Chapter 336 – The New Academic Year Plan

By the time they reached the Breadfruit Grove, they realized they were actually among the late arrivals.

The Breadfruit Grove was filled with wailing. All the other fourth-year young witches had already gathered there.

Seeing them approach, one young witch asked with concern, “You just got the notification too, right? Boo-hoo, while we were away, all our residences got reset! I still had a bunch of supplies in my room that I’d prepared for the survival trial! All gone!”

Mo Lan and her group, who had long known that the Inner Region residences would be reset at noon today, felt terribly guilty.

“Got it, got it! No use dwelling on it—let’s just hurry and pick some breadfruit and stock up on more food!”

“Wait a moment, you lot—why are you all carrying such huge packs? Did you know about this beforehand?”

The young witches eyed them suspiciously.

Seeing that she couldn’t hide it any longer, Mo Lan confessed, “Yes! During the enrollment ceremony at the start of the school year, we found out when we went looking for the upperclassmen. The Headmistress forbade us from telling anyone on our own—we could only say something if someone asked us directly.”

The young witches: “!!!”

So they were the only ones who’d been duped!

How infuriating!

The young witches’ glares were so terrifying that Mo Lan and her friends quickly fled the area, retreating deeper into the Breadfruit Grove.

“That scared me half to death!” Iris patted her chest and said to Alba with lingering fear, “Good thing we chose to live in the hills outside the Greengrass Plains back then, otherwise… we’d be among the ones crying today!”

“What are you all planning to do at tonight’s enrollment ceremony?” Cheryl asked.

“Obviously we’ll follow the Academy’s rules—if the third-year juniors don’t come talk to us, we’ll keep the secret!” Alba said without hesitation.

Mo Lan nodded as well. “My thoughts exactly.”

“Everyone went through the same thing, after all!” Vasida said. “Hopefully the juniors won’t notice us tonight!”

Sylph shook her head. “Never mind the rest—Bertha, Anna, and Annie will definitely come looking for us. Anna is planning to set up her residence in Wild Boar Valley, Annie is going to live by the old oak tree, and Bertha has claimed the lake island where Renée used to live. They’ll definitely be taking the underground river to the Inner Region tonight.”

“What a shame!” Vasida said regretfully.

At seven-forty in the evening, Mo Lan and the others reluctantly left the Breadfruit Grove and flew toward the castle.

Upon entering the Great Hall, they stood together in the section for fifth-year young witches.

From this moment on, they were fifth-year upperclassmen.

“Why did all three of you come over here?” Iris asked. “Not promoting magic to the new students this year?”

“No more promoting,” Vasida said. “The paper I make myself isn’t even enough for copying books into the Grimoire, let alone making flyers.

Besides, our Sorceress Magic books are now in the first, second, and third-year reading rooms as well as the Academy Library. The posters we put up before are still there too—the young witches will see them sooner or later.”

Sylph nodded as well. “It’s a pity I haven’t managed to cultivate a mutant plant that produces paper yet.”

She didn’t have enough paper either.

“Moira, what about you?” Cheryl asked. “You’re selling Parchment Cards in your card shop now—you shouldn’t be short on parchment!”

“I’m not short on it. But since Vasida and Sylph aren’t doing promotions anymore, I figured I’d skip it too,” Mo Lan said.

“This is the last time we’ll attend the enrollment banquet, so let’s just relax and enjoy it for once. We can earn mana later all the same.”

“The last time, huh!” Alba gazed at the chattering juniors in the Great Hall. “This time next year, we won’t be at the Academy anymore!”

Iris pouted. “What do I do? I’m already feeling a bit sad.”

“It’s too early to be sad!” Cheryl said. “Take a look at the fifth-year academic plan!”

Hearing this, Iris opened her Grimoire:

“Within one week after the enrollment ceremony, independently pass through the Hedge Wall between the inner and outer regions to begin the survival trial?

We already knew about this, and it’s not so bad! We can take the underground river to the Inner Region, then fly to the Hedge Wall—there’ll be plenty of time…”

“Wait, did it say ‘independently’?” Alba asked. “Is that a new requirement for this year? It wasn’t like this last year, was it?”

Iris froze. “You’re right! What does that mean? We can’t take the underground river route together anymore?”

“Probably not,” Vasida said. “But it’s fine—we can stay overnight on the outskirts of Lone Peak Forest and then walk through the Greengrass Plains once it’s light out.

There haven’t been any reports of sandstorms in the Yellow Sands area tonight either, so that route works too.”

“I’m still going through the underground river,” Mo Lan said. “I plan to go directly from the underground river to the outer region.”

“We still don’t know if it’s a dead end beyond the root wall on the south side of the underground river. Moira, are you sure you want to go that way? All for a spatial gem of unknown quality?” Sylph cautioned.

“Why don’t you think it over? You can enhance spatial gems yourself—that gem shouldn’t be all that useful to you!”

Mo Lan shook her head. “Now that I’ve seen a spatial gem there, I won’t be able to rest easy unless I dig it out. If it’s a dead end, worst case I’ll just tunnel my way up to the surface.”

Iris continued reading the next notice: “Every time you face a death threat and have to be rescued by the Headmistress, one set of survival supplies is confiscated and one important item is seized?

What does that even mean? Does the Mobile Kitchen Card count as an important item?”

“It does,” Mo Lan said. “I already asked Lady Amisha this afternoon. All clothing, food, and daily necessities count as survival supplies. Everything else—broomsticks, wands, cards, magical items—counts as important items.

However, valuable items are only temporarily seized and will be returned to us at graduation.

But items crafted from materials found within the Academy are permanently confiscated, with the exception of broomsticks and wands.

In other words, any magical materials we collect in the outer region—once confiscated, we won’t get them back.”

When she had learned about this, she had immediately snapped off several tree branches and begun attuning them on the spot, just in case her wand was confiscated so she could quickly make a new one.

Having other things confiscated would be bearable, but if her wand was taken, she’d truly have nothing to rely on but her magic cards.

A newly made wand certainly wouldn’t be as good as the one she’d used for four years, but having one was better than having none.

“What? I heard there are plenty of magical materials in the outer region—I was counting on those materials to earn enough travel money to visit the Dragon Delicacy Island after graduation!” Iris said.

“Then you’d better be careful and try not to put yourself in dangerous situations, or you might end up leaving with nothing,” Mo Lan said.

Iris had absolutely no confidence in that.

“Wait! There’s a graduation exam too?” Alba exclaimed in shock.

Iris, still reeling from the previous blow, said in disbelief, “What did you say? An exam?”

An exam—what a distant word!

She hadn’t heard it in a year, and it still gave her a headache.