Chapter 149 – Will You Really Not Lose Money?

The young witches felt their hearts tighten when they saw this.

After purchasing Card Magic, you still had to spend mana? And not just one-time mana, but permanent mana too?

But the amount of magical power equivalent to 1 Mana of permanent mana could charge up to 100—no, 110 Gem Coins into this Purple Gemstone!

Who didn’t have a few extra Mana worth of magical power lying around from time to time!

After all, the magical power they could naturally recover each day equaled the magical power remaining at midnight. If they kept half their magical power before midnight each day, their magical power would be fully restored the next day.

Any extra magical power left over would just go to waste anyway—how much better to convert it into Card Coins to buy cards and pull from the card pool!

If they could have done this earlier, who knows how many Gem Coins they would have saved up by now. Why would they ever need installment payments?

They were feeling rather tempted.

At this point, another dialogue box floated up: “Continue tutorial or skip beginner’s guide?”

This time Vasida knew what to do. Her finger went straight for “Continue.”

This time, the card pool box on the left side lit up.

Next to the gray-white vortex, an arrow appeared: “→ Limited-Time Beta Card Pool: Tap to draw cards. All cards in the card shop have a chance of being drawn from this pool. Each draw costs 1 Gem Coin. A triple draw guarantees one complete card! [Tap the ‘?’ in the upper-right corner of the card pool to view drop rates]”

“Current free draws remaining: 1.”

“Draw a card?”

Vasida thought for a moment, tapped “No,” then tapped the “?” in the upper-right corner of the card pool.

【Limited-Time Beta Card Pool Drop Rates】

【1. Gem Coins / Card Fragments drop rate: 19%】

【2. Cards worth 1 Gem Coin drop rate: 59%】

【3. Cards worth 2 Gem Coins drop rate: 19%】

【4. Cards worth 2–10 Gem Coins drop rate: 1.99%】

【6. Special Cards drop rate: 1%】

【5. Cards worth over 10 Gem Coins drop rate: 0.01%】

(Draw 3 times consecutively to guarantee one complete card)

(Special cards have no physical form and can only be drawn from the card pool—they cannot be purchased in the shop. Current special cards: Wild Card, Lucky Card, Multi-Draw Card.)

“(O_o)??” Vasida turned around with a completely bewildered expression, seeking help from the others. “What does this mean?”

“o_O ||” The other young witches stared blankly at each other, looking at the string of percentages, feeling a bit dizzy.

Then they all turned to Mo Lan in unison. “What does it mean?”

Mo Lan sighed inwardly. Math classes truly could not wait any longer. Just look at these young witches—they could barely manage addition and subtraction, just enough to not get cheated when shopping.

She had no choice but to patiently sort it out for them and give a rough explanation:

“These are the probabilities of drawing cards of different values. The highest chance is drawing a card worth 1 Gem Coin. Next are Gem Coin fragments and cards worth 2 Gem Coins. After that come cards worth more than 2 but less than 10 Gem Coins, as well as special cards. The lowest probability is drawing a card worth more than 10 Gem Coins.”

The young witches’ eyes lit up after hearing this. “You can use just 1 Gem Coin from this card pool to draw a card worth far more than 1 Gem Coin? There’s actually such a good deal?”

“Moira, won’t you lose money running this card pool?” Sylph asked with some concern.

“Exactly!” Vasida chimed in. “1 Gem Coin is 1 Mana, and your most expensive cards cost over a hundred Mana, don’t they?”

Mo Lan had anticipated that once her Card Magic—especially the gacha component—was made public, it would further cement her reputation as the “Goblin Sorceress.” She had originally planned to console her increasingly tarnished reputation with the mana she earned.

But she had never imagined that the young witches would actually worry about her losing money!

Granted, this beta card pool was fairly generous—after all, the target audience was young witches, and Mo Lan couldn’t bring herself to fleece them too badly. But she was only earning a little less; there was absolutely no way she’d take a loss.

Valen was fertile soil untouched by lotteries and prize drawings, and the young witches’ math was terrible. That was probably the cause of this misunderstanding!

She shook her head repeatedly. “At most I’ll earn a little less. Losing money is impossible. This is a beta bonus card pool—go ahead and draw with confidence!”

The young witches finally relaxed upon hearing this. “As long as you’re not losing money, that’s fine! As long as you’re not losing money!”

What could they do—they were even more tempted now!

Buy one spell, get a free card draw, with a chance of pulling a super expensive card!

But 3 Mana of permanent mana wasn’t something you could spend casually. They needed to think it over.

Just then, Vasida tapped “Continue” on the beginner’s guide, and the card shop lit up.

“Tap a card to view detailed card information and purchase options.”

“→ Tap here to adjust card sorting.”

“→ Tap here to search or filter cards.”

“→ Swipe here to turn pages.”

……

After a series of tutorial dialogue boxes, Vasida now understood how to use the shop interface.

She adjusted the card sorting to arrange cards by price from highest to lowest.

Yet to her surprise, the most expensive card wasn’t the {Mobile Kitchen Card}. Instead, it was a card called {Disposable Energy Storage Card}. Its minimum price was actually lower than the {Mobile Kitchen Card}’s—only 10 Gem Coins—but it had no price ceiling!

“Energy Storage Card? Does it mean what I think it means?” Sylph looked at Mo Lan. “Has there been new progress on the Energy Storage Card?”

Mo Lan shook her head. “It’s still the same kind I told you about before. But later, the Headmistress said that even at this price, these Energy Storage Cards are much cheaper than Magic Gold Coins, so I put them in the shop.”

Now that her Sorceress Magic research was complete, the Energy Storage Cards could finally be sold.

When she had asked Headmistress No. 69 last night, the Headmistress had been the very first to purchase Card Magic from her, and then took one of the promotional flyers Mo Lan had copied out overnight.

And the sales figures in the lower-right corner of the {Disposable Energy Storage Card} at this moment were entirely contributed by the Headmistress.

She had bought three of nearly every type of Energy Storage Card, from 1 Mana all the way to 10,000 Mana, saying she wanted to take them to show the Witch Council.

The other young witches were hearing about Energy Storage Cards for the first time. They hurriedly had Vasida tap on it to view the detailed card information.

After tapping, in addition to seeing what the card face looked like, they could also see the card’s function description and pricing details.

“A Blank Energy Storage Card with 1 Mana of storage capacity costs 10 Gem Coins, and a Blank Energy Storage Card with 100 Mana of storage capacity costs 1,000 Gem Coins—who would buy these? Isn’t it more cost-effective to just convert magical power directly into Gem Coins?”

The young witches had the exact same doubts that Mo Lan and the others had initially.

“Gem Coins can’t be withdrawn and converted back into magical power!

The value of these Energy Storage Cards is equivalent to Magic Gold Coins—both are used for rapidly restoring energy in emergencies.

And a single Purple Gold Coin capable of restoring 100 Mana of energy in one use requires a witch of Advanced rank or above to fill the coin with magical power equivalent to 1,000 Mana each time, repeating the process a full ten times, before finally leaving a stable reserve of 100 Mana inside the Purple Gold Coin.”