Chapter 808 – Three Thousand Mirror Ruins 75

The Moss-Forest Guardian’s entire body began to tremble slightly, sending ripples across the surface of the pond.

Leave this land where it was born, had grown, and guarded for countless ages?

Go to a completely unknown place?

But it could stay with its good friend, and even become smarter!

Fear, hesitation, curiosity, longing… a cascade of simple, primal emotions flowed back through the Tree Friend link like a stream.

But in the end, all those emotions converged into one dominant, powerful desire — complete trust in Mo Lan’s goodwill, and an overwhelming yearning for “being with a friend” and “becoming smarter.”

The thick root tendril before Mo Lan carefully, tentatively, gently wound itself around her wrist, its touch as soft as a wisp of moss brushing against skin.

Immediately after, a crystal-clear surge of intent, brimming with excitement and anticipation, washed over her:

“Okay~”

Mo Lan used the Familiar Summoning spell and condensed a magical familiar contract.

Witches never forced other creatures to become their familiars. This magical familiar contract, even for creatures that had not yet developed sentience, could instinctively be understood — the core meaning of companionship, protection, and mutual growth it embodied, as well as that absolute safety and trust of never harming one another.

Mo Lan gently pushed the magical familiar contract toward the Moss-Forest Guardian. The contract’s radiance tenderly enveloped its massive body.

“This is a pact of companionship,” Mo Lan conveyed her explanation clearly through Tree Friend. “Once we sign it, we’ll be able to sense each other’s feelings and conditions, and no matter how far apart we are, we can find each other. We’ll share our strength and grow together. Are you willing?”

The Moss-Forest Guardian seemed to understand completely.

It didn’t hesitate for even a moment. All the vines draping from its massive body began to sway happily.

It extended its most slender, most sensitive tendril — a delicate shoot of verdant green, like a newborn branch — the way a human might extend a finger. With utmost care and solemnity, it gently touched the magical familiar contract.

The instant the tip of the vine made contact with the contract’s glow, the entire contract erupted in a warm yet gentle radiance, splitting into two streams of light. One sank into the space between Mo Lan’s brows, while the other flowed along the green vine, coursing through the Moss-Forest Guardian’s entire body in an instant.

A crystal-clear, warm, and solid bond was established between Mo Lan and the Moss-Forest Guardian.

This power was like a key, instantly opening another door for the Moss-Forest Guardian.

It almost immediately grasped how to respond to this summoning force, how to adjust its own form to accommodate the partner on the other end of the contract.

The Moss-Forest Guardian’s massive, hill-sized body began to emit a soft, verdant glow. Its enormous main body, the moss covering it, and the trailing vines all shrank and condensed at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The thick roots anchored beside the pond lifted effortlessly from the ground, drawn into the increasingly brilliant green light like a great whale inhaling water.

In just a few breaths, the massive seven-star mirror beast had vanished entirely.

In its place was a rustic wooden vine, roughly as thick as a finger and about a foot long, that floated lightly toward Mo Lan. Like a fledgling returning to its nest, it docilely coiled around her slender wrist.

The vine was deep brown, with natural wood-grain patterns on its surface. It felt warm and smooth as jade to the touch, with a hint of cool moisture.

Several tiny specks of emerald-green moss dotted its surface, each emitting a faint luminescence, like natural ornaments.

It coiled with a gentle yet secure pressure, as if it were a bracelet custom-made just for her.

Mo Lan raised her wrist, her fingertips lightly stroking the wooden vine. Her tone was cheerful: “Welcome aboard, my new partner. How about I call you ‘Sentai’ from now on?”

The wooden vine on her wrist nuzzled softly against her skin, sending back a wave of warm, contented intent — it very much liked the name.

With the Moss-Forest Guardian properly settled, next came the leaf-shaped mirror shard — the spatial core. Feeding it directly to the Book of Cards right now was definitely not an option.

The spatial core was the mirror space itself, and there were still quite a few mirror beasts inside!

Hunting them down one by one would be too inefficient and easy to miss some.

Besides, her future {Mirror Space Card – Moss-Covered Forest} couldn’t be completely empty with nothing but plants and scenery!

Mo Lan mused that these ready-made ‘residents’ could be placed inside to enrich the ecosystem. They’d make fine ornamental creatures too.

Since there was no rush to leave anyway, she might as well claim ownership of this mirror space first. Once claimed, the entire mirror space would be under her complete control, and she’d know exactly where every mirror beast was.

When she went to Mirror Ruins University, Sentai would also have a place to take root.

Once she found somewhere to temporarily house these mirror beasts, she could move them out. Then, after the Book of Cards finished analyzing the mirror space and produced the {Mirror Space Card – Moss-Covered Forest}, she could put them back in.

That way, she could restore the entire mirror space’s ecosystem at the fastest possible speed.

No sooner said than done. Mo Lan’s psychic power surged into the leaf-shaped mirror shard like a flood, gradually imprinting her psychic brand upon it, bit by bit.

Teacher Yan Shuang’s notes had been right — claiming ownership of an unowned mirror space, even a small one, was no easy task.

While it wouldn’t occupy her psychic power the way beast core skills did, it would create a certain sense of pressure on her psychic power after claiming ownership.

If the pressure was strong, it would significantly slow her ability to channel that portion of psychic power for spellcasting.

The larger the space, the greater the pressure.

But with a high Mirror Explorer aptitude, the pressure would be greatly reduced.

The Mirror Explorer aptitude was essentially Spatial Magic aptitude, and in this regard, Mo Lan had no issues whatsoever.

A small mirror space posed virtually no pressure on her psychic power. However, the amount of psychic power needed to imprint her psychic brand on it and complete the claiming process was far from trivial.

Mo Lan estimated she had used psychic power equivalent to at least three hundred million Mana before successfully stabilizing her psychic brand on this mirror space core.

The moment the claiming succeeded, Mo Lan felt her consciousness hum softly, connecting with the entirety of the moss-covered forest mirror space.

An omniscient sense of control surged forth naturally.

Without needing to move, a mere thought allowed her to “see” every corner of the secret realm.

Every fish flicking its tail in the streams, every Moss Rat rustling beneath the moss, every glimmer of light on every Radiance Forest Deer’s antlers in the woods…

While she was immersed in this extraordinary perspective, the leaf-shaped mirror shard in her hand was rapidly draining her psychic power. Before long, Mo Lan voluntarily pulled herself out of the state.

It seemed this hyper-detailed perspective consumed an enormous amount of energy and was very difficult to maintain for extended periods.

On the other hand, maintaining a vague, macro-level sense of control over the entire mirror space required only a small amount of psychic power.