Chapter 317 – Recommended Reading List

Chapter 317 – Recommended Reading List

Seeing how highly they rated her dwelling, Sylph’s face turned red with delight. She pretended not to care and changed the subject:

“We’re not out in dangerous wilderness today, so how about I tell the Burrowing Mushroom to stop hiding? That way we can open the window and enjoy the view outside, and it’ll be easier for everyone to come and go.”

“Sure!” Vasida said. “I still want to try those Drifting Tea Tree leaves!”

Sylph patted the Burrowing Mushroom again. “Go outside!”

Mo Lan didn’t feel any movement from the mushroom floor at all, yet the soil outside the small window on the wall gradually disappeared. In the blink of an eye, she could see the farmland outside.

“Sylph, let me watch from outside—I want to see how the mushroom burrows when it’s fully grown!”

“Then let’s go outside. I’ll have it burrow once so you can see,” Sylph said.

The other young witches went outside together too.

Then they watched as the enormous red mushroom bounced once on the ground, flipped its cap upside down, and drilled into the earth.

Its movements were so nimble that it didn’t look like a plant at all.

The soil its cap touched automatically parted to either side—no, it was more like the soil vanished entirely, because despite its massive size, it didn’t push up even a tiny mound of displaced earth.

In the blink of an eye, the red mushroom had disappeared beneath the surface, and the ground returned to looking exactly as it had before the mushroom was there.

Even the footprints Mo Lan and the others had left in the dirt earlier were perfectly preserved.

Curious, Mo Lan used the Earth-Turning Spell to dig downward.

She dug once—nothing.

She dug again—still nothing.

She’d already excavated a pit over a meter deep. Where on earth had this mushroom burrowed off to?

“When it senses the soil above its head being dug away, it burrows deeper on its own. Unless you’re the one who planted it, it’s very hard to find underground. It burrows too fast and too silently,” Sylph explained.

As she spoke, she crouched down and gently brushed away a thin layer of soil, revealing the bright red top of the mushroom’s cap.

Mo Lan couldn’t help exclaiming—what a master of hide-and-seek!

She had one last question: “If it’s hiding underground and we stay inside it for a long time, won’t we suffocate?”

“No! I’ve tested it. I burned firewood inside it for a long time, and I even had it shrink down really small while I stayed inside—I never felt any difficulty breathing. It must have some built-in ventilation function.

“And when nobody’s disturbing the soil above it, it stays close to the surface. Sometimes I have it open a skylight, and you can even see the sky outside!” Sylph said.

With that last concern put to rest, Mo Lan now desperately wanted to grow a Burrowing Mushroom of her own. It grew with mana, went dormant without it—you could practically keep it as a magical pet.

“Whee!”

Beneath the old oak tree, a figure slowly drifted up toward the sky.

At some point, Vasida had gone and eaten a Drifting Tea Tree leaf.

Sylph hurried after her. “Vasida! Spit the leaf out as soon as you reach the tree!”

She plucked a Drifting Tea Tree leaf herself and floated up after her.

Vasida didn’t do anything reckless. After floating just above the platform, she spat out the leaf and landed steadily on top of it.

But she was far from satisfied. “Sylph, can I do it a few more times?”

“Sure! But just in case, take a Featherfall Blueberry with you,” Sylph said.

With permission granted, Vasida threw herself into playing with abandon.

She held a Drifting Tea Tree leaf in her mouth without a care in the world and floated up toward the sky, drifting all the way to a great height.

Mo Lan chased after her on a broomstick. “Vasida, how about we play something else!”

“What?” Vasida asked.

Mo Lan produced a vine seed, used Vine Sorcery to sprout it, and wrapped it around Vasida’s waist. Then she accelerated. “Let’s go!”

“Ahhh!” Vasida was pulled along for a loop through the air. Sylph and the others on the ground could hear her screaming.

Alba waved from below. “Moira! I want to play too!”

Mo Lan flew over, and the vines wrapped around the young witches on the ground. In moments, she had them all soaring through the sky.

They all had Drifting Tea Tree leaves in their mouths, like five helium balloons. Mo Lan pulled them along without feeling any weight at all, and she could even perform all sorts of extreme aerial maneuvers, drawing shrieks of excitement from each of them.

Later, Vasida took a turn riding the broomstick to pull the others, and Mo Lan got to experience being a “helium balloon” herself. It was truly exhilarating.

The six young witches played until dark before finally coming down to land.

Vasida went to the outer ring of grain fields to harvest crops to fill her Devouring Stomach, while Sylph led Mo Lan and the others to the inner farmland to pick fruits and vegetables. They even roasted a few wild beasts that had wandered into the fields for dinner.

That night, they spread animal-hide blankets inside the Burrowing Mushroom and slept on the floor.

Lying together, Mo Lan said, “Want to hear some ghost stories?”

“No!” came five voices in unison.

Sylph and the others were already recalling the torment of last night’s ghost stories.

“At least there’s no space under the bed here,” Vasida said.

“And no bathroom or mirror,” Alba added.

“Go to sleep!” Iris was already starting to see images in her mind.

Mo Lan sighed with regret. “Just going to sleep like this seems like such a waste… mmph—”

Iris rolled over and clamped a hand over her mouth.

Mo Lan’s ghost stories ultimately went untold, because Cheryl suddenly remembered something and asked them, “Have you all looked at our 《Academic Year Plan》 for this year?”

“I glanced at it. There are no classes at all this year—they’ve completely set us free. The only thing worth noting is a notice about the library being open to us,” Mo Lan said.

There were no shared courses in the fourth year.

Even the magic Q&A class was gone.

“But isn’t there also a recommended reading list? I suspect the books on that list would be enough to keep me studying until I die—there are way too many!” Iris said.

Mo Lan was utterly confused. “What recommended reading list?”

She even summoned her Grimoire and reread the 《Academic Year Plan》. “See? There’s no recommended reading list anywhere!”

She showed it to the other young witches.

“Huh? How come you don’t have one?” Iris showed her own recommended reading list.

Sylph glanced at it and noticed something else was off. “Iris, your recommended reading list seems different from mine.”

Sylph, Vasida, Alba, and Cheryl also summoned their Grimoires.

After comparing them, they found that only Mo Lan’s fourth-year notice merely stated that there were no course arrangements this year and that the library was now fully open to them.

Every other young witch had an extremely long recommended reading list appended after that.

And each of their recommended reading lists was different.

It was fairly obvious that the lists were tailored to their individual magical talents and learning progress.

The content ranged from introductory to advanced, the difficulty from easy to hard. There were essential classics and optional supplementary texts.

Each book was annotated with a recommended reason, marked with an importance rating in stars, and divided by suggested learning stages—providing the young witches with systematic guidance for self-study and magical practice.