Chapter 294 – Mo Lan’s Suggestions

On the sixth floor of the Academy Library, there was a Mo-Pic book called Mo-Pic book called 《Witch’s Home Construction Encyclopedia》 that contained quite a few methods for building cave-style witch dwellings.

Compared to the most basic cave dwelling style in the textbook — which was little more than a single hole — those designs were incomparably more refined and complex.

Mo Lan had already read through most of that book.

On top of that, similar dwelling methods existed throughout Earth’s human history.

For Mo Lan, making this miniature cave dwelling was almost too easy.

In just a few hours, she had shaped the interior space into neat, squared-off dimensions with perfectly smooth surfaces.

Finally, she carved out a window and tidied up the doorway, and the job was done.

She carefully crawled out of the cave. “Headmistress, does this pass?”

“It does,” Headmistress No. 69 replied. “You may proceed to the stone cave dwelling.”

With permission granted, Mo Lan headed toward the back side of the slope.

She passed by Sylph and Vasida’s digging sites, leaning in to take a peek.

Everyone was making good progress.

When Vasida and Sylph saw that she had already finished her earthen cave dwelling first, they both picked up their pace.

Rounding to the back of the slope, Mo Lan looked at the stone wall that was as clean-cut as if sliced by a blade, and paused. “This mountain isn’t man-made, is it?”

“It was brought here from the Inner Region, though it was slightly modified.”

Mo Lan: “…”

Modified — as in, someone had cleaved it in half with a single stroke and tossed the other half away?

She shook her head, deciding not to overthink it, found a section of rock face, and began digging with the Rock-Crushing Spell.

The Rock-Crushing Spell was somewhat less efficient than the soil-turning spell. For the same amount of mana, the volume of stone it broke away was smaller than soil.

But digging a stone cave was actually easier than digging an earthen one, since there was essentially no risk of the interior collapsing.

She made her stone cave dwelling even smaller than the earthen one — after all, she only needed to demonstrate that she had mastered the construction method.

This time, she crawled in and smoothed out the interior walls and floor bit by bit using Stone Shaping.

“Moira, the Headmistress says we can go back for lunch!” After finishing their cave dwellings, Sylph and Vasida came together to call her back for the meal.

“Hold on!” Mo Lan smoothed out the last bit of wall before crawling out. “Headmistress, does this one pass?”

“It passes.”

“Do I need to come back for class this afternoon?” Mo Lan asked.

“Yes. This afternoon, you’ll continue with the earthen house dwelling.”

Mo Lan: “Alright then!”

She could see the pattern now — she would have to build each of the basic dwelling types listed in the textbook, one by one.

Still, she needed to head back first.

Not for lunch — she still had leftover Breadfruit Cake.

The main issue was that she had temporarily expanded the space in her shoulder bag using the Expansion Spell, which needed to be recast every few hours. It was quite the hassle, so she needed to go back and take out all the tinder grass.

The three young witches mounted their brooms and left the training ground.

As soon as they were out, Vasida couldn’t wait to ask, “Moira, did you find a suitable place to build a dwelling on your trip?”

Mo Lan shook her head. “Not yet. But I ran into Lilith, and learned quite a bit about the Inner Region. I already have a general area in mind.”

Mo Lan gave them a rough account of her route and findings from the expedition.

“So if we can cross Greengrass Plains, the mountain forests beyond it are the most suitable place for us to build our dwellings?” Sylph asked.

“Exactly. And specifically, the mountain forests on the side of Greengrass Plains closer to Lone Peak Forest.”

Mo Lan continued, “The mountain forests directly beyond the outer edge of Greengrass Plains are close to the snowfields, so the temperatures are quite low — probably only suitable for witches who specialize in ice magic. The mountain forests near Green Marsh get too much rain. Those would be a decent choice for witches specializing in water magic, since the higher concentration of water elemental force there helps with elemental force conversion rates, potentially making water magic easier to learn.

“If you don’t have specific needs for higher concentrations of a particular elemental force, the mountain forests on the Lone Peak Forest side of Greengrass Plains are still the best option — good location, good climate.”

Sorceresses had unlimited talent affinity for all types of magic. Their mana could be converted into various forms of energy for spellcasting with almost no resistance, limited only by spell level and proficiency.

So the three of them certainly didn’t need to deliberately choose an area with higher concentrations of a specific elemental force just for the sake of their magical studies.

And such places typically had inhospitable climates anyway.

Sylph and Vasida took note of her suggestions, then turned to ask curiously, “How is Lilith doing now? At the end of last school year, we heard her dwelling was destroyed by wild beasts. Has she rebuilt it?”

Mo Lan thought for a moment and said, “She’s doing quite well. She lives near a Vampire Vine with very high spiritual intelligence, and she’s even signed an alliance pact with it. They get along great — the Vampire Vine helps guard her dwelling, so she doesn’t have to worry about wild beasts destroying it anymore.”

As for the fact that Lilith was still saving up bricks for her house to this day — there was no need to tell them that.

Consider it looking out for their senior’s precarious sense of pride.

“Wow! That’s amazing!” Sylph said enviously. “A Hundred-Year Vampire Vine must be really powerful. When the time comes, I’ll look for an awakened magical plant too — that way I won’t have to worry about my fields being destroyed.”

She wasn’t worried about having nowhere to live. What she worried about was her mutated plants being ravaged by wild beasts before she finished cultivating them. That would break her heart.

“If you want to claim well-situated, comfortable living spots near Greengrass Plains, remember to act early!” Mo Lan reminded them.

“After all, the mountain forests are only so big. There definitely won’t be enough spots for all the young witches in our year. When the time comes, some will have to wait until the school year ends and take over the dwelling sites vacated by graduating seniors. That would mean inevitably having to participate in the astromancy ceremony.”

“The other young witches don’t know how to cross Greengrass Plains yet, do they?” Sylph said uncertainly.

Mo Lan shook her head. “The Headmistress has already updated the method for surviving the Thunder Night on Purple Night Grasslands into the various witch reference books. Even if we don’t say anything, any young witch who looks it up will definitely find it.”

“We’re all learning to build cave dwellings today. The textbook only covers cave dwellings, earthen house dwellings, and wooden house dwellings — those three types. I estimate that once this course is finished, I’ll head straight to the Inner Region to find a suitable place to live!” Vasida declared with determination.

For now, though, she still wanted to improve her progress in learning magic, and she had more classes to attend and instructional videos to watch. She couldn’t head out to explore as quickly as Mo Lan.

“I’ll probably have to wait until then too,” Sylph said. “Besides learning magic, I still need to gradually organize the plants in my greenhouse. Some that I haven’t fully studied yet need to be prepared for transplanting.”

By now they had flown all the way back to the Dormitory, so the three of them parted ways to have lunch.

With their study load growing heavier and the pressure mounting, they could only catch up on each other’s situations during the time they spent traveling to and from class together.