Chapter 295 – Completing the Wilderness Survival Class

After returning to the dormitory, Mo Lan immediately took out the edelweiss.

Since she was back, she might as well cook a proper meal first, then head out to the Magic Training Grounds to continue her lessons.

“What? The earth house dwelling has to be built brick by brick?” Mo Lan asked incredulously after hearing the Guardian Headmistress’s requirements. “Since everything is scaled down proportionally, it’s just a tiny little earth house—can’t I just use the Earth-Gathering Spell to make four walls and be done with it?”

“Could you gather an entire wall in one go if you were building a normal-sized earth house?”

“Of course not.”

Having said that, Mo Lan understood exactly why.

If her Earth-Gathering Spell could produce an entire earth wall in one go, she wouldn’t have needed to resort to the Earth Wall when sealing the entrance of her shelter back on the Greengrass Plains.

Both were earth-element magic, yet even at Apprentice level, the Earth Wall could effortlessly produce an entire wall. The size of the wall was never an issue—as long as one had sufficient mana, it could be done. Higher levels only meant the wall’s defensive power was greater.

But with the Earth-Gathering Spell, at the Apprentice level, one could at most gather an earth brick barely larger than one’s palm.

The reason was that the Earth Wall was a temporary defensive spell, sustained entirely by mana.

The Earth-Gathering Spell, on the other hand, truly and permanently altered the form of the soil, requiring no further mana to maintain.

Building an earth house dwelling naturally required the latter.

Gathering earth into bricks now was simply because when actually building a house, this was exactly what they would need to do.

Mo Lan understood, and went over to the dirt mound to obediently shape bricks with the Earth-Gathering Spell.

However, since this was a miniature earth house, her bricks were also extremely small.

There was no need to make them like actual construction, one or two bricks at a time.

Now she simply cast the Earth-Gathering Spell once or twice and produced all the earth bricks needed for the entire little house.

Then came the house-building “game.”

Tamp down the foundation, then stack the bricks one by one to form walls.

The magical version of bricklaying required no cement and no mortar—just stack the bricks together, then use the Earth-Gathering Spell to fuse the gaps and seams.

To finish the earth house as quickly as possible and demonstrate that she had mastered the relevant skills, she compressed the house’s size to the absolute minimum.

Even so, it was considerably more complex than the cave dwelling, and she barely managed to finish by the time the sun went down.

After receiving the Headmistress’s passing evaluation, Mo Lan asked, “Headmistress, after this, the Wilderness Survival Class only has the wood cabin dwelling construction left, and then it’s finished, right?”

“After that, there’s also reinforcing the structure with the Stone-to-Iron spell, Metal Shaping spell, and Petrification Spell,” the Headmistress’s voice came.

“I’ve already learned all of those.” As Mo Lan spoke, she used the Petrification Spell on the walls of the little earth house she had just built, turning earth to stone and transforming it into a stone house. Then she used the Stone-to-Iron spell to turn stone to iron, transforming it into an iron house.

“Then once you complete the task of building a wood cabin dwelling, you can consider this course finished.”

Without another word, Mo Lan headed off to the small grove to chop trees.

“Moira! Class is already over—what are you chopping trees for? Are you already working on the wood cabin dwelling?” Vasida asked.

“What difference does it make where I build it? I’m planning to bring a section of lumber back to the dormitory and work on it there,” Mo Lan said. “I don’t want to have to rush back here for class again like this time.”

She had already noticed that she was becoming increasingly accustomed to the Inner Region, calmly handling all sorts of sudden dangers.

Her strength was already sufficient.

Hearing this, Vasida and Sylph looked at their own unfinished earth house dwellings and thought it over—she had a point.

Since they were already building them very small, there was no reason they had to wait until class to work on them. So they gathered up the earth bricks they had shaped and took them along, planning to continue working on the earth houses whenever they had free time.

Everything the two of them knew about this subject came entirely from the 《Common Wilderness Terrain Survival Guide》. The cave dwelling was manageable enough, but the earth house dwelling’s construction was truly not something they could master in just a session or two.

Taking it back to the dormitory and tinkering with it whenever they had time would be faster than waiting for the weekly class sessions.

The sooner they finished the Wilderness Survival Class content, the sooner they could head to the Inner Region to find habitable locations. If they went too late, all the good spots would be claimed by other young witches.

After returning, Mo Lan ate something simple and immediately resumed building the wood cabin dwelling.

The spell she used most during the construction process was the Wood-Shaping Spell.

Magic truly made the building process far more convenient. Mo Lan finished preparing all the wooden plank materials that evening, and by the next morning had assembled them all together. “Headmistress, is this acceptable?”

“That will do. You don’t need to attend any more Wilderness Survival Class sessions going forward.”

Mo Lan let out a small cheer.

The last course of this academic year was now complete.

The remaining Magic Q&A class was an elective—she could accumulate some questions and then attend to ask them.

Even if she couldn’t make it to the scheduled class time, she could seek answers from any of the purple-robed Lady Amishas she happened to encounter.

Unfortunately, Lady Amisha’s numerous incarnations each had their own designated roles, and not every one of them was as well-versed in foundational magical knowledge and magical instruction as the ones who taught the classes.

Fortunately, the Magic Q&A class going forward could be freely scheduled according to one’s own situation.

Mo Lan was in no rush to head to the Inner Region.

The freshly harvested edelweiss needed to be processed, and she also planned to make intensive use of the magical materials in the Alchemy laboratory to advance her Alchemy Magic and Spatial Magic levels.

Her Alchemy Magic was about to reach Beginner level, which would allow her to attempt crafting some of the more challenging low-level magical items.

Among them were several low-level magic circles that could be used in a dwelling—to say nothing of anything else, they were more than sufficient for warding off wild beasts.

While the Alchemy laboratory still had a supply of magical materials, she needed to hurry and improve her alchemy proficiency in this area.

Although she couldn’t take the crafted items with her, once she gathered her own magical materials later, she wouldn’t be fumbling around blindly.

The same went for Spatial Magic.

She had obtained some gemstones from Sylph’s treasure persimmons and had been continuously practicing Spatial magic on them.

Her Spatial magic was nearly at Beginner level.

She hadn’t neglected her other Spatial Magic spells either.

Advancing her Spatial Magic level meant she would have the opportunity to use the Book of Cards to create spatial-type cards that could actually be put to practical use.

All of this would be enormously helpful for her future life in the Inner Region!

It wasn’t until half a month later—when the extra-large, extra-warm edelweiss cold-weather cloak was finished, the low-level magic circles usable for dwellings had all been practiced to proficiency, and Spatial magic had advanced to Beginner level—that Mo Lan set out once more for the Inner Region.

This time, she headed in the direction of the Greengrass Plains.

She left in the morning, went to the Breadfruit Grove and picked a large pile of breadfruit, prepared them fresh on the spot, made them into Breadfruit Cakes, packed them up, shrank them, and placed them in her spatially-expanded messenger bag.

It was midday by the time she flew into the Greengrass Plains, and by evening she had reached the shelter she had dug during her first visit to the Greengrass Plains.

After spending the night there, she pushed through in one determined effort the next day and crossed the entire Greengrass Plains.