Chapter 283 – The Tall Peach Tree Grove

After reading Mo Lan read 《The Prophecy Witch’s Spellbook》 and learning the Fortune-Telling Spell, she attempted to divine the current state of affairs on Earth. After learning the Precognition Spell, she divined once more to see whether Earth could be saved in the future.

Both divinations yielded no results.

The visions that Magic fed back to her were nothing but a dense, impenetrable fog.

This was a sign that the events she was trying to divine exceeded her divination abilities.

If she insisted on parting the fog, it would constitute overuse of Divination Magic and invite backlash.

Mo Lan valued her life dearly. The moment she saw the fog, she terminated the Divination Magic, terrified that one more glance might cause the fog to dissipate—and bring the backlash crashing down on her.

No matter how important the future might be, it wasn’t as important as her own little life.

Apprentice-level Prophecy Magic had rather mediocre results when it came to foreseeing the future, but as a source for gathering information, it was still extremely useful.

During Wednesday’s Wilderness Survival Class, these Prophecy Magic spells proved to be a tremendous help.

“As of before today’s class, all young witches have completed the task of finding water and food sources. Everyone should now have a basic understanding of how to locate water and food in mountainous forests.

Other terrain types are not suitable for witches to inhabit long-term. For how to find water sources in those terrains, please refer to your textbooks on your own—we won’t be covering that collectively in class.

Besides water, the collection of plant resources and mineral resources is also vital to our daily lives.

This lesson’s task is to gather materials for low-grade recovery potions—belladonna, daisy pistils, Liquid Grass roots, and the like—and brew one recovery potion.

Obtaining food is not part of the assignment, but you are still prohibited from bringing food in. During class, you’ll need to solve the food problem on your own.

Understood?”

After Lady Amisha announced the lesson’s task, she signaled the Guardian Headmistresses to open the teleportation gates and send them to the class location.

This time, before the Guardian Headmistress could put a foot to her backside, Mo Lan quickly cast three layers of defensive magic on herself plus a luck spell.

She dodged the Headmistress’s foot, but she couldn’t dodge the Headmistress’s palm. The moment she finished casting the luck spell, the Headmistress shoved her into the teleportation gateway with a slap.

At least this time she didn’t land on her knees and get stuck with a bunch of needle grass seeds.

But the instant she steadied herself, she heard the sound of something cutting through the air—something was hurtling toward her!

Mo Lan’s ears reacted first, her eyes immediately locked onto the object’s position, and her body instinctively dodged aside.

A fist-sized peach pit slammed heavily into the ground beside her.

Mo Lan also spotted the culprits and took in her surroundings.

The ones ambushing her were a troop of long-armed gibbons, and all around her stood tall peach trees.

These peach trees were tall and straight, with a single trunk shooting upward, only branching at the very top to form a dense canopy.

The fruit they bore was as large as basketballs, and the pits alone were the size of fists.

She was clearly no longer anywhere near the previous Wild Boar Valley.

Mo Lan had anticipated this and wasn’t particularly surprised.

The problem was that these monkeys were up in the trees, at least ten meters off the ground. The height difference made it difficult for her to attack them, while they could attack her with ease.

Her situation was extremely disadvantageous.

The first ambush had failed to hit her, which seemed to infuriate them greatly, and they began hurling even more large peach pits in rapid succession.

Mo Lan could dodge one peach pit, but she couldn’t dodge a rain of them.

Even if her three layers of protective magic could withstand the barrage, passively taking a beating wasn’t her style.

Besides, these were just a troop of slightly long-armed gibbons with only two advantages—numbers and a knack for throwing. They weren’t some formidable beasts that were hard to deal with. Even in a large group, once she got her bearings, they couldn’t cause her too much trouble.

She cast Wood Walk and phased directly into the nearest peach tree.

Wood Walk allowed her to travel and leap between trees, phasing from one tree to another through their connected root systems.

But today, instead of phasing to another tree, she traveled straight up from the base to the top and emerged at the crown.

The two long-armed gibbons that had been standing there were squeezed right off their branch, plummeting several meters before managing to grab hold of the trunk. Their claws were scraped bloody, and they shrieked furiously.

The surrounding monkeys also tried to leap toward her.

Mo Lan wasn’t the least bit afraid. Setting aside the fact that she wouldn’t let them jump over—even if they did, she could cut them down one by one.

Once she steadied herself and eliminated the height disadvantage, this was her home turf.

With canopies this dense, Vine Sorcery was the perfect tool for the job.

Mo Lan didn’t skimp on Mana. The tree she stood on, along with several surrounding trees, all fell under the influence of her Vine Sorcery. Branches rapidly extended, becoming supple and flexible.

The gibbons had no idea why their peach trees had suddenly gone berserk. Those farther away still had time to dodge, but those nearby were bound up tight by the soft yet resilient branches, with only their heads poking out.

The monkeys that had been so aggressive and bullying moments ago instantly lost all their bluster. But with so many of their companions trapped, they were unwilling to leave. They lingered around the edges of the Vine Sorcery-controlled trees, hopping anxiously from foot to foot while chattering and cursing.

Mo Lan ignored them and began casting spells on each of the bound monkeys, one by one.

What could be more convenient for learning about the local area than the native wildlife?

She activated the Origin-Tracing Spell, and the old gibbon’s experiences from the past day were revealed to her.

After reading through just one old gibbon’s experiences, Mo Lan had already gathered a wealth of information.

The three nearby mountains were all covered in tall peach trees—this troop of gibbons’ territory.

Of course, a troop of long-armed gibbons barely a meter tall couldn’t possibly hold such a vast area on their own.

Their leader was a white-furred giant ape—among wild beasts, it ranked as one of the most formidable opponents around.

Originally there had only been a few tall peach trees here. All the rest had been planted by the long-armed gibbons under the white-furred giant ape’s direction, burying pit after pit in the ground.

Now they had grown into a fruit grove spanning three entire mountains.

The white-furred giant ape was powerful, but only relative to other wild beasts. For a young witch who knew Magic, with proper preparation, defeating it wouldn’t be difficult.

Yet despite such a vast grove, not a single young witch had claimed it. The main reason was that this troop of monkeys was exceptionally good at reading the room.

The white-furred giant ape, in particular, was far cleverer than the average monkey.

To sum it up: if they could win a fight, they’d charge in swinging. If they couldn’t, they’d drop to their knees and beg for mercy.

Young witches would kill monkeys that attacked them ferociously, but they wouldn’t make things difficult for monkeys that knelt before them in surrender, offering up fruit and fruit wine.

That was how this troop of monkeys had managed to hold onto this grove for so long.

Mo Lan had discovered all this when she traced the old gibbon’s memories and found images of it obsequiously helping Senior Sister Quilin pick peaches.

This time, the white-furred giant ape happened to be away, and without its leadership and discipline, the long-armed gibbons had reverted to a few extra degrees of bestial irritability and stubbornness—knowing full well they were outmatched, yet unable to recall the method of surrender and appeasement their white-furred giant ape had taught them.

Though they weren’t far from remembering.