Chapter 249 – Don’t Come Back

Mo Lan flew into the sky and made a round to all the places where various animals gathered, equally casting a bad luck hex on every little cutie.

Little dark clouds carrying the power of curse shrouded every living creature in the training ground except the witches.

Even though she hadn’t practiced her bad luck hex much and its effects were mediocre, with a large enough sample size, one or two particularly unlucky ones were bound to appear.

Mo Lan picked out the unluckiest ones and dealt with them using different spells.

Sheep crushed to death by Falling Rock, pigs suffocated by Swamp Spell, ducks knocked unconscious by Electric Net, cattle swept dizzy by Wind Vortex…

Finally, she gathered them all together—bleeding those that needed bleeding, shaving those that needed shaving, sawing off horns where needed, skinning those that needed skinning.

Although the animals of Valen were different from those on Earth, the processing methods were still more or less the same. She just needed to make some adjustments based on the type of prey.

Mo Lan had finished reading the textbook for this class and had also read other books about Valen’s creatures, so she handled everything in an orderly fashion.

However, with this many catches, there was no way to process them all in a single class period.

Mo Lan wasn’t in a rush—this was a wonderful opportunity to practice magic.

The processed catches weren’t wasted either. She brought some back for dinner and sent the rest to the Ingredient Collection Station.

The ones she hadn’t gotten around to processing, Mo Lan simply woke back up, gave them a rough healing, and released them. After all, she hadn’t dealt killing blows to most of them—just knocked them unconscious.

The next day in class, she continued knocking them out and processing them.

She even spent most of her time “knocking out” prey, with only a fraction of the time actually fulfilling the class requirement: processing the catches.

Mo Lan openly took advantage of the class to practice her magic. This was far more interesting than hitting Training Dummies.

But good things never last. Before the week was even over, Amisha kicked her out of the training ground.

“You’ve completed the course!”

“Huh?” Mo Lan was reluctant to leave. “I still haven’t processed a cabbage snake yet!”

“No need. I’m confident you’ve mastered it,” Amisha said.

“Alright then!” Mo Lan had completed the course but still didn’t want to leave. “Then can I keep using this place to improve my prey-processing skills and practice slaughtering spells?”

“Absolutely not! What’s the point of practicing on these penned-up little things? After the inner region opens for exploration next year, go practice in there. Don’t come back here!”

Amisha directly revoked her access permit for the training ground.

Recently, the animals in the grounds had been bullied by her so badly they couldn’t eat, and they were visibly thinner.

If this kept up, the lower-year students wouldn’t have any meat to eat.

Mo Lan, blocked outside the magic circle: “…”

What a shame! She still hadn’t gotten to use all her spells!

She still had plenty of Mana left unspent today, so Mo Lan had no choice but to go to another training ground and practice on Training Dummies.

“Sigh, it’s hard to go back to austerity after living in luxury!”

Mo Lan wished she could advance to third year immediately, go explore the inner region, and find live wild beasts to practice magic on.

Though her heart was filled with such thoughts, her magic practice didn’t slack off in the slightest.

No matter what, today’s training tasks had to be completed.

A dazzling variety of spells flew out, Mana gradually decreasing, while her spellcasting proficiency slowly increased.

It wasn’t until the Castle’s bell struck five times—five o’clock in the afternoon—that Mo Lan finally wrapped up the day’s training.

She used a Cleaning spell to brush off the dust on herself, then put away her Wand.

“Moira! Done training?”

Sylph’s voice came from the sky above.

Mo Lan looked up. “All done! I’ll be right there!”

She grabbed her broom and flew up to join her friends.

A few days ago, Sylph had made plans with them to visit Greenhouse No. 23 tonight and taste her recently cultivated mutant crops.

“Lilith said she’s not coming today.” Mo Lan had barely reached Sylph’s side when she heard this.

“Doesn’t Lilith usually find your mutant crops pretty interesting?” Mo Lan asked, puzzled.

Every time she checked the card sales in the Card Shop, Lilith and Vasida were always the most loyal customers for Sylph’s mutant crop Seed Cards.

They bought every new release the moment it came out.

“I’ve noticed the third-year seniors have been tending their farmland and vegetable gardens less frequently. Their focus has probably shifted to the inner region,” said Vasida.

“After all, it’s already April. This academic year only has a few months left. By then, they won’t be able to use the farmland anymore, or live in the Dormitory—problems everywhere.”

“Last time I asked her, she said she wanted to find a place with mountains and water and beautiful scenery to live. I wonder if she’s found one yet,” Mo Lan said.

“Probably not,” Sylph guessed. “When I invited Lilith, she said she hadn’t finished exploring the inner region and didn’t have time to hang out with us.”

“Next year we’d better make good use of our time and get our housing sorted out early,” Mo Lan said. “Once housing is settled, we can focus on preparing for the fifth-year trials in fourth year.”

“You’re right,” Sylph said with a heavy sigh. “I just found out that the moment we advance to fourth year, I can’t use this greenhouse anymore either. Cultivating plants won’t be nearly as convenient after that. I’ve already given up hoping for anything fancy with my housing—as long as it keeps out the wind and rain, that’s enough. If I can find a place in the inner region where I can cultivate plants in peace, I’ll be satisfied.”

“They’re taking back the greenhouse too?” Vasida could only imagine how difficult that would be. “Just clearing out a plot of land in the wilderness would be hard enough! And you’d have to fend off wild beasts on top of that!”

“Besides planting magic, wood-element magic, and Plant Magic, you should also study Alchemy Magic and earth-element magic when you have time. They’d be really helpful,” Mo Lan suggested. “Especially earth-element magic—it’s pretty easy to just dig out a cave to live in.”

Sylph nodded. “You’re right, I need to start learning those! Oh, we’re here. These are the ones.”

The three young witches carried their baskets into the field, picking mutant crops while continuing to chat.

“Moira, you can already make Mobile Kitchen Cards. Can’t you make a Mobile Cottage Card or a Mobile Garden Card or something like that?”

At Sylph’s question, Vasida also looked at her with interest. “Yeah! If we had cards like that, we wouldn’t have to worry about having nowhere to live in fourth year!”

“Setting aside the fact that I absolutely cannot make those right now, even if I could, you most likely wouldn’t be able to buy them. Solving the housing problem in fourth year is one of the Academy’s tests for us. The Headmistress would definitely ban us from using other methods to ‘cheat’!” Mo Lan said.

She had, of course, thought about such cards before.

Portable pocket dimensions, mobile cottages—those were practically standard golden-finger abilities in Earth’s novels.

But she couldn’t make them.

The Mobile Kitchen was less of an actual small kitchen and more of a kitchen tool set. It didn’t shield against wind or rain at all. It only managed to mimic a spatial item’s effect by relying on the card’s ability to store other card-based items.

But that was fundamentally different from a true spatial item.