Chapter 721 – Dreamweaver World 59

Chapter 721 – Dreamweaver World 59

Every time Mo Lan finished a book, Matina’s shadow would gracefully rise, take the book from her hands, and carry it out the door.

“Teacher, is your shadow going to return the books?” Mo Lan asked curiously.

“Mm. The sooner these books are returned, the better. They can only be replaced with new ones once they’re returned,” Matina said.

Mo Lan fell into thought. She seemed to have noticed just now that her teacher’s shadow entered the shadow world after stepping outside.

Was it to travel faster, or was it because the Heritage Library itself existed within the shadow world?

As her reading volume increased, Mo Lan discovered that the Heritage Library’s collection was far richer than she had imagined.

One day, while holding a copy of Mo Lan couldn’t help but ask, “Teacher, the Heritage Library seems to contain many works from other races. Where did all these books come from?”

Compared to the skill books used by adventurers, she found that the texts collected by dream citizens were better suited for her own studies.

There were also several distinctive types of magic in the Beginner Zone that interested her. She had originally planned to visit each village and town one by one to seek out teachers.

But after seeing these books in Shadow Village, she had other ideas.

With her talent and abilities, learning magic wasn’t actually difficult. With reliable books, self-study was entirely feasible — having a teacher’s guidance or not didn’t really matter much.

When she was learning shadow magic, the number of times she actually consulted Matina about magical matters could be counted on one hand.

Rather than spending time and energy visiting teachers one by one, it would be far more efficient to simply collect books from dream citizens and study on her own.

The Heritage Library contained magic books from other races in the Beginner Zone. Even if there weren’t many, it was enough to prove she had a chance of obtaining them too.

As long as she could learn the acquisition channels from Matina.

“They were all brought back by villagers during their travels,” Matina said casually, setting down her teacup. “Most were purchased or transcribed from locals. In the future, whenever you visit a new place, you can keep an eye out and collect them too.”

Mo Lan’s eyes widened in surprise. “It’s that easy? This precious knowledge sounds even easier to obtain than skill books! But I haven’t seen any bookshops in Greenwood Village or Shadow Village!”

Matina chuckled softly and pulled a simply-bound handwritten copy from the bookshelf.

“Skill books require a caster to materialize their magical insights into tangible form, so naturally they’re rare. But copying books? Anyone who can write is able to do it.

The reason you can’t find bookshops is that the shop owners would never put books on display in their merchandise interface for adventurers to see. Besides you, who would pass up ready-made skill books to struggle through these obscure texts instead?

But if you simply asked any local dream citizen whether they had books you could borrow or buy, they’d all say yes. After all, dream citizens rely on these books to record and pass down knowledge. Everyone has some books in their collection. The more people who read them, the less likely the knowledge within is to be lost, so everyone is quite happy to trade books.”

Thinking back on it, Mo Lan realized that apart from the time Matina had taken her to the Shadow Grocery Shop to buy materials, every other time she visited dream citizen shops, she had simply browsed and purchased through the panel’s merchandise interface. It was faster that way, and she didn’t have to count coins — the dream coins in her bag would automatically be deducted according to her order and sent to the shop owner.

From that day on, she began thinking about how to quickly collect these books.

She still needed to stay with the Shadow Tribe to learn shadow magic and couldn’t leave yet. Waiting until she finished studying to go buy them one by one would also waste time. After much deliberation, she decided to delegate the task to someone else.

Dream citizens were certainly more suited to this than adventurers, since they were already accustomed to picking up books to read wherever they traveled.

Matina was very supportive of her reading more, so Mo Lan asked if she had anyone to recommend.

“Buying books… Aren’t the ones in the Heritage Library enough for you to read?”

Before Mo Lan could explain, Matina answered her own question:

“Well, I suppose so. At your reading speed and with that unbelievable memory of yours, you’ll probably finish every book in the Heritage Library within a year.

However, when it comes to books from the various floating island villages and towns, the Heritage Library already has everything worth having and updates regularly. It’s only the more advanced magic books — the ones nobody can understand or use — that no one has bothered to copy and bring back. Are those the ones you want?”

Mo Lan nodded. “I’d like to learn about other magical systems and cross-reference them with shadow magic. Perhaps there will be something to gain.”

“That’s fine then… Go find Leona!” Matina said. “She frequently travels to the various floating islands to stock up on goods and knows a lot of people. Just have her bring them back for you… Actually, forget it — I’ll take you to see her myself, in case she rips you off on dream coins when you go alone! I know you have money, but you can’t keep spending so lavishly. When you go traveling in the future, there will be plenty of places where you’ll need money!”

And so, under Matina’s escort, Mo Lan went to the Shadow Grocery Shop to find Leona and placed an order for complete sets of magic books from every floating island race in the Beginner Zone.

Only after all these books were accounted for did she throw herself back into her magic studies.

Under Matina’s “let her run free” style of teaching, Mo Lan was like a dry sponge, absorbing knowledge at an astonishing rate.

In the dream realm, she buried herself in books all day long. After returning to the real world, she practiced shadow magic without a moment’s rest.

One afternoon a year later, Mo Lan gently closed the heavy tome in her hands and looked toward the figure dozing beside her. “Teacher, I’ve finished.”

“Moira!” Matina’s eyes were already open — it was unclear when she had woken up. “Two months ago, you mastered every shadow magic technique our tribe possesses. Now you’ve finished the last book in the Heritage Library as well. I… have nothing more I can teach you.”

A year ago, she never could have imagined that Mo Lan would complete her training so quickly.

“What are your plans going forward?” Matina asked softly.

The room fell into a brief silence, broken only by the occasional crackle of firewood in the hearth.

Mo Lan raised her head and said with determination, “Teacher, I’m going to go see the Exploration Zone!”

In truth, over this past year, she had not only finished every book in Shadow Village’s Heritage Library and learned all the shadow magic she could, but had also used the pretext of combat training to visit a solo dream dungeon near Shadow Village. There, she used the Dream Chronodisk to read through and master every magic book that Leona had purchased on her behalf.

Three days ago, when Leona delivered the final batch of books, Mo Lan knew the moment of departure was approaching.

After that, she made one more trip to the solo dream dungeon, froze time to finish reading that batch, then practiced magic for another day before returning.

Today, the last book in the Heritage Library was finished, and she had no more reason to stay.

Matina had long been mentally prepared. What Mo Lan had learned already far surpassed what she, as a teacher, could offer. She had no worries.

In the end, a thousand words condensed into just five: “Take care of yourself.”