Chapter 225 – Gold Magic

Chapter 225 – Gold Magic

From that day on, a wave of accelerated study and early course completion swept through the Witch Academy.

Mo Lan, however, maintained the same study routine she’d had before.

Her mornings from Monday through Friday were now free, and she filled them with Alchemy theory video lessons.

The fifty-four second-year lessons weren’t enough. She went to Lady Amisha and copied the fifty-four third-year Alchemy theory teaching videos in advance.

As for the elective language courses—Imperial Language, Angelic, and Demonic—Mo Lan listened to those videos during her Monday-through-Thursday afternoon magic classes, or while cooking and eating.

Whenever she encountered questions in the video lessons, Mo Lan didn’t bring them up in the corresponding classes. Instead, she compiled them all and brought them to Lady Amisha during Friday afternoon’s Magic Q&A class for unified answers.

Only on weekends would Mo Lan read magic books or Mo-Pic books.

Her reading time hadn’t increased much, but her progress through the video courses was blazing fast.

Before the first month of the second academic year was even over, Mo Lan had finished watching every single second-year theory teaching video.

She’d even finished the third-year Alchemy theory videos ahead of schedule.

The elective courses had no completion exams—progress was entirely self-paced. But even without tests, Mo Lan was confident in how well she’d absorbed the material.

With that, her Monday-through-Friday mornings were completely free. Combined with both weekend days, all that time could now be devoted to reading magic books and Mo-Pic books.

More time didn’t mean less busy. Mo Lan was still swamped.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to rest—she simply had to learn as much magic as possible.

Perhaps some spells shared similar functions and could substitute for one another in certain situations.

Building one’s own combat system and protecting oneself didn’t require learning and mastering every single spell.

Many spells might go unused for a long time after learning them. When time and energy were limited, making strategic trade-offs was the smartest approach.

But Mo Lan couldn’t afford that. Every spell she learned elevated the card-crafting capabilities of the Book of Cards by another level.

Magic combined with the Book of Cards produced far more than a one-plus-one-equals-two effect.

For example, having learned both the Spring Water spell and the Flame spell, she could do more than just craft a spring card that converted energy into clean water, or a pollution-free fire-starter card that produced flames from energy. She could also create an automatic water-boiling kettle card, or even a scalding water magic card with actual combat damage.

And the higher her spell levels in the Spring Water spell and Flame spell became, the lower the crafting cost and energy consumption of the spring card, kettle card, and scalding water magic card would be.

So when it came to magic, she truly couldn’t afford to abandon a single one.

Senior Lilith developed her Manifested Gift by feeding various magical racial bloods into the Bloodthirst Needle, then infusing mana to analyze and purify them.

Vasida developed her Manifested Gift by having the Devouring Stomach digest all manner of things.

Sylph developed her Manifested Gift by cultivating all sorts of plants, then infusing mana into the Box of Ten Thousand Seeds to condense corresponding mutant plant seeds.

And Mo Lan—she developed her Manifested Gift through ceaseless learning, improving the Book of Cards’ card-crafting ability.

Only when her card-crafting ability reached a sufficient level could she use mana as raw material to create all kinds of wondrous cards.

Both magical and non-magical knowledge fell within Mo Lan’s scope of study.

On the non-magical side, she had her vast reservoir of memories from Earth to draw upon. On the magical side, she had to learn step by step on her own.

With more time to read, Mo Lan’s reading speed also increased.

The two Apprentice-level volumes and five Beginner-level volumes of the Mo-Pic book Mo Lan also read them all in short order. Other books on Gold magic—whether theoretical, spellcraft, or applied—Mo Lan plowed through at a pace of one book per day, sometimes even two.

After going through every single book on Gold magic in the Second-Year Reading Room, she had essentially mastered the theoretical knowledge, learning strategies, and practical applications of Gold magic.

She would never again make the embarrassing mistake of assuming the golden bird from the Golden Bird spell was merely a clump of energy and trying to use it for magic practice.

With a solid foundation in place, the Gold spells she’d seen in the Mo-Pic book Mo Lan was ready to attempt them.

Mo Lan deliberately set aside an entire Saturday to experiment with those spells.

Currently, the total number of Gold spells in the Witch Council’s collection amounted to fewer than twenty.

Classified by function, the offensive category had three: the Gold Arrow spell, the Gold Blade spell, and the Gold Hammer spell.

These corresponded to three forms of damage: piercing, slashing, and bludgeoning.

The defensive category had two: the Gold Shield spell and the Gold Armor spell.

One excelled at instantaneous defense, while the other excelled at sustained defense.

Every Gold Witch’s primary combat system was built from these five spells.

Though there were only five spells, each witch wielded them differently, with her own distinctive style.

This stemmed from the inherent flexibility of Witch Magic.

Human mages used psychic power to inscribe spell models in their mental sea, leveraging elemental force to cast spells. The spell model served as a lever, but it also constrained the spell’s effects. To change anything, they had to modify the spell model.

But inscribing spell models was no easy feat—each one required thorough research and preparation. As a result, mages had a vast variety of spells, but each one’s effects were extremely rigid.

Witch Magic was the exact opposite: fewer spell types, but far greater flexibility.

Witches relied on willpower and thought to direct their own magical power, converting it into the corresponding elemental force to cast spells.

Willpower and thought were far easier to alter than spell models.

A single witch spell, if translated into mage magic with equivalent versatility, would require many spell models—that is, many separate spells.

Take the Gold Arrow spell. If a witch had sufficient talent in Gold magic and had studied the spell thoroughly, the shape, size, color, quantity, and flight path of the condensed gold elemental arrows could all be freely altered.

They could be as fine as an ox hair or as thick as a giant tree. It could be a single arrow or a rain of arrows. It could fly in a straight line or change direction at any moment—even track targets automatically.

As bold as the imagination, so bold the arrow.

The most accurate description of this spell wasn’t really “condense a golden arrow,” but rather “condense a pointed, armor-piercing, arrow-shaped mass of gold elemental force.”

The Gold Blade spell was blade-shaped gold elemental force. The Gold Hammer spell wasn’t necessarily hammer-shaped—it was a heavy, massive lump of gold elemental force.

In mage magic, each of these variations would require a separate spell model to achieve.

Of course, for a witch to freely control the form of her spells was also extremely difficult.

Setting aside innate talent for the moment, there was still plenty that needed to be learned.

In the Mo Lan had read through all the Gold magic books. The detailed study was ready to begin. She could experiment with those spells now.

In the Mo Lan read them all in short order. She had essentially grasped

For instance, one piece of advice in Mo Lan read them.

For instance, the Mo Lan read. The Mo-Pic book offered this guidance: witches specializing in Gold magic should observe and familiarize themselves with substances composed of gold elemental force, as well as the tools and implements crafted from those materials through secondary processing.