Chapter 285 – Collecting Minerals

Chapter 285 – Collecting Minerals

Thursday’s only class was Alchemy theory, and Mo Lan, Sylph, and Vasida—the only ones who had elected this course—had already received all the instructional videos for it back in their second year.

Mo Lan had already watched them all, and Sylph and Vasida were also ahead of the class schedule.

In other words, none of the young witches had any classes that day.

Mo Lan went to the Academy Castle to read Mo-Pic books, while the other young witches all chose to stay in the Dormitory and watch the review videos from Wilderness Survival Class.

This was because, during yesterday’s class assignment, Mo Lan had been the only one to complete the task perfectly.

Even Sylph and Vasida hadn’t managed to find all the potion ingredients within the ten-hour time limit.

If they didn’t complete the ingredient-gathering task before the next class, their progress would fall behind Mo Lan’s.

During class, they could only fight alone, and even looking up reference materials had to be done with constant anxiety—it was terribly inconvenient.

But outside of class, they could prepare carefully, giving them a much higher chance of success.

Naturally, the review videos recorded during class were the best study materials!

They had been bumbling around the forest like headless flies, unable to find any leads. Learning from others’ experiences, listening to the Headmistress’s critiques and commentary on their performance—that would certainly help!

With Mo Lan’s stellar example leading the way—having completed the task in just over an hour—everyone watching the videos immediately fixed their eyes on Mo Lan’s monitoring screen.

During the first class, they had already learned quite a few tips about finding water sources from Mo Lan’s performance and the Headmistress’s commentary.

But this time, they couldn’t quite follow what was happening.

From their perspective, Mo Lan had been surrounded by long-armed apes right from the start, then used Vine Sorcery to restrain some of them, followed by casting some unknown magic on those apes—and then the remaining apes went off to find potion ingredients for her.

In the video, Lady Amisha had recognized the spell and even named it—the Prophecy Magic spell Origin-Tracing Spell—but what exactly Mo Lan had discovered through the Origin-Tracing Spell, only she herself knew.

The ordinary young witches looked up the Origin-Tracing Spell’s effects and learning requirements in The Witch Magic Catalog, and upon seeing that their Prophecy Magic aptitude fell short, realized they had no chance of learning it. They could only continue watching the review videos and look for other useful techniques.

Sylph and Vasida were different, though—they actually had a chance of learning it.

On the way to Magic Q&A class on Friday, they asked Mo Lan about it.

“What I saw was the ape’s experiences over the past day. From that, I learned about the apes’ habits, as well as the locations of magical ingredients and Senior Quilin’s dwelling.

But the reason I was able to get the apes to gather the magical ingredients for me was mainly because that particular group of apes had a natural tendency to beg for mercy and appease threats. With other animals, it wouldn’t necessarily work—at most, you could use the Origin-Tracing Spell on nearby wild beasts to scout out the locations of magical ingredients in the area.”

Mo Lan explained.

“That’s more than enough!” Sylph and Vasida said.

The two of them figured they should learn this spell first and worry about the rest later.

Even Sylph felt that using Tree Friend to interrogate century-old trees for information had far too many limitations. During this class, she hadn’t even encountered a tree she could gather information from.

During the third Wilderness Survival Class.

“As of today, only Moira, Sylph, and Vasida have completed the task of gathering ingredients and brewing a recovery potion.

Young witches who haven’t completed the task will continue working on the previous assignment during this class.

Moira, and you other two, you’ll begin a new task…”

Sylph and Vasida had spent the weekend crash-learning the Origin-Tracing Spell, not even taking the time to study the theoretical foundations of Prophecy Magic properly. Only by doing so had they managed, just before this class, to quickly extract location information about magical ingredients from wild beasts, gather them, brew the potion, and complete the task. The other young witches lacked sufficient Prophecy Magic aptitude to learn the Origin-Tracing Spell, so they had to find alternative methods—either by relying on other spells they could learn, or by using what they knew about the preferred growing environments of magical plants to track them down.

“I never expected we’d still end up falling behind,” Cheryl sighed. “The gap in aptitude—it’s always there!”

“It’s actually not so bad this way. We get to find out the upcoming lesson content in advance, and we’ll have more time to prepare!” Alba said optimistically.

“…The new task is: collect iron ore and white crystal, craft a magical stove and a crystal potion bottle, and return safely to the surface.”

The moment she finished speaking, a teleportation portal appeared.

By the third teleportation in class, the young witches were far more experienced.

They had all prepared protective spells in advance and, the instant they were successfully teleported, entered combat readiness—guarding against wild beasts that might launch a surprise attack and dangerous plants in their environment.

The situation from before, where someone was eliminated the moment they arrived, didn’t happen to any of the young witches this time.

They had already transformed from complete novices without a shred of combat ability into sharp, vigilant young witches with basic wilderness survival skills. Finding the potion ingredients was now merely a matter of time.

Compared to them, Mo Lan, Sylph, and Vasida’s experience was far more harrowing.

When Mo Lan and her group heard the words “return safely to the surface” in their task description, suspicion immediately arose—but before they could think too deeply about it, they were pushed through the teleportation portal.

After entering the portal, what followed wasn’t the usual dizziness and the feeling of solid ground underfoot. Nor was there the familiar scent of mountain forests and vegetation.

All she felt was an intense sensation of weightlessness. Her surroundings brightened for just an instant before rapidly going dark.

The only source of light was above her head, and it was growing farther and farther away.

She was falling—fast!

The moment she realized this, Mo Lan immediately cast a wind-element magic spell on herself—Featherfall.

Buoyed by wind elements, her body became as light as a feather. Her descent slowed immediately, giving her time to observe her surroundings.

It was an extremely deep underground shaft. In just those few moments, she had already fallen more than ten meters.

And the shaft wasn’t perfectly straight either, which meant that even with her darkvision, she couldn’t see where the bottom was.

The walls were mostly rock, and Mo Lan even spotted traces of mineral ore.

Thinking about the final task requirement—”return safely to the surface”—Mo Lan grabbed a handful of vine seeds from her satchel. As she threw them out, she immediately used Vine Sorcery to accelerate their growth.

The seeds quickly sprouted roots and began to grow.

Mo Lan seized the moment to grab hold of a freshly grown vine.

The vine’s root system clung to the rocky walls of the shaft, but the hold wasn’t very secure. Fortunately, she was still under the effect of Featherfall, making her body weight negligible—and that was enough to bring her descent to a complete stop.

She then urged the vine to grow rapidly upward toward the opening of the shaft, carrying her along with it.

Before she had even emerged from the opening, Mo Lan caught sight of familiar rocky mountains.

Now she knew where this teleportation had sent her!

It was Lone Peak Forest!

Only it was a part of Lone Peak Forest she had never set foot in before.

Thinking about today’s class assignment, Mo Lan understood exactly why they had been sent here.