Chapter 239 – The Senior’s Temper

During Wednesday’s Alchemy class, Mo Lan attempted to craft a magical seal.

A magical seal was essentially a witch’s business card, used in conjunction with the Golden Bird spell and golden bird stationery.

By Attuning a magical seal once with magical power, the seal would record a unique aura that golden birds could detect.

As long as such a seal was used to stamp an imprint on golden bird stationery, a golden bird could follow that imprint to find the person who left the aura.

Witches spent most of their time traveling from place to place, with no fixed address.

So witches who were particularly close would exchange their magical seals with one another, making it convenient to stay in contact through the Golden Bird spell.

Mo Lan knew that Shana’s mother was in Moon Harbor, which was why she had been able to send that previous letter directly.

Otherwise, the golden bird very likely wouldn’t have been able to deliver the letter to Shana’s mother.

The magical seal taught in the textbook was just an ordinary little block of wood, engraved with the rune combination for a magical seal.

Mo Lan had read many books on Alchemy, so she naturally knew that such a seal would be completely unimpressive among witches.

Even the poorest witch would carefully design the style of her own seal.

Witches with some real ability would even select various precious materials to craft their seals.

Precious materials—Mo Lan had none.

But designing the seal’s style a little—that much she could manage.

After thinking for just a moment, she already had an idea.

Before long, the wood on her desk had been shaped with the Wood-Shaping Spell into thirty small seals.

The sides of each seal bore the same decorative pattern as the backs of the cards, and the top featured a relief carving of an open book.

She engraved runes on each one, filled them with runic force, and finally Attuned them with Mana for a moment. Thirty magical seals belonging to her were complete.

She had made quite a large number—it had taken Mo Lan the entire Alchemy class.

Seeing that Lady Amisha was preparing to leave after class, Mo Lan grabbed a pouch full of little seals and chased after her. “Headmistress! Wait!”

Amisha stopped and looked back at her, only to immediately have a small seal pressed into her hand.

“Please keep this, Headmistress. It’ll make it easier to stay in touch after graduation,” Mo Lan said.

Amisha raised an eyebrow slightly. Anyone who didn’t know better would think this child was a fifth-year! Already handing out seals.

She accepted it anyway, and casually tossed one back to Mo Lan. “Here, this one’s for you.”

Mo Lan caught it and took a look. It was a plain, unadorned wooden seal just like the one in the textbook, but engraved with the Headmistress’s name.

The Headmistress certainly couldn’t be poor, so this basic version of the seal really did have its audience after all!

But with so many copies of the Headmistress running around, if someone sent her a letter, how exactly would the golden bird find the right one?

Just as she was about to indulge her curiosity, she looked up to find the Headmistress had long since vanished without a trace.

Mo Lan shook her head with a smile, then went to give each of the little witches in her class a small seal as well.

That evening, after returning to the Dormitory, Mo Lan went to find her senior, Lilith.

“Oh my! If it isn’t my dear junior Moira! What brings you to your beloved senior?” Lilith leaned against the doorframe, smiling warmly.

“This is for you, senior.” Mo Lan handed her a small seal.

“A magical seal? You’re giving these out already? Seniors usually only hand them out right before graduation!” Lilith said, turning the little seal over in her fingers.

“Did you forget, senior? There are graduation exams before graduation! And after the exams, you’ll need to prepare for leaving the Academy. Whether you’d even have time to make seals then is anyone’s guess!” Mo Lan said. She remembered that the fifth-year seniors from the previous class had been quite pressed for time before they left.

“Curse those exams!” Lilith put on a mask of anguish. “Huh? Wait, that’s not right! How have you already made magical seals? Didn’t you just say on Sunday that you’d only just learned to make golden bird stationery?”

“To be precise, I learned that last Thursday. This Monday I learned to make magical clocks, Tuesday was magical stoves and magical lamps, and I only made the magical seals today,” Mo Lan said.

Lilith’s expression grew even more pained. Learning to make one or two magical items per day—was that even reasonable?

“I’m done talking to you. I haven’t even finished my reading!”

Slam. The door shut in her face.

Mo Lan: “…”

Her senior’s temper was truly even harder to predict than the effects of the bad luck hex.

Back when they were learning the bad luck hex in Magic class, Lady Amisha had them practice on each other.

During that period, the little witches were constantly on edge, never knowing what misfortune would strike next.

Falling flat on their faces on level ground; a glob of bird droppings descending from the sky; a broomstick suddenly coming loose, shedding a handful of Broomstick Grass; a freshly completed workbook getting splashed with water; getting bonked on the head by a Breadfruit; biting their own tongue while eating… anything was possible.

It was fortunate that the Apprentice-level bad luck hex was only at the level of minor pranks and mischief—otherwise, it was terrifying to imagine what else might happen.

*

Thursday afternoon, after Mo Lan flew her broomstick to the Alchemy laboratory, she didn’t place it on the broom rack outside the classroom as usual. Instead, she brought the broomstick directly inside.

“How wonderful! You’ll be able to learn how to add an invisibility cushion to your broom today, right?” Sylph said enviously.

Mo Lan smiled. “It shouldn’t be a problem. You all should be able to make golden bird stationery today too, right? When I checked yesterday, your progress was looking quite good.”

Sylph and Vasida nodded.

The other little witches chimed in as well: “Should be soon.”

In truth, they should have been much further behind.

Their Alchemy talent was poor, and their efficiency at converting magical power into runic force was extremely low. With their limited reserves of magical power, they couldn’t practice for very long before running low, so their progress had initially been somewhat slower than Sylph and Vasida’s.

Last week, in order to catch up, Cheryl had gone to pick Breadfruit to use during practice.

She had purchased Vasida’s Apprentice-level recovery magic food supplement, and the satiating effect of Breadfruit could also be converted into a certain amount of magical power. Combined with Breadfruit’s own restorative properties, her magical power was finally able to keep pace with the frequency of practice.

With someone taking the lead, the other little witches naturally followed suit.

By relying on eating Breadfruit, they managed to maintain roughly the same pace as Vasida and Sylph.

They didn’t chat for long. Once they reached their spots, without needing Lady Amisha to assign anything, they each went off to work on their own tasks.

The other little witches continued practicing making golden bird stationery, while Mo Lan began studying the invisibility cushion Alchemy blueprint in the textbook.

The invisibility cushion didn’t require any additional materials—the runes just needed to be engraved directly onto the broomstick handle.

However, she only had the one broomstick handle, and ruining it was not an option.

At her current level of the Wood-Shaping Spell, engraving runes on a broomstick—which was essentially a magical item—was easy enough, but repairing any mistakes in the engravings would be very difficult. So there was no room for error.

To prepare thoroughly, Mo Lan used the Wood-Shaping Spell to shape several pieces of wood into roughly the same form as her broomstick handle, engraved runes on them, and practiced filling them with runic force many times over.

Only after she could do it flawlessly and with complete confidence did she finally turn her attention to her own broomstick handle.

She was careful, then more careful still. With great effort, she safely engraved the rune combination for the invisibility cushion and filled it to capacity with runic force.