Chapter 516 – Cross-World Communication Card

Even after Mo Lan’s Mana rank surpassed Peak level, she still felt that her total Mana was far inferior to the active psychic power in her mind.

Having such a vast reservoir of power with no outlet to release it was truly a shame.

The Imperial Magic Academy housed the magical knowledge of the entire Mage Empire. She absolutely had to make a trip there.

After finishing her conversation with Amisha the Witch, Mo Lan set about designing and crafting a new communication card, attempting to contact Lady Carmela.

【Card Design: {Mo Lan’s Communication Card (Cross-World Edition)}】

—【Estimated Cost: Mana ***】

—【Estimated Appearance: Appearance Template 1】

—【Estimated Function: Capable of crossing worlds to establish text communication with Card Magic contractors within the Well of the Sky.】

—【Current Difficulty: Severely insufficient card-crafting energy. Recommend supplementing card-crafting energy or reducing the card’s estimated function.】

When she had just given Madam Amisha that Valen-wide universal edition of {Mo Lan’s Communication Card}, it had cost ten million Mana, and Mo Lan had winced at the expense.

She hadn’t expected that changing “within the world of Valen and its attached sub-worlds and demi-planes” to “the Well of the Sky” would cause the estimated cost to spike so high it couldn’t even be displayed.

Mo Lan had no choice but to adjust the estimated function.

But she didn’t know the conditions inside the Well of the Sky, nor did she know how far Lady Carmela actually was from Valen, making it difficult to design the card with any specificity.

Lilith, Vasida, and Sylph were also helping her brainstorm solutions.

“How about changing it to a card that only connects with Lady Carmela alone?” Lilith suggested.

“I’m afraid that still won’t be enough,” Mo Lan said, revising the estimated function once more.

“Establish text communication with Card Magic contractor Carmela within the next half hour?” Sylph read it over. “Wouldn’t half an hour be a bit too short?”

“Let’s try designing it first. If the Mana cost is still bearable, we can add more time,” Mo Lan said.

This was the only way to reduce the card-crafting cost to its minimum.

Limiting it to the next half hour also constrained the distance span from being too vast.

Soon, the Book of Cards calculated the crafting cost for this card.

【Estimated Cost: 100,000,000 Mana】

“That’ll work!”

Seeing this number, Mo Lan breathed a sigh of relief.

The price was steep, but still within the range she could afford.

Yet the fact that a single card for contacting Lady Carmela within the next half hour alone cost a hundred million Mana spoke volumes about just how far Lady Carmela currently was from the world of Valen.

The card-crafting energy Mo Lan had accumulated in the Book of Cards’ Purple Gemstone totaled over eight hundred million Mana.

That was only enough to make eight such cards—to contact Lady Carmela eight times!

This kind of ultra-long-distance communication card was better suited for conveying important information. Making an unlimited chat version would be far too wasteful.

Mo Lan crafted this Communication Card with only a half-hour usage window that could only take effect within the nearest half hour. She sent half of it into Lady Carmela’s card album, and materialized the other half, placing it on the small table inside the carriage.

Four heads pressed tightly together around the table, staring at the dialogue box on the card’s surface.

“Why does this dialogue box look different from before?” Sylph asked curiously.

“The dialogue box is still gray, which means Lady Carmela hasn’t taken this card out yet. We can’t transmit messages yet,” Mo Lan explained.

After waiting three minutes, Lilith grew restless. “Just like before, the card album should pop up on its own, right? Why hasn’t she taken it out after all this time?”

With Madam Amisha earlier, the dialogue box had turned bright almost the instant the card was sent over.

They hadn’t even noticed that there was a gray state for the dialogue box.

“Lady Carmela has probably already noticed the card. She just doesn’t have time to take it out and look at it right now. Let’s wait a bit longer,” Mo Lan said.

That was what she said, but whether Lady Carmela could open this card within half an hour—she had no confidence.

Time trickled by. The four of them stared at the card, unwilling to look away for even a moment, afraid of missing the instant the dialogue box lit up.

But they waited and waited. By the time the full half hour had passed, the entire card became defunct for exceeding its usage period, and they still hadn’t seen the dialogue box light up even slightly.

A hundred million Mana worth of card-crafting energy, wasted just like that.

“The three of us can pool together a hundred million disposable Mana from our Management Card accounts.” Lilith, Vasida, and Sylph pulled out their Management Cards.

“No need! I still have over seven hundred million in card-crafting energy. I can make seven more cards like this,” Mo Lan said. “But Lady Carmela is probably genuinely unavailable right now. We should wait a while before trying to contact her again.”

The three of them earned far less disposable Mana than Mo Lan. They earned slightly more in permanent Mana, but after the Dawn Society spread throughout Lance City, Mo Lan had surpassed them in that as well.

Although their Sorceress Magic had also been made into cards and sold in the Card Shop, they had been categorized as higher-tier resource cards, and very few humans had discovered or accessed them so far.

This hundred million in disposable Mana was everything the three of them could scrape together.

Mo Lan had no intention of letting them spend it all. They hadn’t even bought their {Permanent Energy Storage Cards – 10,000 Mana} yet!

Lilith, Vasida, and Sylph hung their heads in shame.

Right now, they wished they could travel back in time and slap their past selves for calling Mo Lan a Goblin Sorceress and Demon Sorceress.

If only they had thought of more ways to earn disposable Mana instead of being satisfied so early and lying flat, they wouldn’t be in the embarrassing position of needing all three of them together to barely scrape enough.

Achieving financial and Mana freedom too early had dulled their hunger for wealth and Mana. Only now did they understand that when a crisis needed to be dealt with, that meager amount of disposable Mana was nowhere near enough.

They finally understood why Mo Lan pushed herself so hard, studying and grinding without rest, why she kept scheming to harvest more magical energy from contractors even after earning so much disposable Mana already.

Without Mo Lan’s relentless drive and shrewd dealings, at a time when Lady Anita might have met with misfortune and the witches were about to lose their greatest protection, they could only have stood by helplessly.

They were Sorceresses, yes, but their current strength was utterly insufficient to influence the broader situation.

Mo Lan was the same age as them, yet she was already able to step forward at critical moments—just like the senior Sorceresses—using her own abilities and resources to strategize for the witches’ future.

In this moment, Lilith, Vasida, and Sylph all came to a realization.

Mo Lan’s relentless drive and shrewd business sense were genuinely useful qualities. They should learn from her and carry on that spirit.

They truly didn’t want to find themselves ten years from now, when the Wilds lost the protection of 《Fireworks Magic》, being Sorceresses who couldn’t help with anything at all.