Chapter 292 – Wind and Rain Protection

Chapter 292 – Wind and Rain Protection

Once the idea surfaced, there was no pushing it back down.

Mo Lan had long wanted to give her broomstick an alchemical upgrade to make it more comfortable.

But because the broomstick was currently one of a kind, she didn’t dare experiment carelessly. She always figured she’d practice on other types of magical items first, ensuring her rune inscriptions were absolutely error-free before inscribing them onto the broomstick.

Take the rune combination centered on wind and rain protection she’d been practicing last week — she had inscribed all of those on magical beast hides and fabrics woven from magical plants.

Rain-repelling cloaks, windproof cloaks, cloaks that were both windproof and rain-repelling — she’d made a whole pile of them. Her rune inscription had become quite proficient, with no more mistakes.

Originally, she’d planned to use magical ore to craft some wind and rain protection accessories, getting accustomed to inscribing runes on different materials before finally inscribing the wind and rain protection rune combination onto her broomstick.

But now there was no choice. If she wanted to fly unaffected by this rainy weather, she needed to upgrade the broomstick right away.

Even so, she still wanted to minimize the failure rate as much as possible.

She was already quite familiar with this rune combination — she just lacked experience inscribing it on different materials. Since she had nothing else to do anyway, Mo Lan braved the rain, went out and chopped down a tree, and brought back some lumber.

She shaped each piece with the Wood-Shaping Spell into wooden sticks identical to her broomstick handle, then inscribed the wind and rain protection rune combination onto them.

These wooden sticks were just ordinary wood, of course, completely unable to withstand a rune combination composed of multiple runes. Even if the inscription succeeded, it would either destroy the stick itself or the rune combination would have no energy supply and simply not function.

But she was only doing this as preparation for inscribing the rune combination onto her broomstick, so this was sufficient.

After a morning of practice and over a dozen ruined wooden sticks, Mo Lan finally felt ready.

She cast a luck spell on herself, and only then did she solemnly begin inscribing on the broomstick handle.

When the rune combination connected end to end and energy flowed through, she let out a heavy breath.

She’d been so tense just now that she’d forgotten to breathe.

Fortunately, there were no mishaps. It was a success.

Mo Lan packed up the tent and dispelled her Vine Sorcery, and the branches returned to their original form.

She channeled Mana into the runes on the broomstick, and the rain and wind around her were blocked outside by an invisible barrier.

Mo Lan mounted the broomstick and flew into the sky. No matter how fast she went, the wind could no longer numb her face, and even her robes stopped flapping noisily.

The comfort of flight had improved by several levels!

Though compared to a completely windless flight mode, she still preferred letting a gentle breeze through — it gave better atmosphere.

Once she learned more complex wind protection rune combinations, she’d upgrade the wind protection rune combination on her broomstick further, allowing the windshield to let through as much or as little breeze as she wanted.

Without the wind and rain to hinder her, Mo Lan instinctively pushed the broomstick to its limits. Even as her speed climbed, she barely felt a thing.

On rainy days, the flying beasts didn’t come out either.

What had been extremely inconvenient flying weather for her had suddenly become ideal flying conditions thanks to the wind and rain protection barrier — she didn’t even encounter any flying beasts.

“Still missing something.” Mo Lan thought for a moment, then took out the Projector Card, inserted a tape loaded with popular songs from Earth, and put on one earphone.

“Now it feels right!”

It felt like riding the bus on a rainy day before the apocalypse.

Though riding a broomstick was way better than riding a bus.

With Mo Lan’s increased flying speed, she covered twice the distance in one afternoon compared to the previous day.

The only downside was that the misty rain limited visibility, so she didn’t find many magical plants.

That night, she used Vine Sorcery to create a tree hollow as usual and spent the night there.

Before sleeping, she checked the map to compare her position — she’d already covered a third of this trip’s planned route.

At this rate, the rain wouldn’t even have stopped before she’d make it out of the woodlands beyond the Green Marsh, much faster than her original plan.

Mo Lan fell asleep satisfied.

Over the next few days, things went exactly as she’d expected.

Under the cover of rain, these few days were the most peaceful she’d had since she began exploring the Inner Region.

She’d barely even used her Wand.

The only downside was that she hadn’t encountered any Red-Eyed Bird flocks again, and cooking wasn’t convenient either, so she’d been eating Breadfruit Cake for days.

On Sunday afternoon, Mo Lan finally flew out of the woodlands beyond the Green Marsh.

Ahead were still woodlands, though noticeably less humid and waterlogged.

The terrain was higher too, with tall mountains frequently visible. The trees grew in scattered patches, with grassland filling the spaces between.

Being close to the snow plains on the inner edge of the Greengrass Plains, the temperature here was much lower as well.

Mo Lan wrapped herself in a thick cloak. Fortunately, with the windshield this time, flying through the sky felt no different from standing still on the ground — the cold was bearable.

From the temperature alone, Mo Lan could tell that although this stretch of woodland was near the Greengrass Plains, it wasn’t suitable for settling down.

Heading toward the Green Marsh side offered higher temperatures, but too much rainfall — livable, but somewhat inconvenient.

It seemed she’d have to keep going and search in the woodlands near Lone Peak Forest on the other side of the Greengrass Plains.

After all that roundabout traveling, she’d end up searching near the woodlands where Senior Renée lived anyway.

That worked out fine, though. Being close to Lone Peak Forest would make it convenient to venture Underground into Lone Peak Forest to search for magical ore in the future.

But it was already Sunday afternoon.

Crossing the Greengrass Plains would take at least a day and a half.

At the latest, she’d need to start heading back by tomorrow noon.

Reaching the woodlands near Lone Peak Forest this trip was probably impossible — she’d have to save it for next time.

Mo Lan decided to spend her time searching this highland forest for usable magical plants instead, and the haul was quite decent.

She even found a large patch of edelweiss grass.

This could be woven into fire-attribute magical fabric, imbued with cold-resistance rune combinations, and used to make cold-resistant magical clothing.

She was in dire need of exactly such clothing.

Even the warmest beast hide couldn’t compare to the lowest-grade cold-resistant cloak.

This huge patch of edelweiss grass was enough to make a large cloak that could wrap her entire body.

Mo Lan acted as if she’d found treasure, harvesting and collecting every last bit.

Even after using the Shrinking Spell to minimize storage space, bundling everything tightly and compressing the volume as much as possible, her satchel was still stuffed to bursting.

Slung over her shoulder, it looked less like a satchel and more like a puffy lumbar pillow.

But she didn’t mind at all — the fullness was deeply satisfying.

During the harvest, she’d been careful not to damage the roots. After finishing, she cast the Lush Flourishing spell and Fertile Soil spell on them, hoping they’d grow back even more lushly in the next growth cycle.

Of course, she didn’t forget to mark this important harvesting spot on her map.

Edelweiss grass grew one crop per year. This time next year, she’d come back to pick more.

She needed to make not just a full set of cold-resistant clothing, shoes, and socks, but cold-resistant blankets and quilts too!