Chapter 401 – Free Magic Books

The space on the eighth floor was even smaller than the seventh, with fewer books as well.

Here, Mo Lan not only found magic related to the Magical Feast, but also the Sorceress Magic books of three senior Sorceresses: Traci, Carmela, and Anita.

Unlike the ones she had seen before, these were all at Peak level or above.

Mo Lan checked the prices. A First Rank Grimoire cost 30 Mana in permanent Mana and could store tens of millions of standard volumes.

It wasn’t that Mo Lan couldn’t afford the price — it was that her Mana rank wasn’t high enough yet. Even if she signed the contract for a First Rank Grimoire, she wouldn’t be able to use it.

So she could only bookmark it for now and come back to purchase it once her Mana rank was sufficient.

The other magic books, like the Magical Feast, were all otherworldly magic.

Mo Lan briefly flipped through them and found they fell roughly into two categories.

The first category was similar to Sorceress Magic books — commercial magic books containing “magic contract templates” for sale.

The second category consisted of completely free magic books.

For the first category, only the introductory pages at the beginning were viewable. The sections that actually dealt with magic required an expenditure of permanent Mana and the signing of a contract before the contents could be accessed.

However, unlike Sorceress Magic contracts — where signing immediately granted mastery of the corresponding magic — these magic books still required self-study after signing the contract before the magic could be learned.

What these books recorded were the unique magics of various witches. Some were magic they had developed themselves, while others were obtained from the Well of the Sky.

Unless Mo Lan signed contracts to purchase every single one, there was no way to transcribe this category of books.

The other category — the completely free magic books — were also originally unique magics belonging to senior witches, and had once required permanent Mana contracts to read, just like the others.

But when their owners passed away and the books were donated to the Witch Council, they transformed from paid books into magic books that any witch could study for free.

Though the Well of the Sky held infinite possibilities, it also harbored infinite dangers.

Because of this, many Beyond Peak witches who intended to bequeath their legacies to the Witch Council for the development of their kind would sign inheritance donation contracts with the Council in advance, along with leaving the address of their Witch’s Home.

The 《Witch Clan Book》 could detect a witch’s life status. If a witch’s name appeared in the Book’s chapter of the fallen, it meant the witch had met with misfortune.

If the deceased witch had previously signed an inheritance donation contract with the Council, the Council would then dispatch witches to her Witch’s Home to take custody of her legacy.

Many witches who had surpassed Peak level and begun exploring the Well of the Sky would choose to establish their Witch’s Homes in 《The Witch’s Wilds》 to store their important assets — precisely to prevent their legacies from falling into the hands of other races.

The books on the eighth floor, aside from the Sorceress Magic books, were all left behind by Beyond Peak witches.

After Mo Lan finished transcribing all the free magic books, she copied down only the viewable introductory sections of the paid magic books.

This way, even though she couldn’t transcribe the complete volumes, she could later review these magic summaries and come back to purchase and study them according to her needs.

After all, they were all Beyond Peak level magics that could only be learned after breaking through to Peak level — there was no way to learn them now.

Moreover, they were all otherworldly magics, each with its own learning requirements and different methods of advancement. They couldn’t all be treated the same way.

Even for Mo Lan, she hadn’t reached the point where she could spend permanent Mana freely, buying whatever magic she pleased.

There were far fewer books to transcribe on the eighth floor than Mo Lan had expected, leaving many empty slots in her Grimoire.

Thinking that there was still plenty of time before the appointed hour, Mo Lan headed down to the lower floors of the library to look for books about the humans of Valen, intending to transcribe them.

Although the proportion of spellcasters among humans was relatively low compared to the rest of the Continent of Valen — with only one spellcaster appearing among every few hundred or few thousand humans — the sheer number of humans was among the highest on the Continent of Valen.

Overall, the total number of human spellcasters was still quite considerable.

In terms of headcount alone, they could be considered the largest spellcaster group on the Continent of Valen.

For Mo Lan and her companions, this meant the best place to earn Mana — something that demanded serious attention.

If things went well, human contractors alone could push them past Peak level and then some.

Previously, Mo Lan had only read books about other races that had been compiled by witch scholars. She had never read original books from those races themselves.

Since they were preparing to infiltrate human society, it was necessary to read more books written by humans themselves to better understand the situation.

Although humans currently had numerous nations, their overall territory was divided in two by Valen’s largest river, the River of Origin.

East of the River of Origin was the domain of the Mage Empire, while the west fell under the domain of the Yala Empire.

The other kingdoms and duchies, while possessing a degree of autonomy, all fell within the spheres of influence of these two great empires.

When witches traveled abroad, most chose the Mage Empire. The books Mo Lan had read before also contained far more descriptions of the Mage Empire, with very little written about the Yala Empire.

Reportedly, the Yala Empire had a more conservative and insular culture overall.

Mo Lan had originally wanted to find more books about the Yala Empire in the library.

But to her surprise, no matter how much she searched, books about the Mage Empire still dominated the collection.

There were even detailed books covering individual duchies, kingdoms, and even famous cities.

The books about the Yala Empire, on the other hand, were all rehashes of the same old information. The most recent book had been published a full hundred years ago.

They were actually less valuable than the books about the Mage Empire.

Mo Lan had only transcribed a few books about the Mage Empire when, relying on her proficient command of the Valen common language, she found some information about Psychic Magic and composite magic.

Magical knowledge was a powerful tool the Mage Empire used to consolidate its rule. It was precisely through this that they managed to bring all the most capable mages under their banner.

As such, the protection of knowledge was extremely tight — magical knowledge was held in the hands of only a select few.

The higher the tier of magical knowledge, the higher the threshold for learning it. Simply obtaining the opportunity to study required paying a heavy price.

And even after learning it, one could not easily pass it on to others.

Most mages, when taking on apprentices and teaching them magic, would sign strict contracts with them to ensure their magical knowledge would not be leaked.

Psychic Magic, composite magic, numerous Advanced magics, and all Peak level magics were controlled by the Mage Empire. The various kingdoms and duchies were considered impressive if they possessed even a few Advanced magic books.

The fact that the magic books Dayla’s grandmother had sent over included Advanced mage magic was already a remarkable feat in itself.

In the Mage Empire, those magic books alone would have been enough to support the establishment of an entire kingdom.

Had Dayla’s grandmother not spent so many years building her network in the Duchy of Lance, she might not have been able to collect them at all.

At the very least, Mo Lan had not seen a single Advanced magic book relating to human mages anywhere in the Witch Council Library.