Chapter 171 – The Unlucky Must Save for Pity

The grind queen herself was still on the sixth floor of the library reading Mo-Pic books. Today she planned to leave at noon.

Last night she had checked on the farmland and found the rice was nearly ready for harvest. She planned to go reap it this afternoon and take care of some miscellaneous tasks she hadn’t had time to deal with recently.

Walking downstairs, she noticed the library was much livelier than usual — more than half of the fourth-year young witches were here.

Some were browsing between the shelves searching for books, others were transcribing, and still others sat in the reading area hugging their Grimoires as they studied freshly copied texts. A few had even started reading right there standing beside the shelves.

They all looked exceptionally diligent.

“I suppose now that the break has been going on for a while, they’re starting to prepare for the fifth-year survival trial!” Mo Lan thought.

She didn’t make a sound to disturb them and quietly slipped out of the library.

The studious young witches inside collectively breathed a sigh of relief.

They hadn’t lost face! Today they had managed to study longer than Moira!

After leaving the library, Mo Lan headed to the First-Year Reading Room.

There were only so many elective readings for first-years, and Mo Lan had already gone through most of them before.

Only a few remained, and she had finished those several days ago. These past few days she had been reading Magic books she had previously transcribed that interested her.

Yesterday she finished the last one, so it was time to transcribe some new books.

Arriving at the reading room, she ran into a few first-year classmates. After exchanging nods of greeting, Mo Lan got straight to transcribing.

This time, she planned to copy every remaining book in the First-Year Reading Room so she could read them at her leisure.

She transcribed volume after volume, and the one-thousand-book capacity of her Beginner-level Grimoire was quickly filled to the brim.

But there were still nearly a hundred books that hadn’t been copied in.

Mo Lan was no longer the penny-pinching little witch who agonized over every bit of Mana she spent.

She had long since earned back what she spent on the Magic Waterbed, and her total Mana reserves had now climbed to a peak of 3,200.

Even on slow days, at least one person became a contractor of her Card Magic, and on good days there were several.

And this was before she had even graduated, when Card Magic promotion was still limited.

Between her Mana earning speed and her natural Mana growth rate, the numbers were already quite impressive.

With Card Magic, she never had to worry about earning permanent Mana.

Compared to permanent Mana, her thirst for knowledge now far exceeded her desire for Mana.

She would read every book in the Academy sooner or later; the Grimoire spell would need upgrading sooner or later. Upgrading it early would save her the trouble of running back to transcribe and search for books each time.

Mo Lan didn’t fret over the Mana cost anymore and upgraded her originally Beginner-level Grimoire by two tiers straight to Advanced.

Of course, to write the corresponding contract documents, she also needed to upgrade the Golden Pen Technique to Advanced.

It cost her 120 Mana in permanent Mana total.

The Grimoire’s capacity increased to one hundred thousand volumes — enough to last her a very long time.

If not for the Golden Pen Technique’s tier restriction — meaning that even if she bought it now, she couldn’t write Peak-level contract documents or purchase the Peak-level Grimoire spell — Mo Lan would have chosen to upgrade both the Golden Pen Technique and the Grimoire straight to Peak level.

At that point, transcribing an entire library’s worth of books would be nothing.

After the upgrade, Mo Lan took out the pre-Attuned and trimmed sheets of paper from her satchel and loaded them into the Grimoire.

Though these sheets didn’t quite reach the Grimoire’s new capacity limit, they were definitely thicker than what the Grimoire previously held. Yet after being loaded in, the Grimoire hadn’t gotten any heavier at all.

The pages didn’t seem fewer either — after flipping to the last page, there was always another page that could be turned. So there was no need to worry about the Grimoire becoming impossibly thick and heavy from storing too many books.

The only downside was that summoning and dismissing the Grimoire using the Advanced Grimoire spell now consumed much more Mana than before.

But since she was currently inside the Witch Academy, the Grimoire was perfectly safe, and there was essentially no need to store it inside her body.

Mo Lan usually just let it float alongside her and rarely recalled it into her body.

After transcribing all the remaining books in the First-Year Reading Room, she left.

She would never need to come here again — she had copied every single book.

Reviewing the newly transcribed books and Attuning some fresh parchment, she headed down the hill, stopping first at the greenhouse to Attune the Broomstick Grass before going to the farmland to harvest the rice.

From a distance she spotted two figures busy at work in the fields. Mo Lan waved her Wand and called out loudly: “Vasida! Iris! You’re here too!”

The two of them, directing their farming tools from the edge of the field, winced at the blast of sound.

Turning around, they saw a tiny purple-haired head at the edge of the farming area, waving a Wand at them.

They were several hundred meters away! How was her voice even louder than if she were right next to them?

And it wasn’t even dark yet — how was Moira here already!

“Ahem! I just learned this amplification spell, so I’m not very skilled with it yet — the volume was a bit much!”

Mo Lan’s voice carried over again, less exaggerated this time.

After speaking, she broke into a sprint.

Vasida and Iris saw only a purple blur streaking across the farmland before she was standing right beside them.

“Your Super Speed has gotten that fast? How many {Vampire Blood Card – Super Speed (Apprentice level)} have you fused? It looks like you’re not far behind Lilith now.” Vasida asked in surprise.

“Only about forty!” Mo Lan said. “I’m still quite a bit behind Lilith — her Super Speed is already at the Beginner Peak, while mine just reached the top of Apprentice level!”

“Forty cards?” Iris was already counting: “One card is 334 Gem Coins, two cards are 334, 335, 336…”

Mo Lan once again worried about the young witches’ math skills and gave the answer directly: “Thirteen thousand three hundred and sixty Gem Coins.”

“Heavens! That’s so expensive!” Iris said.

“Just raise your Gem Coin storage limit a bit and anyone can save up that much — it’s only a matter of time.” Mo Lan said with a smile.

Of course, for her, this amount of Gem Coins — essentially disposable Mana — was nothing anymore.

The energy stored in her Book of Cards’ Purple Gemstone had long since surpassed ten million Mana and wasn’t far from a hundred million.

Naturally, most of that energy was Gem Coins deposited by her contractors and couldn’t be used freely. She was like a bank who had taken deposits or issued credit—she had to maintain a balance enough to pay out the Gem Coins at any time, so only after they spent it would it truly belong to Mo Lan.

The portion that truly belonged to her was roughly around two million or so. She wasn’t about to reinvent fractional reserve banking either.

When Mo Lan brought this up, Iris’s eyes lit up. Without a word, she dashed over to Mo Lan’s side, wrapped both arms around her and gave her a good nuzzle, then immediately opened the card pool and drew a card.

The result wasn’t quite what she had imagined:

“Damn it! Another Gem Coin Fragment Card!”

“The unlucky should just save up for the pity guarantee, you know!” Mo Lan reminded her.

“Unlucky?”

Mo Lan explained the meaning of the term, and expanded on its counterpart — the supremely lucky.

“Who are you calling unlucky? I’m the supremely lucky one who pulled a Food Card on my very first draw!” Iris said. “I just wanted to taste a different Food Card flavor, that’s all!”