Chapter 173 – Lethality?

Mo Lan shook her head. “It’s better to separate them. Whether it’s restoring energy or using food supplements to enhance physical constitution, the benefits gained from digestion all act on the user themselves. Your exclusive Mana — that is, the Devouring Stomach itself — doesn’t actually gain much from the process, right?”

“That’s correct. The Devouring Stomach itself also needs to consume some of the energy obtained from eating, otherwise it gets very hungry. If it gets severe enough, the functions for restoring energy and enhancing physical constitution become unusable,” Vasida said.

“Exactly!” Mo Lan continued, “Your Devouring Stomach’s capacity still needs to be cultivated — that’s the main source of your Devouring Stomach’s lethality!

As for the ability to devour objects, I don’t think the user needs to receive any other benefits from it. That ability alone already has considerable value in itself. The energy from those devoured objects can be eaten by your Devouring Stomach, which essentially means the users of this ability are helping to feed part of your stomach for you. That would take a lot of pressure off you.”

“Lethality?” Vasida was even more confused. “My stomach has lethality? Isn’t it just a function for eating and converting energy? Mostly support-oriented?”

Mo Lan was puzzled in turn. “You’ve already tried devouring living things and you still think it has no lethality?”

“I… what I swallowed was an ant that I accidentally grabbed! I didn’t get a single bit of energy from it — I actually lost a little energy instead. I even thought it wasn’t worth it!” Vasida said.

Mo Lan: “…”

Was Vasida too naive, or was her own mind too dark?

“If you can devour ants, can you devour chickens and ducks? Can you devour people? As long as your stomach is big enough, can’t you kill whatever you swallow inside it?”

“It seems like… that’s not impossible!” An unusual gleam burst forth in Vasida’s eyes.

“Ahem!” Mo Lan said, seeing her excited expression with some concern. “Be careful when you experiment! It’s best to figure out where the limits of your stomach are, and don’t hurt yourself.”

“I know, I know!” Vasida felt that today’s gains had already exceeded her expectations. Mo Lan’s brain really was different. She hurriedly said, “Keep going, keep going! How should I sell the food supplement ability and the devouring ability?”

“For the food supplement ability, I recommend making it into cards to sell, to earn disposable Mana.

The cards can be divided into major tiers based on the supernatural practitioner’s rank — Apprentice, Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, and Peak level. Then within each tier, you can also assign different durations of use to the cards.

One hour, three hours, one day, one month, one year — that alone creates many different varieties.

For this type of card, don’t sell permanent ones. Sell only time-limited ones.

Finally, for the ability to devour and digest objects, it can be made into either cards or Sorceress Magic.

Take the part about devouring and digesting living things, and make that into Sorceress Magic, restricted to only handling living things, sold in tiers based on the target’s rank.

Take the part about devouring and digesting non-living objects, and make different cards based on the type of object.

For example, a {Household Waste Bin Card} that automatically processes household garbage, a {Construction Debris Bin Card} that automatically processes building waste, a {Slop Bucket Card} that automatically processes kitchen waste, a {Pharmacy Waste Bin} and {Alchemy Waste Bin} that automatically process potion residue or Alchemy waste, and so on.

You can also categorize the cards by size based on single-use processing capacity — large, medium, small… that’s all up to you.

With all of that, plus some fragment cards, building out this card pool shouldn’t be a problem,” Mo Lan said.

Vasida’s mind was suddenly wide open. “Moira! You’re amazing — I know exactly what to do now!”

“This is just a general direction. The First-Year Reading Room recently stocked a batch of books on business and commerce. They’re summaries I compiled from memories of my past life’s experiences. You can borrow them and take a look, then plan out your Magic and card sales more carefully,” Mo Lan recommended.

“Great, great, great!” Vasida absolutely believed in the quality of those books, and she wrote down every title.

By the time they finished their long chat, the harvesting and processing of the rice in Mo Lan’s field was also nearing its end, with only the winnowing and threshing left.

Normally at this point, you would spread out the rice to sun-dry for a few days before proceeding to the next step. But today, Mo Lan simply stopped the farming tools, walked over with her Wand, and cast a Drying spell on each sack one by one, instantly drying all the rice. Then she let the farming tools continue winnowing and threshing, stacking the sacks together in one place.

“What Magic is that?” Iris noticed her actions.

“It’s a Drying spell. It’s taught in that book 《The Art of Dehydration》 in the First-Year Reading Room. You’d probably like it — it’s very convenient for making jerky,” Mo Lan recommended.

In the days prior, she had prioritized reading the Magic books in the First-Year Reading Room.

There were quite a few small spells that, like the Levitation Spell, had no offensive capability but were very useful in daily life.

The Amplification Spell and the Drying spell were both learned from those books.

Without at least skimming through the Witch Magic Catalog or all the books in the Reading Room, you wouldn’t necessarily know these two spells existed.

The Drying spell could instantly evaporate moisture.

After learning it, Mo Lan didn’t even need to hang her clothes to dry anymore. After washing clothes with the Cleaning spell, she could directly use the Drying spell, and put them right back on. She didn’t even need to prepare a change of clothes — one set could be washed and worn, worn and washed, on repeat.

It was also very convenient for drying grain, and making jerky and dried fruit.

With this round of work, Mo Lan had prepared her staple food supply for the entire coming year in one go.

The moment Iris heard it could be used to dry jerky, she decided she had to learn it.

The kitchen did have an oven, but how could that compare to Magic in speed!

With the rice prepared, she also needed to plant and process various food seasonings for storage.

Mo Lan plowed the freshly harvested field anew, removed weeds, eliminated pests, then used the Fertile Soil spell to enrich the earth and the Growth Acceleration spell to sprout the seeds, planting various spice seeds she would need.

Although the Book of Cards could produce things directly, aside from Earth-exclusive seasonings like soy sauce and aged vinegar that required extensive production time, Mo Lan preferred to grow whatever she could herself.

Just like the young witches, she would try her best to use Magic to overcome difficulties.

After all, she was at the Academy now, and her primary task was to study Magic.

Taking shortcuts now would only hold back her Magic proficiency.

Practicing those plant-related spells inherently required hands-on experience.

Only by growing ordinary plants and leveling up her Magic could she then attempt to cultivate and nurture magical plants.

By the time she finished her work and floated back to the Dormitory with today’s harvested rice and freshly gathered ingredients, the sky had already gone dark.

Mo Lan still didn’t skimp on breakfast and dinner. She prepared them earnestly every day, aiming for more variety in dishes with smaller portions, so that her Culinary Magic got the best possible training.

Cooking had become quite convenient and effortless for her by now. She didn’t even need to sit at the kitchen counter — she could direct the cooking utensils to prepare the meal from anywhere.

Other than splitting off a bit of her attention, it was essentially like having an invisible chef at home.