Chapter 332 – Beyond the Tree Root Wall

Mo Lan had previously mined an Intermediate magic copper ore, which she’d crafted into a small-range composite magic circle combining alarm and defense functions, prepared for use during the fifth-year survival trial.

After using it, it could still serve as card-crafting material for the Book of Cards, saving her some Mana in the process.

This time, she wanted to see if she could find other varieties of Intermediate or even Advanced magic ores to enrich the Book of Cards’ crafting material library.

That said, Mo Lan wasn’t forcing it. If she couldn’t find any now, buying them after graduation wouldn’t be a big deal. She’d saved up over ten Red Gold Coins and nearly a hundred Purple Gold Coins — enough to buy one of each type of magic ore for crafting materials.

So most of the time, she was actually practicing magic, treating mining as a pleasant break from her magical studies.

The area around the underground river channel was spacious, making it ideal for practicing magic.

She only went looking for ore during her daily practice sessions of the Metal Detection spell, Purification spell, and Mining Magic.

Once she’d consumed more than half her Mana, she’d ride her broomstick to cover distance or read.

Heading south, the natural ore caverns along both banks of the underground river had been growing fewer and farther between. Since Mo Lan wasn’t truly putting her full effort into searching, after several months she hadn’t mined a single magic ore to her liking. She had, however, read quite a few books and made some improvements across various schools of magic.

In early June, Mo Lan once again encountered tree roots blocking the entire underground river.

Checking her map, she’d arrived at the Hedge Wall between the Inner Region and the outer region — these were the Hedge Wall’s roots.

She flew over, but the roots remained tightly intertwined, unlike the roots between the Inner Region and the core region, which had parted to let her through when she approached.

However, these roots were somewhat sparser than the hedge above, with gaps that offered glimpses of the other side.

She pressed herself against the root wall and observed carefully, when suddenly she caught a glint of silver.

Looking more closely, it was on the stone wall several dozen meters beyond the barrier — a half-exposed silver gemstone.

If her dark vision hadn’t been upgraded to Advanced, she wouldn’t have been able to see that far into the darkness!

“Silver?” Mo Lan’s breathing quickened. Only spatial-attribute gemstones were silver.

But it was simply too far away. No matter how hard Mo Lan looked, she couldn’t determine what grade the spatial gem was.

Still, regardless of grade, it was better than nothing!

Using Spatial magic to enhance the spatial attributes of a spatial gem to improve its quality was far easier than using Spatial magic to enhance the spatial attributes of an ordinary gemstone.

It was also much easier to refine into a high-quality spatial gem.

“Headmistress! This spatial gem wasn’t deliberately placed there to tempt me, was it?”

Mo Lan asked, “Are there any traps ahead on this path?”

The main reason was that when she’d been mining ores in the underground river section beneath Lone Peak Forest, she’d asked Lady Amisha whether the ores would reset after she’d finished mining them.

Lady Amisha had told her that when the dwelling reset, a new batch of ores would also be reset.

In other words, the Academy had the means to control the appearance of ores.

So for this magic gemstone exposed on the rock surface — and one that happened to be a spatial gem she absolutely couldn’t refuse — its appearance seemed a bit too convenient.

“No,” came Lady Amisha’s voice. “Since I became Headmistress, not a single young witch besides you has ever traveled this path, so naturally it has never been reset.

“It’s perfectly normal for unexplored areas to have richer resources.”

Mo Lan felt somewhat reassured. As long as the Headmistress wasn’t deliberately setting a trap, she could choose to take this route to the outer region after her fifth year and pick up that spatial gem along the way.

She memorized the location of that ore and then returned to her dwelling.

It was already early June. Lady Amisha had said this year’s enrollment ceremony was set for early July.

With only one month left, she needed to start preparing for the fifth-year survival trial.

The first thing she did upon returning to her dwelling was take out the case of spatial gems she’d been carrying with her and attuning all this time.

Originally just quality ordinary gemstones, after nearly two years of enhancement with Spatial magic, the smallest one had finally become an Intermediate Spatial Magic gem.

This gemstone’s enhancement had also reached its limit — continuing to cast Spatial magic on it risked damaging it.

Though it was the lowest grade of Intermediate Spatial Magic gem, it could still elevate her spatial cards’ effectiveness to the next level.

Mo Lan offered it to the Book of Cards as a sample, and it immediately developed an {Intermediate Spatial Gem} card.

She materialized one, and a silver gemstone appeared in her hand.

Though still within the Intermediate range, this gem was considerably better in quality than the one she’d enhanced herself, and slightly larger too.

A gemstone like this was already suitable for crafting spatial magic items.

Mo Lan tried inscribing rune combinations commonly used in spatial magic items onto it — spatial expansion, spatial stabilization, spatial-temporal stasis, and the like.

She’d already practiced these rune combinations well over a thousand times, though always on ordinary ores. She had only mastered the technique of drawing them.

Now, with the Book of Cards’ abundant Mana reserves as her backing and the ability to produce plenty of {Spatial Gem Cards}, Mo Lan dared to give it a real try.

Her past practice did indeed pay off. She wasted only two Intermediate spatial gems before successfully creating a magic gemstone with an interior space of 100 cubic units, internal temporal stasis, and item preservation capabilities.

Using silver ore to craft a ring setting and mounting the gem in it — that made it an Intermediate spatial ring.

At the same time, her spatial card collection began updating rapidly.

There were {Spatial Cards} with a maximum interior of 100 cubic units of stasis space, {Spatial Tent Cards} with a maximum interior of forty square meters, and even a series of {Mobile Cottage Cards} in various styles — forty square meters in area and two and a half meters tall.

All spatial cards could store non-living items that weren’t part of the card itself while reverting to card form for easy carrying.

Far more convenient than most spatial magic items.

Of course, the moment these cards were created, they went straight onto Lady Amisha’s list of items prohibited for purchase by underage young witches.

Mo Lan herself could still enjoy them, though. She took out a {Spatial Tent Card}, collected some of her favorite furnishings and items from her dwelling into the tent, and arranged it nicely.

The problem was that there were simply too many things she loved in her dwelling. She’d made every single piece by hand, and she wanted to keep this one and that one too.

But crafting a spatial card just to store them wasn’t worth it.

The cost of making a spatial card far exceeded that of making furniture cards.

It would actually save more Mana to create a furniture combination card that replicated her dwelling’s decor at a one-to-one scale.

So she could only pick and choose carefully, selecting her absolute favorites, and let go of the rest.