Chapter 820 – Three Thousand Mirror Ruins 87

Mo Lan immediately had Sentai stand guard nearby while she focused all her concentration on channeling psychic power into the space core, beginning the ownership binding process.

She was in no rush to feed the space core to the Book of Cards as crafting material just yet.

The reason was purely practical: once the space core was consumed by the Book of Cards as material, the mirror space would completely collapse and be annihilated.

And she, being inside the space at the time, would be cast directly into the spatial gaps along with any mirror beasts that couldn’t be converted into materials.

While escaping a spatial gap wasn’t particularly difficult given her current level of Spatial Magic, accurately finding her way back to the Golden Oasis would be another matter entirely.

She still had several hundred cheap leads she hadn’t tried yet! She absolutely couldn’t lose sight of the bigger picture over a minor gain.

Only by first becoming this mirror space’s Mirror Lord could she precisely control the teleportation channels between Cat Paw Leaf and other mirror spaces—including the one leading to the Golden Oasis.

The ownership binding process went remarkably smoothly.

When the final wisp of psychic power imprint was etched deep into the core, Mo Lan clearly felt a portion of her psychic power become anchored, growing heavy and solid, difficult to freely mobilize. This was the price that had to be paid to maintain control over the mirror space.

However, relative to the vast total volume of her mental sea as it stood now, this portion was a mere drop in the ocean, causing virtually no impact on her whatsoever.

After successfully completing the binding, Mo Lan first cast a Fifth Rank Invisibility spell on herself, thoroughly concealing both her form and her aura. Immediately after, she employed the Transfiguration magic she had learned in the Dreamweaver World, transforming herself into an utterly unremarkable little gray ant.

Only then did she use her Mirror Lord authority to teleport out of this five-star medium mirror space she had named “Cat Paw Wilderness.”

At this moment, the area before the gold Crystal cluster was even livelier than when she had left, with several more tents pitched nearby.

Clearly, new “suckers” had purchased leads and come to try their luck.

Several students were scratching their heads and furrowing their brows at the enormous Crystal cluster, utterly stumped.

Just then, a sharp-eyed student suddenly pointed at the largest crystal face of the gold Crystal cluster and exclaimed, “Hey! Look, everyone! Did that just flicker for a second?”

“Did it? You’re probably seeing things,” the others crowded over to look carefully, but found nothing.

Naturally, they couldn’t see Mo Lan on the ground, invisible and transformed into an ant.

The moment she emerged, Mo Lan had immediately used the space core within her mental sea to sever all teleportation channels between Cat Paw Wilderness and the other mirror spaces.

She then had the shadow bugs she kept in her own shadow carry her, swiftly slipping into the shadows of the rocks and leaving this mine tunnel behind.

Several days later, Huang Yao sat in the lounge, performing his routine inspection through the space core in his mental sea, checking on those documented teleportation channels whose activation methods had yet to be discovered. This was a matter of maintaining the credibility of his “cheap leads” business.

Most of the time, nothing changed, because any teleportation channel with an easily discoverable activation method had already been opened by him shortly after its initial discovery. He would enter, assess the mirror space within, and sell the information at a premium.

Only those unclaimed mirror space teleportation channels whose activation methods were particularly tricky—ones he himself had no clue about—did he sell as cheap leads in a high-volume, low-margin approach.

But this time, something seemed different. “The unclaimed mirror space teleportation channel at the Gold Crystal Mine… has vanished?”

As a Mirror Lord, his perception of the various spatial nodes within his space was extremely keen.

At the gold Crystal cluster in the Gold Crystal Mine, that teleportation channel—discovered decades ago, its lead sold over ten thousand times, with no one ever finding the activation method—had now vanished without a trace, as if it had never existed.

This kind of situation typically had only one explanation: the corresponding unclaimed mirror space had been claimed by a new owner, and the new Mirror Lord had actively closed this channel.

Huang Yao furrowed his brow slightly and channeled more psychic power, carefully “examining” the situation around the gold Crystal cluster.

The feedback showed that several students were still stationed there, staring at the Crystal cluster in deep contemplation or trying various methods.

With a thought, he appeared directly near the gold Crystal cluster.

His sudden appearance startled the students, but once they recognized it was Teacher Huang Yao, they hurriedly greeted him with respect.

Huang Yao waved his hand dismissively and asked directly, “How long have you all been here? Have you noticed anything unusual recently? For instance, spatial fluctuations suddenly becoming intense, or someone successfully opening the entrance?”

The students exchanged glances, and finally the one who had been there the longest answered, “Teacher Huang Yao, I’ve been here for almost half a month. I haven’t noticed anything unusual. If an entrance had been opened, we definitely would have spotted it!”

“Exactly! We’re here every day—how could a teleportation channel open and someone come through without us knowing?” another student added.

Hearing this, Huang Yao understood the situation clearly.

He had checked just a week ago, and the channel had still been there.

This meant the channel had disappeared within the past few days, and yet the students right in front of him had noticed nothing out of the ordinary.

“It seems the lucky one was quite cautious and discreet,” Huang Yao thought. “After successfully claiming ownership, they didn’t return through this entrance at all. Either they used the mirror emblem’s teleportation function to return directly to the school or somewhere else, or they had entered from another mirror space to begin with and naturally left from elsewhere.”

Having figured this out, Huang Yao addressed the still-bewildered students. “You don’t need to waste any more time here. This unclaimed mirror space already has an owner now.”

“What?!”

“How is that possible? We didn’t see anyone succeed!”

“Who was that lucky?!”

The students erupted in an uproar, their faces filled with shock, disappointment, and disbelief.

Huang Yao offered no further explanation. “The information is confirmed. Everyone disperse. Anyone who purchased this lead within the past week can come find me at school for a full refund.”

With that, his figure vanished into the mine tunnel, leaving behind a group of students beating their chests and lamenting their poor luck.

Back in the lounge, Huang Yao crossed out the Gold Crystal Mine entry from his cheap leads list.

As for Mo Lan, she traveled through the shadows the entire way, and only after putting considerable distance between herself and the Gold Crystal Mine did she find a quiet moment in the dead of night to dispel her Transfiguration inside a cave.

While her invisibility was still active, she immediately used the Fortune-Telling Spell to divine her situation. Only after confirming there was no risk of exposure did she walk out of the cave and head toward the next unclaimed mirror space entrance revealed by the cheap leads.

Worried that being seen while opening a teleportation channel might cause trouble for her later search for space cores, from this point on Mo Lan would only reveal herself and approach when there was no one else near a teleportation entrance.

Thanks to her Divination Magic and Blessing Magic, she could always find a teleportation entrance temporarily free of visitors, and then seize the unobserved moment to open it with a flash of inspiration.