Chapter 301 – Moving Out of the Dormitory

After sinking into the water, Mo Lan first let the current carry her forward, traveling along its flow.

After roughly ten minutes, she suddenly felt the current’s force ease up.

In her dark field of vision, the surroundings had opened up all at once. Looking down, at the bottom of the dark water sat a stone mountain with an opening in its face — that must have been where she’d come out from.

Mo Lan took out her map and marked the location as “Underground River Exit.”

Only then did she swim rapidly toward the surface.

Three minutes later, she broke through.

Gazing at the familiar Academy Mountain ahead, Mo Lan knew she’d gambled correctly.

The underground river really did flow into Moon Lake.

She had found yet another route between the Inner Region and the core region — one more convenient, faster, and safer than all the others.

No need to waste time dodging the Thunder Nights on the Greengrass Plains, no need to waste time avoiding sandstorms in the Yellow Sands, no need to endure the toxins of the Green Marsh or the giant flying beasts of Lone Peak Forest.

She wouldn’t even have to deal with wind or rain along the way.

The only barrier was the underwater application technique of the Water Shield spell.

Fortunately, this didn’t require a high magic level for the Water Shield spell itself — it mostly called for a bit of water-element control.

For now, this was absolutely the optimal route.

After all, from the time she’d set out until now, only two days and one night had passed.

During the second half of the journey, she’d been continuously using the Gold Detection spell to scan the rock on both sides of the river channel, and had even stopped to collect magical ore when she found some.

She’d also rested for about six hours during the night.

If she’d taken the normal route through the Greengrass Plains, crossing through to the mountain-forest region and then flying to the valley where she lived, it would have taken at least two full days and two nights.

She’d saved half the travel time.

For all the young witches, this would be great news.

Mo Lan was still basking in the excitement of discovering the new route when Lady Amisha’s voice sounded beside her ear:

“This route is a hidden route. You are forbidden from revealing it to witches below fourth year.”

Mo Lan’s excitement deflated. “Including fourth year?”

When she heard Lady Amisha say “not including,” Mo Lan perked up again.

They were about to advance to fourth year.

As long as they knew about it and could use it, that was good enough. As for the junior students — well, that was up to them! There were other routes even without this hidden one!

Mo Lan’s Water Shield bubble floated on the surface of the water. She took out her broomstick, mounted it, and flew toward the dormitory area.

She was already in the core region, so of course she should stop by the dormitory!

She might as well use this trip to pack up everything left in the dormitory and take it all at once. The mining pack on her back was big enough, and she’d only put a few pieces of ore in it so far. With the expanded space, it could hold quite a lot.

When she flew above the two rows of dormitories where the third-year young witches lived, Mo Lan clearly noticed that the area had become far more neglected than before. Compared to the first few rows of first- and second-year dormitories, the difference was stark.

Many of the young witches’ vegetable gardens had been overtaken by weeds, clearly untended for a long time. Dust and fallen leaves at doorsteps and on windowsills had gone unswept.

The level of abandonment was already very close to the last few rows of uninhabited dormitories.

It seemed that while she’d been holed up in her valley renovating her dwelling and mining underground, the other young witches hadn’t been idle either.

Basically all of them had already shifted the center of their lives to the Inner Region.

The golden bird messengers probably had to fly an extra stretch to find everyone in the Inner Region now, every other Tuesday when the Academy’s letter delivery channel opened.

Mo Lan landed in front of Dormitory 69 and pushed the door open.

There really wasn’t much left inside.

Mainly just two bags of rice and two bags of flour in the storage room.

The rest were items from the introductory Alchemy classes — a few low-level magical items made following the quick-craft methods in the textbook: magical lamps, magical clocks, magical stoves, and the like.

Though they were among the rare things made with laboratory materials that students could keep for personal use, their designs were all too plain and their functions too crude. She had no use for them anymore.

Only after truly finding nothing worth taking did Mo Lan leave, feeling a touch of wistfulness.

In the blink of an eye, nearly three years had passed. More than half of her Academy life was behind her. The scene of arriving at this dormitory on the night of her enrollment still felt like yesterday, yet this departure meant she was truly moving out.

After the enrollment ceremony, this place would become a new student dormitory again, assigned to newcomers who would walk down the tall Academy Mountain to reach it.

She wondered whether the young witch who would live in Dormitory 69 then would silently complain, just as she once had, about the overgrown weeds in the yard and the dilapidated building.

When that time came, it would be a new cycle all over again.

No matter how many young witches it had housed, the dormitory area always returned to its original state after they moved away.

Mo Lan didn’t dwell on the sentimentality for long, because she knew that in her valley in the Inner Region, there was an even better dwelling — one she had built with her own hands using the magic she’d mastered over these years. It was bigger, better, and more to her liking than the little courtyard in the dormitory area.

Having taken very little from the dormitory, Mo Lan headed to the Breadfruit Grove instead. She picked Breadfruit, made Breadfruit Cakes, and didn’t stop until she’d stuffed her entire mining pack full.

Then she headed back overnight, traveling through Moon Lake inside her Water Shield bubble.

On the return trip, however, passing through the opening meant going against the current, which was quite strenuous.

It took her several times longer than the trip there before she finally made it back into the wide underground river cavern.

After getting back on dry land, Mo Lan decided this was too much of a time waste and came up with an idea.

Following the direction of the water flow, she started from the riverbank and used the Rock-Crushing Spell to dig a tunnel.

She carved out a dry, upward-sloping underground passage leading straight to the bottom of Moon Lake.

At both the entrance and exit, she installed an extremely well-sealed, extra-thick steel door.

By encasing herself in a Water Shield bubble, she could open the doors to pass through.

Even though water from Moon Lake would easily squeeze into the tunnel when entering or exiting, as long as the other door remained shut, the amount of water was limited no matter how much rushed in, and it would stop once the door closed.

When she reached the other door, she could open it and the water in the passage would flow out.

This way, going from the underground river to Moon Lake, she could use the Water Shield spell and take the waterway, letting the current carry her — faster and less effort.

Going from Moon Lake to the underground river, she could take the tunnel she’d dug, avoiding the struggle against the current.

During the final stretch of time before the enrollment ceremony, she busied herself around this tunnel.

Digging the tunnel itself hadn’t taken much time. The main time sink was that during the digging process, she’d habitually used the Gold Detection spell to scan the surrounding rock layers, and had the good fortune to discover a rich deposit of low-level water-element magical gemstones. Mining them ate up a considerable amount of time.

At the very center of the ore cluster, she found a coin-sized Intermediate water-element magical gemstone — enough to craft a water-repelling gem sufficient for one person to use underwater.

When Lady Amisha reminded her of the date on the fifteenth, she still hadn’t finished mining the gemstone deposit.

She rushed to finish the mining and complete the tunnel, and by then it was already the evening of the seventeenth.

Looking at her bulging mining pack — strapped to her back and sticking up a full head taller than her — Mo Lan hurried through the night toward her valley. After putting away everything in the pack, it was already noon on the eighteenth.