Chapter 382 – The Witch Merchant

At the bonfire market, nearly every witch had opened their Card Magic to examine this free card.

“Moira, let’s find a spacious spot where it’s easier to talk,” Lilith said. “There are bound to be lots of witches with questions about the profit sharing. They’ll come looking for you. After all, nobody knows how big the profit margins on your cards are — even a ten percent cut could mean everyone earns more than before.”

Mo Lan nodded in agreement. “Let’s go to the meadow where we landed earlier. It’s spacious there.”

“Oh my goodness! It’s a free bonus card! The Goblin Sorceress is finally giving out freebies! Hmm… let me try it with this season’s Black Mud Petit Fours first!”

“It worked! It actually tastes exactly like the ones I make! This is way too convenient!”

Mo Lan and Lilith paused mid-step and looked back. Not far away, beside a pink bonfire stall, Lady Kira was fiddling with the cards.

Even knowing that the intellectual property royalty was fixed at only ten percent of profit, Lady Kira had gone ahead and bound the card and started producing them without hesitation.

“Lady Kira graduated early, back before there were math classes,” Lilith said. “She probably hasn’t even processed what ten percent profit actually means.”

“Mama! Mama! I turned my treasured {Cumin-Spiced Roasted Red-Eyed Bird Wings} into a card — hurry up and buy one so I can see how much I earn!”

“Oh my goodness! I can earn this much from a single wing!”

“That’s nothing — with one Black Mud Petit Four, I used to earn just a few ordinary silver coins making them by hand. Now I’m earning Gem Coins!”

“And the Gem Coins you earn from selling cards can be stored infinitely in the Management Card!”

……

“…” Lilith asked, “Iris’s math grades are awful, aren’t they?”

“Probably bad enough to earn her a remedial workbook. Good thing math questions didn’t make up a large portion of this graduation exam,” Mo Lan said.

It wasn’t just Iris and Lady Kira who had quickly embraced the Management Card. At the bonfire market, some witches had already begun hawking their new cards using the Amplification Spell!

Plenty of witches came looking for Mo Lan too, but not to ask about profit margins — they came to thank her, or to ask why their custom-designed cards hadn’t passed Card Magic’s review process.

Lady Aeltis’s shrewdness turned out to be the exception rather than the rule.

Although the Management Card’s popularity had exceeded her expectations, Mo Lan couldn’t bring herself to feel happy about it at all.

Witches were insensitive to numbers to a truly alarming degree!

She had already quietly increased the drop rate of {Practice Quiz Card -Mo Lan《Basic Mathematics》} in the card pool. Even if it cost her Mana, she had to get these witches to cram some math.

Iris, who had just earned 3 Gem Coins selling cards and immediately rushed to pull from the limited-time graduation card pool before it expired, gazed expectantly at her newly drawn cards — and her expression froze:

“{Practice Quiz Card – 《Basic Mathematics》} ×2? {Practice Quiz Card – 《Earth’s Business Encyclopedia》}?”

Help — how could anyone get such an absurd pull?

Kira glanced over and immediately burst out laughing without a shred of politeness. “Hahaha! Don’t you always write in your letters saying you can’t learn math? I hear these Practice Quiz Cards are really helpful for studying — they’re perfect for you!”

Seeing her mother laugh so brazenly, Iris felt a surge of wicked courage. “Since Mama likes them so much, let me give you one! These Practice Quiz Cards are reusable anyway — one person definitely doesn’t need two!”

With a Practice Quiz Card shoved into her hands, Kira’s laughter faltered.

Back when her daughter had written home complaining about math, she’d been curious enough to go to the Witch Council Library and copy a few math books to read.

And then… she’d gotten so fed up with those pages taking up space that she’d torn them out and replaced them with cookbooks.

Some witches were simply born to study pastry-making and nothing else.

“Pfft!” Lilith couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

Iris whipped around to look at them, then charged toward the pair in a fury. “Ah! Moira! Why are there so many Practice Quiz Cards in the pool?! Did you rig it?!”

“Aren’t they perfect for you?” Mo Lan said. “If you’re planning to open a shop on the Dragons’ Delicacy Island, you really need to brush up on your math. I hear Dragons are the greediest of all, and they even have Goblin financial advisors. You don’t want to run a shop there for a few hundred years only to end up owing the Dragons money.”

Iris was startled. “Is that true?!”

She gripped the {Practice Quiz Card – 《Basic Mathematics》} and {Practice Quiz Card – 《Earth’s Business Encyclopedia》} tightly in her hands.

Mo Lan gave a soft “Mm,” then grabbed Lilith and hurried deeper into the bonfire market.

After they left, Kira said with a puzzled look, “The Dragons and the Goblins are working together? Since when? How have I never heard about this? Dragons have always been too proud for that — it doesn’t make sense!”

Iris finally caught on. “Mo! Lan! You tricked me again!”

Mo Lan and Lilith were already long gone.

“Moira! Over here!”

Beside a modest little campfire, Cheryl and a brown-haired witch were waving them over.

“Is that Cheryl’s mother? I don’t think I’ve seen her in Witch’s Town — she must have just come back,” Lilith whispered.

Mo Lan took Lilith’s hand and walked over. “Cheryl, this is…?”

“Hello, I’m Fayeth,” the witch said.

“My mother is a witch merchant. She wanted to meet you two,” Cheryl added.

Fayeth nodded and gestured to the picnic blanket beside the campfire. “I brought all of this back from beyond the Wilds. See if anything catches your eye.”

The items were numerous and jumbled, but they definitely carried the distinctive character of many foreign races.

Mo Lan and Lilith crouched down curiously to look through them.

Lilith had just picked up a tooth pendant that felt strangely familiar when she heard Fayeth introduce it:

“This is the Vampires’ most precious treasure. Wear it, and if you’re lucky, it’ll make Vampires wary of you. If you’re unlucky, it’ll attract their hatred.”

“That amazing?” Lilith said in surprise. “Vampire teeth have that kind of effect?”

“Of course!” Fayeth said. “Just one standard-weight silver coin! Witches don’t swindle witches — everything I sell is the real deal!”

Mo Lan glanced at the tooth in Lilith’s hand — not a trace of magical fluctuation whatsoever. She hadn’t planned on saying anything, but seeing that Lilith was genuinely intrigued by Fayeth’s description and about to buy it, she couldn’t help but speak up:

“I think anyone would feel wary and angry if they saw their own kin’s teeth being worn on someone else’s chest, wouldn’t they?”

This was clearly just a tooth from the lowest-ranking Vampire — it didn’t even qualify as a magical material. Charging one standard-weight silver coin for it was already steep.

Though factoring in the cost of threading the tooth into a pendant and transporting it back from beyond the Wilds, the price wasn’t outrageously unreasonable.

“Witches don’t swindle witches” was true enough, and the goods were indeed genuine — but there was definitely some exploitation of novelty-seeking psychology and exaggerated marketing going on.

Fayeth looked at Mo Lan with a hint of appreciation. “Well said. All the tooth accessories have a similar effect, you know!”