Chapter 343 – Behind-the-Scenes Manipulation

Mo Lan first used the Metal Shaping spell to roughly fuse all the spatial gem fragments together, then carefully combed through the spatial power at each joint, merging them until everything was seamlessly integrated.

A small handful of spatial gem fragments, combined together, was only about the size of her fist — yet it took Mo Lan an entire week to harmonize the spatial power within.

But in the end, the time spent was well worth it.

Mo Lan obtained a high-quality Advanced spatial gem.

The internal space of an ordinary storage-type Spatial Card had been upgraded from one hundred cubic units to a maximum of ten thousand cubic units — a full hundredfold increase.

Mo Lan also upgraded her own Spatial Tent Card.

What had been a small Spatial Tent of forty square units with a ceiling height of two and a half meters and only one room was expanded into a two-story interior, each floor a hundred square units, complete with a dedicated living room, kitchen, study, washroom, and an oversized bedroom.

The interior was practically a one-to-one recreation of her Wild Boar Valley residence, lacking only an underground storage room.

And even so, this upgraded Spatial Tent Card still hadn’t reached the upper limit of her card-crafting capabilities.

She could make even larger spaces — there simply wasn’t any need.

The small box she carried with her, filled with low-grade and Intermediate Spatial Magic gems that had been enhanced from ordinary gems, no longer needed further enhancement either.

Their base quality was too weak — at most they could only be enhanced to Advanced grade.

But now Mo Lan had no shortage of Advanced Spatial Magic gems. She could use the Book of Cards at any time to craft an Advanced Spatial Magic Gem Card.

Having spent so long enhancing them, Mo Lan couldn’t bear to let them go to waste.

She used Alchemy Magic directly to craft them into various spatial rings.

Then she made several single-use Storage Cards, stored all the spatial rings inside them, turning them into Spatial Ring Cards that would yield a spatial ring upon use.

Finally, she placed all these Spatial Ring Cards into the graduation limited-time card pool that hadn’t yet opened, set a very high drop rate, and considered it a gift back to the young witches.

The card-crafting cost for this was very low — it only used the cards’ built-in storage function — and it put all those Spatial Magic gems to good use.

Among them was one Spatial Ring Card containing a hundred-cubic-unit space. Mo Lan did a little behind-the-scenes manipulation on the Magic Light Screen Master Card, ensuring that Mama Shana would definitely draw this card the next time she pulled from the pool.

Whenever she had free time, Mo Lan would check the Magic Light Screen Master Card to see how each Card Magic user was spending — especially their card-drawing habits.

She didn’t bother much with the lucky ones, but certain witches who had abysmal luck yet still loved the card pool deeply, coming back for a few pulls every day — when Mo Lan saw them losing too much, she would do a little behind-the-scenes tweaking and let them win a nice card.

Making every one of them win super expensive cards was beyond her means, but letting them draw a couple of cards they liked that weren’t too costly to produce — that much Mo Lan could manage.

After all, the only Card Magic users right now were witches.

This was essentially an internal beta test for Card Magic.

They were all her own people. When their luck was too terrible, Mo Lan couldn’t bear to just watch.

As for Mama Shana, her luck was also bad, but she didn’t get carried away with card draws — or at least, she only pretended to get carried away.

After the initial novelty wore off, she began drawing cards in a planned manner.

She would only try her luck at the card pool after her Gem Coin storage was maxed out and she had excess daily magical power with nowhere to spend it.

Whenever she drew a card worth more than one Gem Coin, she would make a point of bragging about her good luck in a letter to Mo Lan.

She had clearly come to treat the card pool as a little game to lighten her mood.

Mama Shana had stayed in the Wilds for a while — reportedly secluding herself to study practical Magic from other schools. Not long ago, she’d grown bored of it again, decided that human kingdoms were better for making money, and set off traveling through human kingdoms once more. She was still on the road even now!

Remembering how Mama Shana had recently spent permanent magical power to increase her Gem Coin storage limit again, and thinking of the leather moving bag she’d been using for many years — that was what made Mo Lan decide to give her this card through a card draw.

In truth, Mo Lan’s Golden Bird spell had advanced enough that the golden bird could now deliver small packages for her, not just letters.

It was only because of the Witch Academy’s rules and restrictions that she couldn’t send it directly.

Compared to giving it outright, this method would actually be easier for Mama Shana to accept.

Parent-child relationships among witches were like that — more like friends than mother and daughter.

When young witches were small, the estates left to the Witch Council by elder witches provided the funds for raising them, while the witch mother provided love and care.

Once a young witch entered the Witch Academy, the witch mother let go from then on.

Young witches didn’t need extra support from their witch mothers, and witch mothers didn’t need their children to repay them when they grew up.

A child’s filial devotion and a mother’s sacrifice — among witches, neither was taken for granted.

Just as Mama Shana complained in her letters every time she had bad luck but never once asked Mo Lan to rig things in her favor — if Mo Lan sent the ring directly, Mama Shana would actually refuse it. And even if she did accept, she would probably feel compelled to find an opportunity to give something of equal value in return before she could feel at ease.

But winning something from a card draw was different.

Mo Lan checked — Mama Shana’s luck had been stinky enough lately, drawing nothing but Gem Coin Fragment Cards.

Shana was currently on her way to the next town, having just built up a campfire and set up a temporary camp.

While directing her enchanted cookware to prepare dinner, she opened Card Magic out of habit.

A notification about newly listed spatial-type cards popped up, and her eyes went wide.

“Such huge spaces! Little Moira is getting more and more impressive!”

After her exclamation, Shana checked her Gem Coin balance and felt her heart sink again.

She still hadn’t saved up enough Gem Coins for the old version of the Spatial Card, and now a new version had come out.

Unfortunately, she was on the road right now. Every bit of extra magical power meant extra security — she didn’t dare casually spend permanent magical power to raise her Gem Coin storage limit.

She had a little magical power left over today, not enough to convert into Gem Coins, so it could only go toward card draws.

“Gem Coin Card! Gem Coin Card! Gem Coin Card!”

All Shana wanted was Gem Coin Cards to save up Gem Coins.

After her little prayer, she tapped the draw button. The card pool spat out a card that landed in her hand.

Shana looked down at it and leaped to her feet: “A Spatial Ring Card?! Ahahaha! I have a spatial ring!”

She immediately used the card and received a small spatial ring.

“So pretty!” Wearing it on her finger still didn’t feel secure enough. Shana opened her cowhide bag and rummaged around until she found a pair of gloves, which she pulled on over her hands. “Much better.”

After a while, she realized this made it rather inconvenient to store and retrieve things, so she took the gloves off again.

Half her effort had been for nothing, but she was still absolutely delighted.