Chapter 715 – Dreamweaver World 53

Matina and Leona froze simultaneously, identical expressions of astonishment surfacing on their wrinkled faces.

Matina fared better—she’d been shocked so many times today that she could still barely maintain her composure. Leona, however, was already staring wide-eyed as she sought confirmation: “You… what did you say?”

Mo Lan wore a shy yet resolute smile, her grayish-white fingers gently brushing across each glass bottle one by one. “I said, I want all of these.”

Leona opened her mouth, only to find she couldn’t make a sound.

Matina seized the moment to mask the surprise on her face—she’d already found her own justification.

The white-spotted earthworm shadows were indeed docile and best suited for beginners to practice with, but the little monster before her wasn’t doing this for the first time—she’d already leapt past the beginner stage in one stride before.

She couldn’t very well go back with just white-spotted earthworms, succeed in taming them immediately, and then have to come back to buy something else!

The more she thought about it, the more it made sense. The little monster was wealthy too—buying everything was perfectly normal.

“Nonsense!” Though Leona and Matina were rivals, she wouldn’t do anything to lead a student astray. “Your teacher and I were talented enough back in our day, weren’t we? We both started by properly taming white-spotted earthworms from scratch. No matter how gifted you are, when it comes to taming shadow pets, you can’t just—”

Her words cut off abruptly.

Because Mo Lan had already picked up the bottle containing the white-spotted earthworms, and the Power of Shadow condensed at her fingertips sliced into the bottle like a blade, cleanly severing the shadows of the entire cluster of white-spotted earthworms at their roots.

The mass of shadows collapsed limply in her hand. After a moment, they unexpectedly began to disentangle themselves in an orderly fashion of their own accord, standing upright one by one in her palm and giving a little nod of greeting to both Leona and Matina.

This meant the shadows of these white-spotted earthworms had been completely brought under her control.

Leona was stunned speechless.

She even glanced again at the bottle of white-spotted earthworms in the worm case, suspecting that at some point during handling, the bottles had been swapped and the dead white-spotted earthworms had been placed on the living side.

But… the white-spotted earthworms still writhing inside the bottle told her they were still alive.

An entire bottle of roughly ten white-spotted earthworms, their shadows stripped and tamed in less than a minute, with the original creatures not even fully dead yet.

Even for white-spotted earthworms, this was absurd.

Could anything be more monstrous than this?

Leona asked Matina once more: “She really only converted tribes yesterday? Never studied shadow magic before? Wait… her level…”

“Half an hour ago—that’s when she advanced after her class change,” Matina said.

Honestly, even she found it somewhat unbelievable now. The little monster seemed to find taming white-spotted earthworms even easier than taming a teacup.

This completely defied the principle that “inanimate object shadows are harder to tame than living creature shadows.”

While the two of them were talking, Mo Lan handed the freshly tamed white-spotted earthworm shadows over to her own shadow for unified management, then picked up the bottle of white-spotted earthworms from the dead worm case.

She remembered the task Teacher Matina had just assigned her—to feel the difference between dead and living shadows of the same species of worm.

The Power of Shadow sliced through, and the white-spotted earthworm shadows fell into her hand. After washing them with the Power of Shadow and imprinting her own mark, Mo Lan discovered these shadows weren’t as “clever” as the previous ones. When she commanded them to untangle themselves, line up, and salute, they obeyed, but every action was half a beat too slow, and they didn’t know how to coordinate with each other.

Mo Lan recalled reading in a book that continuously taming your shadow pets with your own Power of Shadow would make them increasingly agile and intelligent. She immediately began taming them with a large amount of Power of Shadow, and after a while, they could finally match the shadows from the first bottle of white-spotted earthworms.

Reflecting on the differences between taming the two bottles of white-spotted earthworms, Mo Lan had an epiphany:

“So that’s how it is. The difficulty of stripping shadows from living worms is slightly greater than from dead ones, but the initial spirituality after successful taming is higher. Dead worm shadows need additional nurturing after initial taming before they can match the spirituality of freshly tamed living worm shadows.

It must be because of willpower! The willpower of living worm shadows is stronger than that of dead worm shadows…”

Mo Lan then selected a bottle of live subterranean worms and a bottle of dead subterranean worms to test. This time she stripped and tamed both bottles simultaneously.

It was slightly slower than before, but still took less than a minute. Both clusters of subterranean worm shadows had been successfully tamed.

Leona was now gripping the edge of the counter for dear life, terrified her legs would give out and she’d collapse to the floor.

Matina kept her face taut, repeatedly commanding her own shadow to stay composed, lest her jaw drop and her old rival notice.

Mo Lan gently prodded the subterranean worm shadows from both the living and dead specimens, the Power of Shadow flowing from her grayish-white fingertips like precision probes, carefully sensing the differences between the two.

“Living worm shadows resist more fiercely during separation, but can execute simple commands immediately after taming.” The living worm shadows in her left hand were nimbly weaving around her fingers. “While dead worm shadows are docile, but in the early stages they’re like puppets…”

As she spoke, the dead worm shadow in her right palm clumsily rolled over, its movements noticeably more sluggish.

A creaking sound came from behind the counter.

Leona’s knuckles had gone white from gripping so hard. At this moment, she was immensely grateful for her eyepatch—at least it could hide one shocked eye.

Matina maintained her dignity on the surface, but in reality was using the Power of Shadow to firmly pin down her own restless shadow, which was shamelessly trying to prostrate itself on the ground in full kowtow.

She tapped her stone cane lightly on the floor to mask her trembling: “Ahem… that’s… passable, I suppose.”

Only Leah first stared with wide eyes, then her lips curled up involuntarily. She secretly flashed a victory sign behind her back, thinking to herself: “With a gap this huge, Mama surely won’t compare me to this monster anymore, right?”

Mo Lan was completely oblivious to the reactions around her, fully absorbed in studying the two sets of subterranean worm shadows. “What if I inject extra Power of Shadow into the dead worm shadows…”

As she murmured, a large amount of Power of Shadow flowed into the shadows in her right hand. Instantly, the previously sluggish shadows sprang to life, and slowly, they too began dancing around her fingers, mimicking the living worm shadows.

“Just as I thought… as long as the later taming is done properly, dead worm shadows can match the spirituality of living worm shadows.”

With this realization, Mo Lan said directly: “Madam Leona, aside from the two bottles I’ve already used, I don’t need any of the other live worms. Just give me the dead ones.”

After all, there was little difference between living and dead ones for her. Everything the living worm side had, the dead worm side had too—and the dead side even had specimens the living side didn’t.

Moreover, the Book of Cards couldn’t use living things as card-crafting materials.

A deathly silence fell over the counter.

Leona collapsed face-first onto the counter, her single eye staring vacantly at the ceiling. “Matina… this apprentice of yours… is she a monster?”