Chapter 299 – Renovation Frenzy

Chapter 299 – Renovation Frenzy

“July nineteenth.”

“July nineteenth?” Mo Lan half-breathed a sigh of relief. At least this enrollment ceremony wasn’t too early.

Two and a half months to go—there was still time!

She had already prepared more than enough mineral materials. Once she gathered some timber, she could start renovating.

If she moved quickly, she might even finish ahead of schedule.

Mo Lan hurried off on her broom to gather wood.

The mountain forests were full of trees, so timber was easy to come by. In a single afternoon, Mo Lan had prepared all the wood she needed, piling it beside the waterfall.

First, she went to the basement to prepare the ordinary metal ore materials. Using the Gold Shaping spell, she fashioned water pipes and completed the drainage and water supply systems for both washrooms and the kitchen.

During this process, Mo Lan discovered that she could actually use the Gold Shaping spell on several different metal ores simultaneously, shaping them into alloys with superior properties.

With the plumbing done, she moved on to shaping wood with the Wood-Shaping Spell.

First came the wooden flooring. Both the first and second floors needed it—no matter how smooth stone flooring was made, it still felt somewhat rough, lacking the warmth and beauty of wooden floors.

Then came the interior doors and furniture.

The kitchen and dining room furniture were the simplest. She just had to materialize the Mobile Kitchen Card and place it inside. All she needed to make was a larger dining table, a few dining chairs, and a bar counter by the window.

The living room needed a sofa base, a coffee table, a small table by the fireplace, and storage cabinets along the walls.

The study had no books—only the Grimoire she always carried with her—so she built an entire wall of cabinets for storing medicinal herbs, potions, Alchemy materials, and finished products.

For the cabinet doors, she only made wooden frames—there was still a huge pile of crystals and gemstones in the basement!

After that came a large desk by the window, a chair that still lacked cushioning for now, and a big workbench.

For the second-floor bedroom, the first priority was an enormous bed—large enough for five or six young witches to sleep sprawled out in starfish positions.

The reason she hadn’t planned a guest room was precisely so that when friends came to visit, everyone could sleep together.

Snuggling under quilts together, chatting in bed with your companions—that was true happiness!

Next came a vanity table, wall-to-wall wardrobes, a shoe cabinet, coat racks, and a mirror frame for a full-length dressing mirror.

Then the sofa base and coffee table for the lounge area, a tatami platform by the window… various chairs, stools, display shelves, wall cabinets…

In short, every functional area of the house needed to be fully furnished.

With the remaining wood, she made it all into picture frames. Using the Book of Cards, she created paint cards and paper cards, then used the Transcription Spell to quickly copy famous paintings from her Earth memories onto paper. She framed and hung them throughout the house to decorate the walls.

She also set aside some frames, paint, and paper, and made an easel to place in a corner of the bedroom, planning to paint a few portraits as keepsakes when she had time.

With the wooden furniture complete, it was time for the minerals to shine.

Using Stone Shaping, she fashioned white quartz and copper ore into cloisonné-style stained glass windows, reshaping various colored gemstone fragments into blocks of color to fill in the designs.

After installing the glass in all four large windows, she moved on to crafting vases, flower pots, tea sets, and tableware from crushed crystal.

The gemstone fragments were used to embellish and decorate the furniture and various vessels.

She also used metal ore to make a hanging swing chair by the fireplace—one large enough to curl up in entirely.

The once-empty stone house was suddenly brimming with life and color.

Meanwhile, the high-yield cotton trees and various dye-producing flowers she had planted in the valley had matured under her daily magical nourishment.

Mo Lan harvested them and used Sewing Magic to create all manner of cotton fabrics, quilts, and cushions.

The sofas and bed were finally no longer hard and stiff, filled with all sorts of cotton padding and pillows, making the house feel even cozier.

By the time all this was done, a full month had passed.

Magic was truly marvelous—it had dramatically improved her crafting efficiency. Without it, this work would have been absolutely impossible to complete in just one month.

At a glance, Waterfall Cottage finally looked like a comfortable place to live.

But in the finer details, it still appeared somewhat rough.

Mo Lan planted some green climbing vines along the cliff face beside the waterfall.

Then she flew out on her broom into the mountain forests, hunted some wild beasts with soft fur, and dug up some magical plants that were both ornamental and medicinally valuable.

After processing the beasts, she kept the meat for eating and turned the hides into rugs, spreading them throughout the living room and bedroom.

Magical plants that didn’t need much sunlight and were suitable for growing indoors went into the flower pots inside the house. Those that could only grow outdoors were planted in the valley.

All of this took another half month.

Waterfall Cottage was finally looking truly splendid.

But she wasn’t done yet—she still hadn’t prepared the most critical element of the dwelling: the magic circles!

Mo Lan went to the basement and carried all the magical mineral stones and some high-quality ordinary minerals to the workbench in her study, then threw herself into the preparations.

First came the Magical lamps for each room.

She needed chandeliers, desk lamps, and wall sconces.

Living inside a cliff face meant lighting was a concern, so she needed to make plenty of Magical lamps.

Fortunately, ordinary illumination lamps didn’t require magical mineral stones—high-quality crystal quartz was sufficient.

And fortunately, she had mined plenty of large, high-quality white quartz crystals.

Large white crystals served as the main lamps, with ordinary crystals of various colors as decorative accents beside them. Iron ore and copper ore formed the lamp fixtures, keeping the style unified.

She made dozens of lamps in succession. Once installed, when all lit at night, the interior was bright as day.

After that came the various magic circles.

These all required magical mineral stones as formation stones.

First were the magic circles covering the entire cottage: a constant-temperature magic circle, a humidity-regulation magic circle, and a dust-repelling magic circle.

The constant-temperature and humidity-regulation circles could freely adjust indoor temperature and humidity.

The Inner Region had four seasons and wet and dry periods—with these magic circles, staying home would always be comfortable.

The dust-repelling magic circle saved her the trouble of cleaning, keeping the floors, walls, and furniture surfaces free of dust.

Her clothes, however, still needed to be washed with the Cleaning spell. She could have made a washing machine, but she found that combining the Cleaning spell with a drying spell was more convenient and faster.

Next came the warning magic circle and the defensive magic formation covering the entire valley.

These two magic circles required the most magical mineral stones. Even as low-level formations, their massive coverage area consumed nearly seventy percent of her magical mineral stone reserves.

Had she not reduced the formations’ effective lifespan to just one year, these low-grade magical mineral stones might not have been enough.

All she needed to do was bury the formation stones—inscribed with Alchemy runes—at various points along the cliffs.

This defensive magic formation had no trouble repelling and driving away wild beasts.

Additionally, there were concealment magic circles for the windows, front door, and chimney opening. These could hide all exposed features of the dwelling.

Once activated, from the outside, this section of cliff face would look exactly as it always had—no sign of any dwelling.