Chapter 891 – Haven’t Made Up My Mind

Sylph also produced a loose-leaf binder whose cover was cleverly woven from supple, slender vines and faintly glowing leaves, and gently placed it on the table.

“This is 《A Field Journal of Otherworldly Flora》, which I’ve compiled over the years. It contains information on plants I found interesting in terms of form, behavior, or effects. However, aside from the entries I recorded during my early explorations of the Dreamweaver World, the vast majority of the newer additions are plants I personally cultivated and studied based on the otherworldly {Seed Cards} that Witch Explorers have been listing in the Card Shop.”

At this point, she glanced at Mo Lan, a hint of helplessness in her tone.

“Ever since you came back last time and set up the Otherworld Invitation Letter Collection Library, the number of Witch Explorers running off to various otherworlds to collect unique magical materials for card-making has grown more and more.

The number of otherworldly {Seed Cards} listed in the Card Shop has exploded. Just researching and cultivating these seeds, recording their characteristics, and studying their mutant varieties has my schedule packed to the brim…”

Sylph spread her hands, a look of blissful frustration on her face. “The result is that I still haven’t had time to set out and do any fieldwork in new otherworlds…”

“Sounds like business at the Otherworld Invitation Letter Acquisition Center is going quite well!”

Mo Lan carefully gathered the books—crystallizations of her three friends’ painstaking efforts—into her arms, preparing to browse through them at leisure. She smiled as she spoke.

“You don’t even need to go to otherworlds yourself anymore—you’ve got an endless supply of otherworldly plant seeds to research!”

“Tell me about it!” Sylph’s tone carried the sigh of someone crushed by a sweet burden.

“The speed at which I can cultivate and research simply can’t keep up with the rate Witch Explorers are listing all those otherworldly {Seed Cards} in the Card Shop. To cultivate, observe, and document every last one of these collected plant seeds along with all their mutant varieties—I have no idea how many more years that will take…

It’s gotten to the point where Madam Amisha has started frequently lobbying me to take over as Headmistress of the Witch Academy, saying that way I could use the Headmistress’s Golden Chalice’s clone ability to handle Academy affairs and research plants at the same time.”

“I’m about to follow in your footsteps too,” Lilith joined the conversation.

“The Card Shop has listed tons of {blood cards} from all sorts of different otherworlds. A lot of them are ones I’m interested in and was planning to go collect myself, so this saves me the trouble of traveling to get them. I just don’t know how long it’ll take to thoroughly research all these blood samples and develop valuable blood fusion spells!”

“Isn’t the whole point of exploring otherworlds to obtain the resources each of us needs?” Mo Lan set down the book in her hands and looked at her two friends. “If you can get a steady, abundant supply of research materials without risking dangerous journeys, isn’t that a wonderful thing? The way I see it, you two are clearly enjoying every minute of it!”

She shifted her tone. “Besides, have you forgotten one of the most practical functions of mirror space—adjusting the flow of time?”

“Especially you, Lilith,” Mo Lan looked at Lilith.

“You could easily set up a high-spec blood research laboratory in your mirror space, then dramatically accelerate the time flow in that area. That way, only a few days might pass in the outside world while your laboratory has already gone through a sufficiently long research cycle. The disposable Mana this would consume is absolutely nothing compared to your income.”

Then she turned to Sylph. “You, on the other hand, Sylph—your plant research requires large-scale experimental fields and complex ecosystems. Accelerating time flow over such a wide area for extended periods would be extremely costly.

Taking Madam Amisha’s suggestion and becoming Headmistress of the Witch Academy might truly be a good choice.

With the Headmistress’s Golden Chalice’s clone ability, you could absolutely multitask—some clones handling Academy affairs while others focus on cultivating magical plants. It would certainly be much faster than you slowly doing it all alone!”

“I’ve been considering it, I just… haven’t made up my mind yet…”

Sylph said softly, head lowered, her fingertips absent-mindedly fiddling with Bi’er’s little braids on her lap, a barely perceptible flicker of anxiety in her eyes.

“I don’t know if I’d be able to teach the young witches well… The Witch Academy today is far larger in scale than when we were students. I asked Madam Amisha, and she said the Academy now enrolls between five hundred and a thousand young witches every year. The overwhelming majority are Second-Generation Sorceresses grown from Grimoires. Though they don’t have Manifested Gifts, their magical aptitude is the same as First-Generation Sorceresses—Unlimited across all elements. I’m confident I could teach planting magic and wood-element magic, but I’m worried I wouldn’t do a good job teaching the other branches of magic…”

“Sylph, you’re selling yourself short,” Lilith shook her head. “You’re a Fifth Rank Sorceress now, after all. Even if your specialties are planting magic and wood-element magic, your proficiency in other Witch Magic can’t be that far behind. Teaching young witches should be more than enough, shouldn’t it?”

“Exactly!” Mo Lan agreed. “The Witch Academy is just a place for foundational magical education. Most of the time, your job isn’t to teach them mastery of any particular branch of magic—it’s to teach them the ability to survive independently and learn on their own!”

Vasida slurped the juice that Zhizhi had poured for her and nodded vigorously in agreement. “That’s right, that’s right! Sylph, if you became Headmistress, I’d be the first to raise both hands in support! But—”

She suddenly drew out her words, a nostalgic smile spreading across her face. “When that time comes, you’d better hide your mutant plants. Whatever you do, don’t replace those Breadfruit trees in the Academy’s Breadfruit Grove—the ones so hard they could be used as throwing weapons and so sour they’d make your face scrunch up—with those soft, sweet, fragrant mutant varieties you’ve bred! We can’t just do away with the Academy’s ‘tradition’! Think about how we gnawed our way through those sour Breadfruit back in the day—that was valuable ‘tempering.’ The hardships we endured, the young witches of today ought to get a taste of too~”

Thinking back to their early days at the Witch Academy, they all couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

“Come to think of it, the young witches nowadays might actually have it even worse than we did in some ways!” Mo Lan laughed until her eyes curved into crescents, a mischievous glint in them. “Those {gourmet cards} in the Card Shop—per the agreement I made with Madam Amisha back then—are still restricted from purchase for young witches who haven’t graduated! They can see them, but they just can’t eat them!”

Sylph couldn’t help laughing either, thinking of her two daughters. “Oh, absolutely! When Flora and Tiana were still in school, they wrote me no shortage of letters ‘denouncing’ how the tantalizing {gourmet cards} in the Card Shop only let them read the descriptions and look at the pictures, while that ‘Purchase’ button might as well have been purely decorative!”