Chapter 262 – Finding a Water Source

Chapter 262 – Finding a Water Source

“It was all an accident!”

“It was no accident! You deliberately targeted—”

Mo Lan: “???”

If she hadn’t misheard, the first voice belonged to Headmistress No. 69, and the second one… sounded like Iris?

Iris was already out there?

“Could it be that everyone ran into something similar to what happened to me? Did Iris get hurt?”

But this time, no one answered her. “Headmistress?”

Iris and several other young witches who had been struck down at the start were lying on Lady Amisha’s Magic Waterbed recovering from their injuries. Their mouths moved without sound—they had already been silenced.

Mo Lan called out several more times before finally getting a response: “Focus on your lesson!”

Although it wasn’t a direct answer, Mo Lan could more or less guess what had happened. Only if she had guessed correctly—and it wouldn’t be appropriate to reveal the details—would the Headmistress deliberately avoid answering like that.

So everyone had equally received the Headmistress’s “hospitality”!

Mo Lan immediately felt at peace.

Remembering the task for this lesson—finding water and food—she decided to search for water first. There would certainly be traces of wild beasts near a water source, and since she was craving meat, hunting wild beasts would provide food as well. Two birds with one stone.

The wilderness survival textbook contained very detailed explanations on methods for finding water sources.

Her memories from Earth were also somewhat helpful.

The area she was currently in had relatively sparse trees, with wild grass and shrubs growing more densely instead. But just a dozen or so meters away stood thick forest.

The trees blocked her line of sight, preventing her from seeing any farther.

She fell silent and listened. There were insects chirping, birds calling, and occasionally the roar of wild beasts—but she heard no sound of flowing water whatsoever.

Finding a water source by sound was clearly not going to work.

Looking at the ground beneath her feet, it was visibly sloped, which meant she was currently on a hillside.

According to her Earth memories about finding water in the wild, water always flows from high ground to low ground. Valleys and low-lying areas were more likely to have water sources, so she should head downhill.

《A Survival Guide to Common Wilderness Terrain》 contained similar methods.

However, this was not the method witches should prioritize.

The Gold Detection spell from gold-element magic could detect underground mineral veins, and naturally could also probe underground conditions to some extent—it could be used to find groundwater.

The Tree Friend spell from wood-element magic allowed communication with ancient trees. Nothing understood the local water situation better than the plants growing right there, so asking them could also lead to a water source.

Water magic couldn’t directly locate water sources, but if one was highly familiar with water elemental force, finding an open vantage point and observing the energy traces in the air would suffice. Places with concentrated water elemental force most likely had a water source.

The Wind Sensing spell from wind-element magic could create a gust of wind, and anywhere that wind reached fell within your perception. By sending gusts in every direction, the wind might also carry back news of water.

Alternatively, if one had studied Mind Magic well enough, one could use mind-reading magic and confusion spells to improve an animal’s disposition toward you, then use the Heart Speech spell to ask animals about water sources.

If one had learned the Pathfinding spell from Prophecy Magic to the Beginner level, one could also divine the location of nearby water.

And if none of those were available, casting a luck spell on yourself and then walking by intuition might also lead you to the water you needed.

Only when none of these magical methods were available would one resort to observing terrain and topography to search for water.

Apart from Mind Magic and Prophecy Magic, Mo Lan knew all the other types of magic that could help find water.

However, she wanted to find water and hunt for some meat at the same time, so groundwater wasn’t suitable for her purposes.

That eliminated the Gold Detection spell.

The area here also lacked an open vantage point, making it impossible to observe distant energy traces, so the water elemental force observation method could be eliminated too.

That left only Tree Friend and Wind Sensing. Hmm… she could also add a luck spell boost on top.

Mo Lan was the type to act the moment she decided. She first cast a luck spell on herself.

Then she used Wind Sensing to send gusts of wind in all directions.

Her Wind Sensing was still at the Apprentice level, reaching a maximum of a hundred meters.

Before long, through the wind, she perceived everything within a hundred-meter radius.

There were no trees over a hundred years old within range, nor any water source.

A witch’s Tree Friend spell could enhance the spiritual awareness of trees.

Trees that frequently had Tree Friend cast on them became a witch’s intelligence agents in the forest.

But with unfamiliar trees, if they weren’t old enough and lacked sufficient spiritual awareness, interpreting their meaning through Tree Friend became much more difficult.

At her current Beginner level of Tree Friend, when dealing with unfamiliar trees, she could only interpret messages from trees over a hundred years old.

There were no trees in this area that had been enhanced by a witch’s Tree Friend spell either.

So Tree Friend wasn’t going to be very useful right now.

Still, Wind Sensing hadn’t come back completely empty-handed.

The humidity in the air was higher to the southeast, and heading south happened to be the downhill direction.

Going toward higher humidity and downhill at the same time couldn’t possibly be wrong.

Mo Lan cast a Wind Walk spell on herself to increase her movement speed, then used a wood-element Path Clearing spell to make all the plants along her route consciously move aside for her. She then set off toward the southeast.

After traveling about a hundred meters, she used Wind Sensing again, and based on the information the wind brought back, she recalibrated her direction.

Along the way, Mo Lan got a real taste of just how dangerous the Inner Region was.

While there were no magical beasts here capable of launching magical attacks, the dangers from wild beasts and plants were plentiful.

Setting aside thorny plants and those with sharp-edged leaves, there were also many poisonous plants. If she hadn’t used Bark Skin and Stone Skin, relying on the Gold Armor spell alone would have made it difficult to move freely through the forest. One careless moment and the sharp or poisonous plants hidden among the ordinary vegetation would have injured her.

Many of the snakes, insects, mice, and ants in the forest were also venomous. Though few were lethally poisonous, getting carelessly injured by one would still be a hassle to deal with.

After traveling roughly five hundred meters, the wind brought back a message: to the west stood a century-old ancient tree, and coiled around it was a holly snake.

The moment she received this information, a passage flashed through Mo Lan’s mind: “Holly snake soup—exquisitely fresh in flavor, silky smooth in texture, deeply nourishing. Even Dragons drool at the sight of it.”

This passage came from 《The Culinary Atlas of the Continent of Valen》. It was a rustic specialty dish originating from a now-extinct human kingdom on the Continent of Valen.

Supposedly, this dish was a favorite of young Dragons, and the Dragon race had even dedicated an entire island to breeding holly snakes because of it.

The Academy’s Ingredient Collection Station had never offered holly snake meat, so Mo Lan had never tasted this dish.

While she had been spreading Earth’s cuisine far and wide, hadn’t she also been craving the delicacies of the Continent of Valen?

At this moment, she had only one thought.

She absolutely had to take that snake down! She was having that snake soup today, no matter what!

Butcher knife in her left hand for self-defense, Wand in her right hand, magic at the ready.

At less than a hundred meters apart, the snake had certainly already detected her, so there was no point in trying to sneak up on it. She activated Super Speed directly, layered with Wind Walk and Path Clearing, and sprinted toward the snake’s location at maximum velocity.