Chapter 138 – Magic Is Subjective

Mo Lan’s first Potions class turned out to be her last.

The next day, when she headed up to the Castle for her morning theory class, she brought along a large lunch box.

This lunch box was also included with the Mobile Kitchen Card.

Inside were dishes she’d made that morning — meat, vegetables, and fruit. She could heat them up at noon and have them for lunch.

A lunch box with food in it couldn’t be stored back in the Mobile Kitchen Card, so she floated it alongside her with the Levitation Spell all the way to the Castle.

After morning theory classes ended, the other first-year young witches headed back down the mountain to rest in the Dormitory before going to the greenhouse for their next class.

Mo Lan, however, went straight to the Academy library with the pass the Headmistress had given her.

The library was at the very center of the Castle — a full six stories tall. The topmost floor housed the treasured editions of books that came with Mo-Pics.

From 《The Witch’s Complete Potion Comperta》 to 《The Witch’s Complete Cooking Compendium》, 《The Complete Guide to Potion Harvesting and Cultivation》, 《The Witch’s Complete Alchemy Compendium》, 《The Witch’s Complete Sewing Compendium》, 《The Witch’s Complete Magic Compendium》, 《The Valen Complete Bestiary》, 《The Valen Complete Travel Guide》, and more.

They encompassed knowledge covering every aspect of a witch’s life.

Each set contained at minimum several dozen volumes, and at most over a hundred.

Moreover, none of the volumes were the standardized editions that could be transcribed onto a single sheet. They were much thicker than standard editions, and the books had no fixed Transcription Spell.

The compiler of every single one was Sorceress Traci.

So many! And they couldn’t be transcribed. Aside from her, probably no young witch could finish reading them all during their school years.

Even if someone did finish reading them, there was no way to memorize everything, let alone actually learn it all.

No wonder these books ended up gathering dust here, never fulfilling their intended purpose!

Mo Lan found the set of 《The Witch’s Complete Potion Comperta》 that Lady Amisha had mentioned, took out the first volume, and settled into a nearby armchair to read.

Opening the book, the very first section covered basic potions.

The insecticide potion, herbicide potion, and recovery potion were listed as the first three. The written explanations were about the same as what she’d seen in 《Common Magical Plants and Basic Potion Brewing》.

Mo Lan skimmed through quickly. After the written explanations came the Mo-Pics that Lady Amisha had mentioned.

About the size of a photograph, in color but without sound, the Mo-Pic displayed the entire brewing process for the herbicide potion — from extracting magical plant essence all the way through to cooling and bottling the finished potion.

It used the same small brass crucible and long-handled ladle that they used in class.

And it was shown from a first-person perspective — the Mo-Pic Recorder must have been fixed to the brewer’s forehead. Occasionally, a few strands of drifting silver hair were visible at the edges of the frame.

Compared to watching Lady Amisha demonstrate in class, the Mo-Pic’s perspective actually offered a clearer view.

She could even see exactly what the extracted magical plant essence looked like, in perfect detail.

When the Mo-Pic reached the end, it automatically started playing again from the beginning.

It couldn’t be fast-forwarded, paused, or rewound like a video.

But for Mo Lan, this hardly mattered — one viewing was all she needed to commit it to memory.

Once she had it memorized, she felt that she not only understood the procedural steps for brewing the herbicide potion, but could even visualize the instructions for the extraction step more clearly.

It was a pity she didn’t have any potion ingredients on hand to experiment with.

So she watched the Mo-Pics one after another, as if binge-watching a video series, memorizing both the written content from the books and their corresponding instructional Mo-Pics.

When she got hungry, she took out her lunch box to eat. Once full, she went right back to studying.

It wasn’t until the Castle’s bell tolled six times — six o’clock in the evening — that she reluctantly set down her book and left the Castle.

After descending the mountain, she couldn’t go straight back to the Dormitory. She hadn’t attuned the Broomstick Grass yet today, so she headed to Greenhouse No. 1, attuned the Broomstick Grass, and then went to the Potions classroom. With Potions class running every day lately, the Sprites had been picking the necessary magical plants and leaving them in the classroom.

Setting everything else aside, the ingredients for the herbicide potion, insecticide potion, and recovery potion were all here.

She’d watched the instructional Mo-Pics for all three potions today, so Mo Lan decided to try brewing them.

Sure enough, just as she’d expected, the brewing went smoothly.

In fact, because the perspective had been more ideal and she now knew more details about the brewing process, it went even more smoothly than when she’d brewed the recovery potion in yesterday’s class.

Underground beneath the Academy Castle, in the Headmistress’s Lounge.

The black-robed Amisha sat together with No. 69 Amisha, watching the guardian light screen that No. 69 Amisha had projected. On the screen was Mo Lan, currently in the middle of brewing potions.

Seeing this, she remarked, “It seems this way of learning really does suit her.”

“So she won’t be attending classes anymore?” No. 69 asked.

“Not exactly. Just reading books isn’t enough — she still needs hands-on practice! She’ll still need to attend some classes!” said the black-robed Amisha. “But I’ll certainly have it much easier! She can even serve as half a teaching assistant for me! Consider it early preparation for her!”

“Have you forgotten? Once Potions class is over, the first-years only have sewing class left. When that time comes, it’ll be No. 102 and No. 103’s turn to relax, while you, my dear, will be teaching the next batch of new students all over again!” said No. 69.

“…” The black-robed Amisha paused. “Why do you always have to bring up the things I don’t want to hear? But with the next batch, I wonder if another Sorceress will appear! The world consciousness has really been favoring us witches lately! So many Sorceresses born in succession.”

“One can hope!”

*

Mo Lan returned to the Dormitory. By the time she finished dinner, it was already eleven o’clock, but she could still read for another two hours.

For books about magic and the like, studying the Mo-Pic editions was far more efficient. Right now, she felt like finding something lighter to read.

Browsing through the books transcribed from the First-Year Reading Room stored in her Grimoire, she spotted one titled 《Unsolved Mysteries of Witches》. Intrigued, she opened it and began reading.

Scanning the table of contents, her eyes landed on a particular line and froze:

“Unsolved Mystery No. 12: Why do objects attuned with Magic Infusion each have their own temperament?”

She checked the page number and flipped to that chapter.

“A witch’s prolonged Attuning and use of an object over many years may eventually give rise to sentience within it. But even before sentience develops, different objects display different temperaments, and similar types of objects tend to share similar temperaments. The reason for this remains entirely without consensus to this day…”

Mo Lan spoke up: “Headmistress No. 69, doesn’t this say there’s no consensus? How come Headmistress No. 101 talked about the difference between the big hoe’s temperament and the plants’ temperaments as if it were established fact?”

And she’d actually believed her, too.

“Flip to the end of this book and you’ll understand.”

The Headmistress’s voice drifted down from the air.

Mo Lan quickly flipped to the end of the chapter: “Unsolved mysteries have no definitive answers. How one interprets them is every witch’s freedom.”

“???”

“So it was all a story you made up, Headmistress? Are you even reliable?!”

Mo Lan had genuinely believed that the big hoe had a bad temper because it was exhausted from doing hard physical labor!

“Freedom!” Amisha declared.

“…” Mo Lan said helplessly, “Then can I also say the big hoe has a bad temper because it was simply born stubborn?”

“That’s your freedom! Regardless of how you interpret it, it still has that temperament all the same. Many things don’t have a ‘why.’ Magic is subjective, and so is Mana,” Amisha said.