Chapter 333 – Limited-Time Card Pool

After arranging the furniture and decorations inside the {Spatial Tent Card}, Mo Lan went to the windowsills of her residence’s four windows, retrieved the invisibility magic circle formation stones that had been placed there, and put them inside the tent as well.

These four magic circles could be recharged with mana and used continuously.

Combined with the Intermediate warning-and-protection composite magic circle, one for concealment and one for defense, even a person alone in the wilderness could sleep peacefully.

Now that her living quarters and wilderness rest safety concerns were taken care of, next came the matter of food.

Mo Lan first harvested the various crops and magical plants growing in the valley.

Fruits and vegetables were picked and placed directly into the spatial ring.

Grain was processed, bagged, and stored inside as well.

These alone would be enough to feed her for quite some time.

All the magical plants were refined into plant essences, and combined with the essences she had previously accumulated, any that could complete a recipe were brewed into ready-made potions and placed in the spatial ring.

That was everything she needed to bring from her residence.

Three days before the enrollment ceremony happened to fall on a biweekly Sunday.

Mo Lan took advantage of the Academy’s letter delivery channel being open and used the Golden Bird spell to send a letter to each of her friends — Vasida, Sylph, Cheryl, Alba, and Iris.

“Red-Eyed Bird hunt — come quick!”

That evening, the six young witches gathered once again in Wild Boar Valley.

Mo Lan brought out all the remaining meat from the refrigerator. “Tonight, everyone help me clear out the inventory. Tomorrow morning, we head out to hunt Red-Eyed Birds!”

Remembering the taste of Red-Eyed Bird wings, all six young witches swallowed in unison.

However.

“Moira, this much meat — you’re just giving it all away?” Vasida asked.

It was practically piling up into a small mountain of meat.

“Yep.” Mo Lan waved her hand in front of Vasida’s face.

“See this? Frozen meat is nowhere near as good as fresh meat preserved in spatial stasis!”

“A spatial ring?!!” Vasida exclaimed in shock.

“What? A spatial ring?”

Sylph and the others all turned to look.

Five pairs of eyes fixed on the silver gemstone on Mo Lan’s finger, none of them willing to blink.

“You dug up an Intermediate spatial gem?” Iris grabbed Mo Lan’s hand and said, “It’s so beautiful! That faint silver luster — how much meat can it hold?!”

“I didn’t dig it up. I enhanced it myself using Spatial magic,” Mo Lan said. “Originally it was just an ordinary yellow gemstone of decent quality.”

Hearing this, Sylph’s heart stirred. “What level is your Spatial magic at now?”

“Intermediate,” Mo Lan said.

Most of her Spatial Magic spells were still at the Beginner level. Only Spatial magic, the Expansion Spell, and the Shrinking Spell — which she practiced extremely frequently — had advanced to Intermediate first.

Among them, Spatial magic had seen the greatest improvement.

Vasida: “…”

She hadn’t even figured out her Elemental Magic yet — some of it she hadn’t even gotten past the basics — and here Mo Lan had already reached Intermediate in Spatial magic, which was notoriously difficult to practice.

How was it that no matter how hard she tried to catch up, the gap only kept growing wider?

Seeing the longing in her friends’ eyes, Mo Lan smiled and said, “The Card Shop just stocked a new batch of spatial-type cards!”

“What?”

The young witches all opened the Card Shop. “{Spatial Card}? {Mobile Cottage}? {Spatial Tent}…”

After looking through them, their hearts ached with desire.

“Why is it ‘purchase prohibited’ again?!” Vasida wailed.

“So expensive! My Gem Coin storage limit isn’t high enough again!” Alba said.

“My mother has a spatial ring, and its space isn’t even as large as this 100-cubic-meter {Spatial Card}, yet it cost a whole Red Gold Coin, and she had to wait ages to get it.

At least Gem Coins can be exchanged for with disposable mana. And every one mana of permanent mana increases your Gem Coin storage limit by a hundred.

It’s still much more affordable than market price.”

Iris calculated and said.

“Exactly! Spatial gems are incredibly rare. I heard they’re only produced in the Well of the Sky — all the spatial gems found on the Continent of Valen are enhanced by Spatial Witches using Spatial magic,” Cheryl said.

“Every year on Independence Day, a graduation limited-time card pool will open. All cards that underage witches are prohibited from purchasing, including spatial-type cards, will have their drop rates doubled!

The Card Shop will also have limited-time discounts. Everyone should try to save up Gem Coins when you get the chance,” Mo Lan said.

“Really?” The young witches were filled with disbelief. “Doubled drop rates? Limited-time discounts?”

Was this something the Goblin Sorceress would actually do?

They’d been classmates for four years now — who didn’t know who by this point?

Anyone who had read that 《Guide on Earth Business Strategies》 Mo Lan wrote would know that discounts were just a ploy, and things that were free were the most expensive of all!

Back when Card Magic first went on sale, who among them hadn’t been tempted by that one free draw?

After all this time, they’d come to their senses.

The drop rates had been disclosed from the very beginning — drawing a good card was fleeting, but drawing a bad card was eternal.

Even the luck spell barely helped!

Setting other cards aside, Mo Lan was really going to double the drop rate on spatial cards, which were this expensive?

“What kind of expressions are those?” Mo Lan clutched her chest, putting on a hurt look.

“Would I really deceive you? This year’s Independence Day has already passed, and the senior students all participated in this event when they graduated. They even sent me thank-you letters on the first biweekly Sunday of May!

Quite a few seniors drew practical cards.”

Her operating costs didn’t just increase in a linear correlation with drop rate, either. Doubling the drop rate caused her costs to increase four-fold—this card pool gave her almost no profit.

She had even sacrificed a portion of her profits on Card Shop items to offer discounts there too, but at least it was impossible to go negative there as long as she priced things above their cost to her.

All of it was to give newly graduated young witches a wave of benefits, so everyone could have a chance to obtain some practical cards and add a layer of security for their future lives.

Many young witches didn’t have very high total magical power yet and were reluctant to spend too much permanent mana on increasing their Gem Coin storage limit.

Without enough storage capacity, they could never save up enough for expensive cards no matter how much mana they accumulated — they could only rely on draws and hope for luck.

The graduation limited-time card pool defined a pool range and increased drop rates, multiplying the value of each draw.

“Waaah~ Moira, you’re the best!” Iris said. “I haven’t spent a single {Gem Coin Card} from my draws — I’ve saved them all, and I’ll be able to use them next Independence Day!”

“Ugh! I spent all of mine!” Alba said. “I can’t save anything!”

{Gem Coin Cards} and {Gem Coin Fragment Cards} were the most common rewards from the card pool.

They seemed unremarkable, but they were actually the only way to store Gem Coins outside of the storage limit.

They were also the only type of card that couldn’t be bought in the Card Shop and could only be obtained from the card pool.

Cheryl said nothing. She looked at her Gem Coin balance, which had already reached her current storage limit, then counted the surplus magical power shown on her {Status Card} for today.

She had twelve extra mana, so she drew twelve times from the card pool, then recharged twelve mana to top her Gem Coin balance back up to full.

Every {Gem Coin Card} she drew was carefully placed in her card storage slots, saved for next year’s Independence Day draws.