Chapter 302 – Changes in the Junior Students

Mo Lan first took a nice long bath, then collapsed onto the bedroom’s large bed and fell asleep instantly.

Four hours later, the alarm rang. She got up immediately, combed her hair, and changed into the only set of new clothes in her wardrobe.

She had prepared these specifically for this year’s enrollment ceremony.

Apart from this outfit, everything else she owned was either stitched from animal hides or made from cotton cloth — a chaotic mishmash of styles, prioritizing comfort and convenience above all else.

For quite a long stretch of time in the mine tunnels, she had even worn Earth-style long-sleeved shirts and trousers for the sake of convenience.

Casual clothes were fine for everyday wear, but the annual enrollment ceremony — no matter how harsh the conditions — demanded careful dressing up.

The weaving materials she had collected were limited, so the fabric of this outfit was mediocre at best, not even as good as the standard-issue School Robes from the Academy. Only the hat’s fabric was slightly better.

But she had put enormous effort into the decorations and craftsmanship.

Most of the ordinary small purple gemstones and gem fragments she had mined were used on this outfit — as edging, buttons, or embroidered into star patterns.

The sparkling gems and exquisite designs drew the eye away from the fabric’s shortcomings.

The entire outfit matched her hair and eye color perfectly — glamorous yet mysterious.

Mo Lan stood before the dressing mirror and lifted her chin slightly.

She looked at her reflection and nodded with satisfaction. “Now this is more like what a mysterious witch — a mysterious Sorceress — should look like!”

After admiring herself for a while, she caught sight of the magical clock on the wall. “Oh no! It’s six o’clock!”

She hurriedly grabbed the small leather crossbody bag adorned with gemstone flowers — the one that matched this outfit — slung it over her shoulder, slid her Wand into the dedicated Wand pocket on her outer robe, and dashed downstairs.

She rushed all the way to the basement, snatched a broomstick from the broom rack, opened the hidden chamber, and entered the mine tunnels.

She flew along the underground river through the entire night, not reaching the end of the subterranean waterway until the following afternoon.

After pitching a tent and taking a short nap to recover some of the energy lost from flying all night, Mo Lan finally activated a water shield bubble around herself and drifted downstream with the current.

By the time she emerged from Moon Lake, the sun had already set a while ago.

Mo Lan checked her watch.

Half an hour until the enrollment ceremony began — not too much, not too little, just right!

Mo Lan mounted her broomstick and flew up into the sky. As she neared the north gate of the Academy Castle, she hesitated for a moment, then decided not to land. Instead, she continued flying toward the east gate.

Although the north gate was closer, if she wanted to fly away under the admiring gazes of the new students after the enrollment ceremony, she obviously had to park her broomstick at the east gate!

After all, there was a reason the small plaza outside the east gate was the only place in the core region where fourth-year young witches were allowed to stay overnight on enrollment ceremony night.

After landing, Mo Lan noticed — sure enough — that the broomstick shed at the east gate had the most broomsticks parked there.

Everyone had clearly made the same tacit choice.

From the broomstick shed on the other side, four young witches spotted her and came running over excitedly. “Senior Moira!”

Mo Lan turned to look and saw two faces with extremely high similarity but completely different auras. She smiled and greeted them. “Anna, Annie, long time no see!”

“Long time no see! Senior, these are the juniors who are about to move up to second year…” Anna and Annie pushed the two young witches behind them forward.

“You two — you were shouting ‘senior’ even louder than us just now, and now you’re hiding behind us without a peep!”

Mo Lan’s gaze settled on the two shy young witches. “Lynn, Jemima, hello there!”

Lynn and Jemima’s eyes went perfectly round. “Senior! You remember us?” True to the rumors — Senior Moira’s eyes captured information faster than a Camcorder Card, and Senior Moira’s brain recorded information more accurately than a Videotape Card.

“Of course! Lynn, with her outstanding talent in water magic, and Jemima, with her outstanding talent in Alchemy Magic! How could I forget? I heard from Lady Amisha that your math grades are excellent? That you’re already self-studying second-year math material?” Mo Lan said with a beaming smile.

This was something the Guardian Headmistress had told her.

Reportedly, after each weekly math class, the various Lady Amishas would go on wild rants in the lounge about the homework the young witches had turned in. Only the black-robed one would often add, after her tirade: “Thank goodness for Jemima and Lynn — otherwise I’d start thinking we witches just aren’t cut out for learning math!”

The two young witches’ eyes lit up at the mention of math. “Math is the greatest invention in the world! Senior Moira, you wrote such an incredible book — we truly, deeply admire you!”

“I’m just standing on the shoulders of Earth’s mathematicians,” Mo Lan said hastily.

She wasn’t surprised to be admired by the younger witches, but she was very surprised to be admired because of math.

Heaven as her witness, her math grades in her previous life had been truly mediocre.

Otherwise, she wouldn’t always worry about being cursed out by the young witches over math and exams.

Because she really had suffered deeply — she’d cursed math, cursed exams — only to later decide that the suffering had all been meaningful.

If she hadn’t inherited her memories from Earth, standing on the shoulders of her predecessors, she wouldn’t have been able to understand math so deeply either.

Fortunately, the two young witches didn’t ask her too many math questions.

As they walked toward the Great Hall, Mo Lan steered the conversation to Anna and Annie. “Have you two started studying Blessing Magic and Curse Magic in depth?”

She had noticed the dramatic change in the sisters’ auras the moment she saw them.

A witch’s aura was often influenced by the type of magic she specialized in.

This was the effect of prolonged exposure to a certain type of power.

Witches who specialized in the same branch of magic tended to share certain similarities in their auras.

Since Mo Lan advanced all branches of All-Element Magic in parallel, the influences balanced each other out, so she didn’t experience this kind of change.

But in Anna and Annie, the transformation was extremely obvious.

She remembered that when they first enrolled, the two of them looked completely identical, with little difference in their auras — you could only barely tell them apart by their personalities and attitudes.

Now, Anna had become someone who naturally inspired trust — calm, warm, and approachable.

This was the kind of change that only occurred in witches who frequently used Blessing Magic and came into contact with the positive power of fate.

Annie, on the other hand, gave off a sense of danger and ill intent even when she was smiling.

This was the hallmark of witches who frequently used Curse Magic and came into contact with the negative power of fate.

“Mm-hmm!” The sisters nodded in unison.

Anna said: “I just finished learning all the Blessing Magic spells. I’m best at the luck spell, and it has the highest level too — already at Beginner 15%.”

Annie said: “Same for me, except with Curse Magic. The one I’m best at is the bad luck hex, and my progress is also at Beginner 15%.”

Mo Lan: “!!!”

Good grief — their luck spell and bad luck hex were already nearly catching up to her own progress.

She used various Blessing Magic spells to bless herself every single day and Curse Magic to curse any creature that might become her enemy that day.

Even with all that, having started a year earlier, she was about to be overtaken.

These two sisters couldn’t possibly be spending the bulk of their magical power every day casting the luck spell and bad luck hex… could they?