Chapter 805 – Three Thousand Mirror Ruins 72

Chapter 805 – Three Thousand Mirror Ruins 72

Mo Lan walked to the edge of the pond. The water was crystal clear down to the bottom, and she could see several silvery-white fish swimming lazily beneath the surface.

“These must be the ones.” With a flicker of thought, Mo Lan’s powerful Mana instantly locked onto the entire pond as she cast the Water Prison Spell.

A tremendous surge of water elemental force engulfed the modest pond in an instant, and the calm surface erupted into a roiling turbulence.

The gentle currents transformed into precisely controlled force, forming a massive vortex that softly yet irresistibly swept up every last one of the several dozen fish in the pond. Accompanied by the splashing of water, they were all tossed onto the green moss beside the bank.

The fish flapped their tails futilely on the moss, their gill covers opening and closing rapidly.

Mo Lan had originally planned to leave them where they lay and move on to the next step. But as her gaze swept over the fish, she suddenly found them oddly familiar.

She crouched down and examined them carefully.

The fish were entirely a semi-transparent silvery white, as if carved from ice crystals. Along their sides ran several natural lines of faint blue, resembling cracks in frozen ice. Their fins were broad and transparent, like veils of ice silk, graceful in form. Even after leaving the water, a subtle chill still radiated from their bodies.

“Are these… Ice-Patterned Trout?”

A flash of recognition sparked in Mo Lan’s mind as she recalled entries she had seen in the 《Ice Lake Plateau Regional Bestiary》.

These were a rare species of one-star mirror beast unique to the Ice Lake Plateau. Their beast cores were of ordinary value, containing only faint ice-type energy suitable for use as spellcasting materials.

However, the flesh of these fish was extremely famous!

The meat was tender yet firm, imbued with pure ice elemental energy. Consuming it could significantly increase the body’s tolerance to frigid environments and even slightly boost resistance to ice-type spell damage. It was a prized ingredient sought after by many upscale restaurants and Mirror Explorers who focused on physical cultivation, commanding a rather steep price.

“Almost missed them!” Mo Lan was glad she had taken a second look.

Her earlier plan to simply let them fend for themselves was immediately cast to the winds.

She promptly selected one Ice-Patterned Trout as material for the Book of Cards, then carefully froze the rest and stored them in her storage mirror accessory.

Frozen Ice-Patterned Trout could maintain their freshness indefinitely.

With the pond cleared, Mo Lan wasted no more time. She enveloped herself entirely in a Water Shield spell, then leaped into the pond with a single bound.

The Water Shield perfectly sealed out the pond water, leaving not even the hem of her clothes damp.

Sinking to the bottom, Mo Lan looked up at the water’s surface overhead and channeled her Mana into a Flash Freeze.

Ice elemental force spread wildly from her as its center, surging upward through the pond water.

A bone-piercing chill erupted outward as the water rapidly solidified and froze at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Crack… crack…

Accompanied by a rapid succession of freezing sounds, the entire pond surface was completely frozen into a slab of mirror-smooth solid ice in just a few breaths!

At the very instant the surface was fully frozen, something extraordinary happened.

From outside the pond, the ice surface appeared entirely unremarkable. But from the bottom looking up, it suddenly became infinitely deep, as though green luminous shadows swirled within it, emanating stable spatial fluctuations.

The entrance to the Moss-Forest Secret Grove mirror space had been successfully opened!

Mo Lan did not hesitate and stepped through.

A rush of air filled her nostrils—a blend of moist earth, decaying wood, and the fresh fragrance of plants, carrying a refreshing coolness.

Compared to the Ice Lake Plateau, the light here was unusually soft, even somewhat dim.

Looking up, there was no sky to be seen—only a hazy “canopy” emitting a faint green glow.

It seemed to be formed by countless interwoven ancient treetops and the mosses growing upon them.

Ferns clinging to the branches of ancient trees had liquid luminescence flowing through their leaf veins, flickering on and off.

Not far away, several clusters of elegantly shaped “Glimmer Grass” with leaves as translucent as glass grew together, radiating a soft milky-white halo from within, illuminating the tangled tree roots and the murmuring stream. A herd of graceful Radiance Forest Deer were drinking water by the brook.

Luminescent mosses and fungi grew naturally on their spines and antlers, so that as they walked they resembled moving lanterns, casting serene yet lively patterns of light and shadow among the trees.

Likely because this mirror space had not yet been extensively invaded and harvested by humans, the Radiance Forest Deer showed no fear of people.

They merely raised their heads, glanced at Mo Lan with curious, warm eyes that glowed with a soft light, then lowered their heads again to continue foraging.

In the air, fingernail-sized insects flew past on buzzing wings, trailing tiny streaks of light behind them like sprites of the forest.

Mo Lan advanced carefully. The green moss underfoot was as thick as carpet, absorbing every sound of her footsteps.

Several plump little Moss Rats with luminescent spores clinging to their fur scurried quickly into the moss thickets.

A White Dew Bird with nearly transparent feathers, as though made of condensed dewdrops, perched on a hanging vine, its beak pecking at the clear water droplets pooled in the center of a huge leaf.

Mo Lan did not linger on any of them.

Her objective on this trip was not these common resources that her Book of Cards had already catalogued.

Things bearing “mirror” properties—those were the focus of her investigation.

The spatial laws of the Three Thousand Mirror Ruins World were potent and its spatial power flourished. Every “space” within the world, whether storage spaces or mirror spaces, relied on carriers possessing “mirror” properties.

The carriers at the core of mirror spaces could even shift their forms, making them far more diverse than the carriers of storage spaces.

But whether it was a mirror space’s core carrier or a storage space’s carrier, they would all exhibit some degree of response to psychic power.

Upon encountering an Amethyst Tree, Mo Lan stopped for the first time since entering the Moss-Forest Secret Grove.

The tree was entirely deep purple, its leaves and branches polished smooth as mirrors on their surfaces.

Mo Lan scanned it from top to bottom with her psychic power, checking every leaf, every section of branch, not even sparing the roots.

But she found nothing out of the ordinary.

If this were a mirror space that already had a Mirror Lord, it might have been a fixed teleportation exit that could only open at set intervals.

But this was an ownerless mirror space—there was no such thing as a fixed exit. To leave, one either had to wait until the time expired and be automatically expelled,

or activate a teleportation ability to teleport to another mirror space.

“Looks like it’s just an ordinary Amethyst Tree.”

Mo Lan lost interest and continued her search.

Passing through a stretch of green moss, her steps faltered.

Scattered among the moss were more than a dozen puddles of varying sizes.

Their surfaces were perfectly still, flawlessly reflecting the surrounding green moss and the crisscrossing branches, like pieces of black mirror set into the moss.

Mo Lan crouched down and checked each one with her psychic power.

Nothing.

She walked on for a while longer and came upon a babbling stream where countless pebbles, worn smooth and round by the current, glinted with crystalline luster beneath the water like scattered gems.

Mo Lan waded into the cool shallows, picked up the most lustrous and reflective stones, and checked them one by one with her psychic power.

Still nothing.