Chapter 132 – The Imperfect Progress Bar

“So? Do you like it? This way, after every magic practice session, you can clearly see your own progress. Watching the gray progress bar gradually turn green—doesn’t that give you a greater sense of accomplishment? More motivation?” Mo Lan asked.

Vasida and Sylph: “…”

Sure, it did seem like it would be more motivating, but why couldn’t they bring themselves to feel happy about it?

They had this inexplicable feeling of having been tricked somehow, yet they couldn’t figure out why—Mo Lan hadn’t actually deceived them about anything.

“Unfortunately, this feature isn’t fully developed yet! For magic I haven’t learned myself, it can’t accurately measure progress. If you see the progress bar turn red, that means I haven’t learned that particular magic yet, and the bar can’t reflect your learning progress anymore,” Mo Lan explained.

Originally, she had planned to develop this feature only after she’d learned all types of magic and trained each one to Peak level.

But that would probably take a very long time.

After hearing what Sylph and Vasida had said just now, she suddenly decided to go ahead and make it for them to play with first, to spark their enthusiasm and motivation for studying magic.

They were all Sorceresses, after all. Their unlimited affinity for all schools of magic needed to be put to good use.

Most of the time, it wasn’t that there wasn’t enough time—it was that the heart had grown complacent. Now was far too early to be lounging around enjoying life.

However, because her own magic studies weren’t yet complete, the progress bar was still imperfect—it had an upper limit.

This upper limit would rise along with her own magical progress, without needing to be rebuilt from scratch.

This feature was made possible by the Book of Cards’ absolute control over all cards—including those that had already been sold.

It also served as a form of motivation for Mo Lan herself. From now on, she’d have to work hard to make sure Vasida and Sylph’s magic levels didn’t catch up to hers, turning the progress bar red.

“So if our magic learning progress surpasses yours, the progress bar turns red, and if it hasn’t surpassed yours, it displays normally in gray and green?”

Vasida and Sylph looked at their cards again. Sure enough—a sea of gray and green without a single trace of red!

What to do? They suddenly felt an urgent desire to see it turn red!

They weren’t asking for the whole thing to turn red—even just one or two would be nice!

Sure, their memorization skills weren’t as strong as Mo Lan’s, but surely they couldn’t be worse than her at every single type of magic!

They were all Sorceresses—if the gap was that enormous, how heartbreaking!

It wasn’t like Mo Lan’s Manifested Gift was related to learning and knowledge the way Lady Traci the Book Witch’s was!

A Sorceress should focus solely on developing her Manifested Gift? Who said that? Absolutely not!

Still… why keep all the “fun” to themselves?

“Moira, I think this progress bar feature is great! You should totally sell it to the young witches!” Vasida suggested.

“It’s not fully developed yet. Once someone surpasses my learning progress, it stops working. Who would buy it?” Mo Lan said. “And if I gave one to everyone for free, the cost would be way too high.”

She wanted to sell it too, but could she actually find buyers? Wait… “What do you think—if I set up a prize competition among the first-years, where anyone whose progress bar turns red gets to draw a Food Card from me for free, and I offer the imperfect progress bar feature at half price for a limited time—would people be willing to buy it?”

“Of course they would!” Vasida and Sylph said without hesitation. “We’ll give you the mana we just spent upgrading our cards—we want to enter this competition too!”

Hehe! Perfect—now no one could escape!

This time, Vasida and Sylph were even more proactive and enthusiastic than Mo Lan herself, the card seller. After meeting up with the other first-year young witches, they immediately began promoting the progress bar feature on her behalf.

“It shows your magic learning progress?”

“The more you improve, the more green it gets?”

“If it turns red, that means you’ve surpassed Moira?”

“A first-year prize competition? Turn the bar red and draw a card for free?”

Mo Lan nodded, and directly brought out the 《Earth Cuisine Card Catalog》 she had originally given to the Headmistresses:

“The card draw pool is from this catalog. They’re all finished Food Cards—and specifically the finished Food Cards made exclusively for the Headmistresses.

“After your progress bar turns red for the first time, if it’s still red one week later, you can draw again. And right now, upgrading your card only costs half price! The feature will be gradually improved over time, and once it’s complete, the price will be based on your level.”

The Headmistress wouldn’t let her sell finished Food Cards to the young witches, but nobody said she couldn’t use them as prizes!

The prizes were only for a select few young witches, and each could only draw one card at a time. It wouldn’t be enough to dampen the young witches’ enthusiasm for learning cooking and Culinary Magic, or make them completely dependent on her cards to fill their stomachs.

With the offer laid out so clearly, what was there to hesitate about?

“One word: buy!”

In their eyes, this competition was similar to taking monthly exams for Magic Gold Coin rewards—perhaps even better.

If you did poorly on the monthly exams, you’d be punished with workbooks. But with this progress bar feature, good performance earned rewards while poor performance carried no punishment!

And these were finished Food Cards exclusively supplied to the Headmistresses! Every single dish depicted on them was something they’d never seen before!

The young witches, who had long since been conquered by Earth’s gourmet seasoning packets, didn’t hesitate for even a moment.

And it was half price right now!

Mo Lan was even happier. Under normal circumstances, she charged five times cost. Half price still meant 2.5 times cost—she was still making a profit, and quite a good one at that.

After all, it was a growth-type feature. Though it largely depended on her own knowledge, it still wasn’t cheap.

One contract after another was written out, and she once again became the young witches’ creditor. Even Sylph was paying in installments.

And every young witch received a brand-new Status Card, covered in gray and green.

While the other young witches took it in stride, Iris was rather distraught: “What the heck! I practice Culinary Magic every single day, making delicious food every day—how is my progress still not as good as yours, Moira?”

She had thought she’d be able to draw a card right away!

“What’s the maximum percentage of magical power you can output with your Culinary Magic?” Mo Lan asked.

This stumped Iris completely—how could she possibly calculate percentages? “Roughly the equivalent of one Mana unit of magical power per use, I guess!”

Mo Lan: “…”

They already had workbooks—how had math not been put on the curriculum yet?

“What’s your total?”

“Sixty Mana.”

“Then that’s about 1.6 to 1.7 percent,” Mo Lan said. “I’m at 1.9% right now, almost at Beginner level.

“This percentage represents the ratio between your maximum single-cast mana output and your total mana capacity.

“Two percent is the standard for Beginner-level magic, but there are many other determining factors in between—like command accuracy, the concentration required during casting, the degree of Attuning on your cooking utensils, and so on. You need to pay attention to every aspect.

“Just work on strengthening those areas a bit more. Look at your Culinary Magic progress bar—it’s actually very close to one hundred percent. You’re about to surpass me!”