Chapter 414 – Uli’s Bubbles

Uli’s turtle shell was far larger than it appeared.

They had merely drawn close, not yet landed, when the shell suddenly expanded enormously in their field of vision.

What had originally looked like a cramped space that could barely fit their few tents suddenly became remarkably spacious, like a small island.

Celia’s little cottage had also transformed into a grand manor.

The shift in perspective happened in an instant, startling Mo Lan and the others into braking their brooms and looking around.

The surrounding lakeshore and grasslands all seemed to have grown larger too.

“No, it’s us who’ve gotten smaller!” Lilith said.

Mo Lan gazed down at the shell below. “I can sense spatial elemental force. Is Uli a space-type magical beast?”

“She should count as a dual-type magical beast of water and space. The space on her shell seamlessly merges with the surrounding environment, so when you first enter it, it feels like the shell and everything around it has suddenly grown larger. Once she goes underwater, you’ll be able to see the boundaries of the space much more clearly.”

As soon as Celia finished speaking, Uli began sinking into the water.

Mo Lan and the others hurried to land.

The lake water parted, yet did not flood onto the shell.

Above the shell, there seemed to be an inverted bowl-shaped barrier separating the lake water.

That must be the boundary of the shell-space Celia had mentioned.

As Uli sank to the lake bottom, the surrounding light gradually dimmed.

Then the patterns on the shell began to emit a warm yellow fluorescence, illuminating the entire shell as bright as daylight.

But Mo Lan and the others paid no attention to the shell’s changes. Their gazes were all fixed on the bubbles of varying sizes scattered across the lake bottom.

The largest were about the size of Uli’s head, while the smallest were only about the size of a basketball.

Every single bubble, just like the barrier on the shell, contained water elemental force and spatial elemental force, with small fish swimming around inside.

Mo Lan even spotted coral and oceanic magical beasts inside some of the bubbles — things that should only exist at the bottom of the sea.

Considering the space on the shell, these bubbles and the aquatic plants and fish within them were probably far larger than they appeared.

“Lady Celia, are these the fish you raise?” Mo Lan asked curiously.

“That’s right! There are ones from the sea, from rivers and lakes, and even from underground dark waters. The ones that can’t adapt to the water environment of Emerald Creek Plains are all kept in Uli’s bubbles. The internal space of each bubble varies in size, each with a different water environment.”

Celia said, “Uli, float the bubbles over here for Moira to choose!”

Uli took a deep breath, and the bubbles obediently gathered over.

Mo Lan gave them a general look — eight or nine out of ten were aquatic creatures she had seen in books. The remaining ones were probably species not native to Valen.

Each one practically qualified as its own underwater ecosystem sphere.

Mo Lan didn’t hold back either, taking one sample of each kind as card-making material for the Book of Cards.

She didn’t even spare the underwater plants.

This collection of aquatic life was so comprehensive and immensely useful to her — it saved her the trouble of collecting them one by one.

Though she only took one sample of each kind, with so many bubbles and so many fish, shrimp, and aquatic plants, the total number added up to quite a lot.

Mo Lan also secretly slipped Uli a large-capacity {Food Card — Herring Can} as thanks.

On Uli’s back, there was no need to worry about safety either.

They simply placed their tents on the shell and that was that — no need to set up magic circles, Burrowing Mushrooms, or anything else.

It was already very late, and Celia, thinking that the young witches still needed sufficient sleep to maintain their energy, didn’t disturb them further.

After Mo Lan and the others each returned to their tents, they all rolled up their tent windows without prior agreement.

Pale blue bubbles drifted through the dark lake bottom, looking extraordinarily dreamlike.

Against the backdrop of the lake-bottom scenery, those who wanted to read read their books, those who wanted to study magic studied magic. When tired, they meditated for a while, then continued.

Celia no longer needed to sleep every day. Nighttime was the same as daytime for her.

Especially since she lived at the bottom of a lake — there was virtually no distinction between day and night.

She organized and digested the gains from her last trip to the Well of the Sky for a while, but soon grew bored and restless. She went over to Uli’s head. “Uli, gather the bubbles over — let me feed the fish!”

Uli’s head stiffened, and she didn’t move.

“???” Celia poked Uli’s head in puzzlement. “What’s wrong with you? Did you fall asleep?”

Uli imperceptibly puffed her cheeks, accidentally blowing out a small air bubble. The bubble drifted into the space above the shell and burst, and Celia immediately caught a whiff of a familiar stench.

“…” Celia instantly covered her nose. “U! Li! Why are you eating herring cans again?!”

Fortunately, relative to the space on the shell, the little bubble was too small. Once the smell dispersed, it wasn’t quite so unbearable.

Now she certainly didn’t dare have Uli gather the bubbles over for her to feed the fish.

When Uli gathered and dispersed bubbles, she needed to inhale and exhale.

One opening of that mouth could pollute the entire lake, and the last thing Celia needed was to have to move.

“From now on, if you want to eat those, go eat them above the surface! And stop exhaling onto the shell!”

With that, Celia didn’t linger near Uli’s head any longer — she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a lingering odor here.

She walked toward her house with a look of utter disgust. As she walked, she suddenly caught a glimpse of light spilling from the tents.

“Hm? Moira and the others still aren’t asleep?”

Celia tiptoed over and, peering through the tent windows, saw Mo Lan and Lilith reading, and Sylph and Vasida crafting magical items.

She counted on her fingers with a somewhat existential sense of doubt. “They just graduated this year, just turned eighteen, right? Even if their mana rank is already Peak level, surely that doesn’t mean they don’t need to sleep at all?”

She suddenly felt that as a senior, idling about with nothing to do was a bit hard to justify.

She hurried back to her house to continue organizing her gains from last time.

In the morning, Celia used Culinary Magic to prepare her best breakfast, then went to call Mo Lan and the others.

Seeing them all looking bright-eyed and full of energy, Celia couldn’t help asking, “You didn’t sleep at all last night, did you? Do young sorceresses really need even less sleep than witches?”

Lilith looked at Vasida and Sylph. “You two didn’t sleep either?”

“You didn’t sleep either?” Vasida asked back at the same time.

With all her companions being so diligent, Mo Lan felt quite gratified and introduced to Celia, “We learned the meditation technique of human mages, using meditation as a substitute for sleep. Would you be interested in learning? We have 《Sky Meditation》, which is quite suitable for witches!”

Celia shook her head vigorously. “You have no idea how many pleasures I’ve lost since I started only needing to sleep once every ten days to half a month!”

The reason she could stay at the bottom of the lake and not leave for so many years wasn’t because she was a homebody — it was because she visited the Well of the Sky so frequently.

Every time she went exploring in other worlds, she was brimming with passion, but when she came back to digest her gains, she dragged her feet endlessly.

She had been like this since childhood.

But then again, witches had long natural lifespans to begin with, so taking it slow didn’t really matter.