. She took the contract and counted: “Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten-thousands…”

Forty-five thousand five hundred mana!

That number was exactly the sum of the retail prices she had marked on all the cards!

The Headmistress was going to pay her the full mana value for every single card!

She had saved up for the better part of a year, and the energy stored in her Book of Cards had only just broken one hundred thousand. Selling the Headmistress one batch of cards and instantly earning 45,500? This was incredible!

Mo Lan took a deep breath, suppressed the grin threatening to break across her face, and asked No. 69 Amisha with a smile: “Headmistress, what’s all this for? These were meant as free samples for you all to try!”

“You don’t want it?” No. 69 Amisha looked at her with mild surprise. “If you don’t want it, then give it back…”

Before she could finish, Mo Lan had already clutched the contract tightly to her chest. “How could I possibly spurn the Headmistress’s generosity! I’ll accept this contract and sign it right away. In the future, whenever I create new food cards, I’ll send you sample cards first thing!”

Chinese-style polite refusals didn’t work on the witches of Valen. Mo Lan immediately chose to quit while she was ahead.

No. 69 Amisha: “…”

And here she’d thought Mo Lan was genuinely being generous!

She shook her head, gathered up all the cards from the table along with the 《Earth Cuisine Card Catalog》, and vanished from Mo Lan’s sight.

The moment Lady Amisha left, Mo Lan pulled out the contract and kissed it twice. Worried that any delay might invite complications, she immediately used the Golden Pen Technique to sign her name on the contract.

The mana arrived, flowing into the Purple Gemstone of her Book of Cards.

She picked up the card {Book of Cards} and checked:

“【Stored Energy: 168,860 Mana】”

!()!

“What’s gotten into that girl? Why is she grinning like a fool?”

“She must be over the moon! An Advanced Sorceress earning tens of thousands of mana in one go! Even though it can only be used for card-making and researching her Manifested Gift, that’s still wonderful!”

“Lilith’s going to cry with envy when she finds out. Haha! She was just squeezing Breadfruit juice a moment ago! Running low on mana again, as usual.”

“Good heavens, what is this flavor! It’s so intense!”

“Isn’t this just that hot pot the first-year little witches stayed up half the night eating? Let me see what all the fuss is about!”

“No, no! Stop crowding around the hot pot! This Cat-Carried Wine is absolutely divine!”

“These little green cakes are the best! Where’s the 《Earth Cuisine Card Catalog》? What’s this cake called?”

“Right here! {Food Card – Matcha Cake}!” “I want to stock up on a hundred of these!”

“You’re out of mana, dear. No embezzling public funds for card purchases—wait until tomorrow!”

…

Saturday morning. Mo Lan woke up naturally before the Academy Castle’s bells had even rung.

Her biological clock had become more accurate than any timepiece.

She still needed to get an early start delivering invitations to the second and third-year upperclassmen. She chewed a bite of Breadfruit to wake herself up, then prepared to get out of bed and change.

But the moment her feet touched the floor, she heard the Headmistress’s voice.

“{Food Card – Cat-Carried Wine}, {Food Card – Wuliangye}, {Food Card – Matcha Cake}, {Food Card – Durian Cake}… two hundred of each!”

A contract drifted down and landed on her head.

Mo Lan pulled it off and looked: “!!!”

Ten different types of cards, two hundred of each, a massive order totaling 6,000 mana!

Without a second thought, she summoned her Book of Cards and began producing.

In under three minutes, the card transaction was complete, and the mana stored in her Book of Cards had grown by another 6,000.

As expected of a Headmistress with over a hundred clones to feed—one person alone brought in more revenue than an entire Academy’s worth of young witches.

It seemed that the mana she needed to craft an unlimited-use Energy Storage Card would have to come mainly from the Headmistress after all!

The Headmistress’s additional orders were all wine and cakes… Clearly, those two categories suited her tastes the best.

A hundred cards could never contain all the culinary creations in Earth’s history. Mo Lan silently resolved to explore more wines and pastries to earn even more from the Headmistress.

The Headmistress clones, their daily mana completely drained, were dividing up the cards and cakes among themselves: “Why do I suddenly feel a chill? I have a bad feeling about this…”

“Me too!”

…

Mo Lan headed out cheerfully after washing up, delivering invitation letters—slipping one under this upperclassman’s door, tucking one under that upperclassman’s door.

No disturbing the upperclassmen’s sleep, while still getting the message across.

She’d gotten out of bed on the right side today! She had a feeling she’d make another killing before the day was through!

After delivering the letters, Mo Lan returned and began producing the seasoning pack cards she’d need for the evening banquet.

Four grades, exactly one hundred and twenty young witches.

Ten {Food Card – Hot Pot Base} in spicy red oil flavor; five each in clear oil, pickled vegetable, tomato, and mushroom flavors. {Food Card – Instant Noodle Seasoning} in braised beef, spicy beef, chili pepper beef, pickled vegetable beef, mushroom chicken stew, and old jar pickled vegetable—five of each flavor. Twenty each of {Food Card – Malatang Seasoning Pack}, {Food Card – Braising Spice Pack}, and {Food Card – Milk Tea Mix}.

“Hmm… that should be everything!”

Mo Lan tallied them up—one hundred and twenty cards in total, enough for everyone to get one on average. Many of the cards contained multi-serving seasoning packs, and combined with the ingredients they’d collect later, every young witch except Vasida would definitely have enough to eat.

The portions were still lighter than what she’d given the Headmistress clones last night, but these were only seasoning cards with lower production costs—about sixty mana total. Of course, at retail prices, these cards could still fetch around three hundred mana.

She organized the cards. It was still early, so she picked up 《Levitation Spell—Your Invisible Hands》 and resumed studying.

Now that she was cooking with Culinary Magic every day, the one remaining pain point was that hauling ingredients back was no easy feat.

Once she mastered the Levitation Spell, that last shortcoming would be gone. No more lugging the grocery basket around until she was gasping for breath.