Chapter 113 – The Function of Incantations

The young witches more or less understood.

Casting instructions didn’t necessarily require referencing or imitating physical objects—they could also use language, memory, and imagination.

Memory and imagination were beyond them for the moment, but language they understood!

Several young witches immediately jabbed their wands into the ground: “Fertile!”

Their magical power stirred, and was consumed.

Yet nothing happened.

The soil before them showed no change whatsoever.

Without question, the spell had failed.

“Magical power doesn’t understand the witch tongue,” Amisha said, shaking her head. “Language is there to help us form clear instructions—it’s not an order issued to your magical power! When you’re first learning, your verbal incantations must be supplemented with a certain degree of mental intent and cognitive interpretation. Only then can your magical power understand. The shorter the incantation, the more detailed the mental interpretation needs to be.”

The young witches listened in a daze. What did she mean it wasn’t for the magical power to hear? Weren’t instructions precisely meant for magical power to hear?

Mo Lan, however, was deep in thought.

She crouched down and pressed the tip of her wand into the soil: “Become fertile! Become more suitable for growing crops!”

As she spoke those words, she couldn’t help but think of the black earth from her previous life, of the vegetable garden back home on Emerald Creek Plains, of the farmlands managed by the Sprites where crops flourished in lush abundance.

In the end, all those thoughts crystallized into a single wish: “I hope the soil here becomes as fertile and suitable for growing crops as the black earth of my previous life, the vegetable garden that Shana’s mother so carefully tended on Emerald Creek Plains, and the farmlands managed by the Sprites.”

The moment her words fell, green light surged from the tip of her wand and seeped into the soil. This patch of earth became loose and fertile.

“She did it!” Vasida exclaimed in shock.

Could it be because her own incantation hadn’t been long enough?

She tried again: “Become fertile! Become more suitable for growing crops!”

She channeled her mana.

Yet still, nothing happened.

The other young witches who had imitated Mo Lan’s incantation also failed.

“Why?”

Mo Lan stopped casting and looked at the Headmistress, her tone inquiring: “Headmistress, the actual words of an incantation shouldn’t really matter, should they? What matters is the casting result we want to achieve—is that right?”

Amisha nodded in agreement and gestured for her to continue.

Mo Lan recalled the sensation from when she had just cast the spell, then continued:

“When our understanding of the desired casting result isn’t clear enough, when our thoughts or mental intent lack sufficient direction, a clear incantation helps us concentrate, guiding our thoughts and intent into a precise instruction, allowing our mana to understand what we need and produce the corresponding effect.

Simply put, when we recite an incantation, the things that involuntarily come to mind—those are the real instructions. That’s what the Headmistress means by ‘interpreting the incantation.’

Our power can only understand our thoughts and mental intent. It cannot understand the meaning of our incantations.

But our thoughts and mental intent do understand the meaning of our incantations.

An incantation is like a catalyst that guides the flow of our thoughts and intent. If our mind wanders while reciting an incantation, the guidance fails, and naturally the spell cannot succeed.

If our thoughts and intent are precise, we can cast successfully even without reciting an incantation—or even while reciting the wrong one.”

As she spoke, Mo Lan cast the Fertile Soil spell once more. This time, she merely imagined fertile earth in her mind, and the magic succeeded all the same.

She even recited the incantation “barren” while picturing fertile soil in her mind, and when she channeled her mana, the soil still became fertile.

She murmured softly, “An incantation completely opposite to the intended purpose still has some influence on the mental instruction, causing considerable extra mana consumption. It seems more practice is needed to keep language from affecting thought. In combat, shouting a contradictory incantation might produce remarkable results.”

The young witches understood this time—they saw and comprehended it—but that didn’t stop them from finding it absurd.

They hadn’t even figured out how to use incantations to guide their thoughts into proper instructions, and Mo Lan was already researching how to shout contradictory incantations to mislead enemies.

It was also the first time the young witches had witnessed firsthand how Mo Lan learned a spell from scratch.

It seemed like it happened in the blink of an eye.

Vasida often felt that Mo Lan’s mind was itself part of her Sorceress Talent.

She had complete command over her own thoughts and ideas, and she was remarkably knowledgeable—not in the magical sense, but in her understanding and awareness of the world around her.

Take fertile soil, for example. The other young witches could say the word “fertile” and understand its meaning, but they couldn’t claim to truly know what genuinely fertile soil was like.

Now they understood why their spells had failed.

Their incantations had been correct, but their minds hadn’t been thinking the right things, so no clear instruction had formed at all.

Without a clear instruction, mana was like a headless fly, crashing about aimlessly, exhausting itself entirely without producing any corresponding effect.

But knowing the reason was one thing—without an accurate reference, how were they supposed to control their minds to think the right things?

Mo Lan had thought of this too: “Headmistress, if a witch has never seen fertile soil, can she still learn the Fertile Soil spell?”

“If she hasn’t seen fertile soil, she can still imagine it. But if she can’t even imagine it, then she certainly cannot learn it,” Amisha said.

“But without having seen truly fertile soil, how could she imagine it? Imagination is based on reality!” Mo Lan said. “Even the wildest flights of fancy must have some conceptual reference, surely!”

“Exactly! Imagination must always have something to anchor to, something to reference,” Amisha said. “It doesn’t matter if you’ve never seen fertile soil—if you’ve seen written descriptions of fertile soil, or paintings, or even just thriving, vigorously growing plants, all of these can serve as material for us to form casting instructions through imagination.

Take fire-element magic’s Fire Dragon spell, for example. You may never have seen a fire dragon formed from fire elements, but if you’ve seen flames, seen fire elements, seen dragon-shaped Patterns, and understand what the Fire Dragon spell is supposed to do, then with sufficient practice you can issue a precise instruction and cast the Fire Dragon spell.

But if you have absolutely no material to work with—if you simply cannot imagine it—then naturally you cannot succeed.

Rather than saying imagination is important, it would be more accurate to say memory is important.

Things stored in memory need only a bit of imaginative visualization to become clear instructions, which can then be transmitted to our magical power or mana.”

Mo Lan had a sudden revelation. The reason she learned magic so quickly probably wasn’t because she was some kind of genius—it was because she possessed the planetary memories gifted to her by Earth.

Those were the complete memories of all life on an entire planet, accumulated since the moment it first developed self-awareness!

And in this life, with her enhanced memory, anything she observed with care could be remembered with perfect clarity.

Like video recordings stored in her mind, ready to be recalled at any moment.