Chapter 789 – Three Thousand Mirror Ruins 56

Chapter 789 – Three Thousand Mirror Ruins 56

Over the time that followed, Yan Shuang continued putting Mo Lan through targeted, high-intensity martial arts training, with every movement and every exertion of force held to near-exacting standards.

By the time classes ended, Mo Lan practically dragged her body—on the verge of falling apart—out of the training grounds.

But her mood was excellent.

Not only was her mind packed full of combat techniques waiting to be digested, but her control over her body had also improved significantly.

The feeling of gradually growing stronger was utterly intoxicating.

After resting for the night, Mo Lan set out early the next morning with the unlimited exploration pass that Teacher Yan Shuang had given her, heading to the public teleportation hall to take the teleportation array to the Mirror Exploration Center in the city.

Morning sunlight streamed through the Mirror Exploration Center’s enormous glass dome, spilling across the bustling Great Hall.

The moment Mo Lan stepped inside, she was engulfed by the clamor of voices and a mixture of scents.

Ahead, an enormous light screen hovered in midair, scrolling through all manner of tasks—from emergency summons to exterminate beast hordes, to recruitment notices for team expeditions into mirror spaces, to miscellaneous commissions for purchasing magical materials. Everything one could imagine was there!

Mirror Explorers in various colored combat suits gathered beneath the bulletin boards, carefully sifting through tasks suited to their strength, murmuring to each other, comparing rewards, or hurrying toward the mirror space teleportation halls.

Mo Lan even spotted a squad that had just emerged from some mirror space—all of them bearing wounds, travel-worn and dusty, cutting quickly through the crowd toward the appraisal area.

A long queue stretched outside the star-rating assessment station. From time to time, someone would excitedly squeeze out of the crowd clutching a newly upgraded badge, while others left looking dejected.

Deep within the Great Hall lay a corridor, with teleportation halls housing portals to different mirror spaces lining both sides.

Moss Stone Forest, Water-Eroded Caverns, Howling Wind Canyon, Frost Snow Corridor, Lava Fissure… Low-star mirror spaces were the majority, with only one each for the six-star and seven-star mirror spaces.

Still, even the smallest was a medium-sized mirror space.

Mo Lan walked along, looking as she went, and finally stopped outside the teleportation hall at the very end of the corridor.

“Gushing Spring Forest Sea teleportation hall… found it!”

Mo Lan walked into the teleportation hall and saw a gateway constructed from some kind of deep blue crystal. The doorframe was carved with intricate patterns of vines and water ripples, and within the portal swirled a rotating, profound azure vortex.

Two staff members stood guard at the teleportation gate, attending to Mirror Explorers purchasing temporary passes.

When it was Mo Lan’s turn, one of the staff members pointed routinely at the price board nearby and asked, “What kind of pass would you like?”

On the price board, even the cheapest one-week temporary exploration pass cost ten thousand mirror coins.

Mo Lan presented the silver-edged small mirror that Teacher Yan Shuang had given her.

The staff member’s formulaic expression froze the instant his fingertips touched the mirror’s surface. He jerked his head up, scrutinizing the pass with disbelief, then looked up again at Mo Lan’s absurdly young face, his eyes filled with shock and uncertainty.

He recognized that this pass was different. His tone instantly became supremely respectful, even tinged with a hint of alarm and concern: “Are you certain you want to use this pass to enter? The Gushing Spring Forest Sea is a seven-star mirror space! Once you go in, your life is your own responsibility.”

He shot a glance behind Mo Lan—empty. No sign of an experienced guardian, no companions. Just a young girl whose psychic power fluctuations appeared to be at the one-star level.

Disapproval was written all over his face. He suspected this was some clueless young lady from a prominent family who had stolen her elder’s treasure and snuck out to go adventuring.

He wanted to earnestly persuade her to go home, yet didn’t dare risk offending whatever the pass represented.

Several Mirror Explorers nearby who were preparing to enter cast surprised and probing glances, whispering among themselves.

“An unlimited pass? Which family’s young lady is that?” “Never seen her before… and her power level is way too low…”

“If she can get her hands on something like that, her background must be anything but simple…”

Mo Lan was completely deaf to the surrounding chatter. “I’m sure! If there’s no issue, may I go in?”

“Y-yes… you may.” The staff member’s face went pale, all his words of warning swallowed back down.

“Please do be careful!” In the moment before Mo Lan stepped through the portal, the staff member couldn’t help but add one last line, his face written over with the anxiety of “please don’t let anything go wrong.”

Mo Lan’s figure didn’t pause for even an instant, vanishing completely into the teleportation gate.

After a brief sensation of spatial distortion, an extraordinarily rich scent—a mixture of earth, rotting leaves, clear water, and some strange floral fragrance—rushed to meet her.

What followed immediately was dense magical energy.

The energy density far exceeded her imagination. Whether it was the world of Valen or the Dreamweaver World, compared to what she felt at this moment, their energy seemed thin and dim.

Mo Lan estimated that an ordinary person in this secret realm would probably struggle to even breathe under the pressure of such dense magical energy.

But for a spellcaster who could control magical energy, an environment like this would be like a fish in water.

She carefully sensed the composition of the energy.

The magical energy dancing in the air was dominated by three forces at their most vast and magnificent: the nourishing water elemental force, the vibrant wood elemental force, and the life-sustaining power of life.

These three forces intertwined and permeated everything, filling the entire space with a moist, fresh, and endlessly vital atmosphere.

“This must be what the legendary Elven Woods looks like…”

Everywhere she looked, towering ancient trees rose from the ground, their canopies so high they seemed to support another world entirely. Sunlight struggled through layer upon layer of branches and leaves, forming distinct pillars of light in the thin mist of water vapor that permeated the air.

Beneath her feet lay a thick, soft carpet of moss and fallen leaves, utterly silent underfoot.

In the air she could hear the faint sound of flowing water in the distance, along with all manner of strange birdsong and insect calls she had never heard before.

Everything here appeared enormous and ancient, with thriving vitality that also harbored hidden dangers.

Mo Lan immediately suppressed her aura entirely. Her first move was to activate Glimmer Phantom, creating a motionless illusory copy of herself that remained in place while her true body swiftly and silently slipped behind the shadow of an enormous fern. She vigilantly surveyed her surroundings, and only after confirming there were no other intelligent beings nearby did she take out a bottle of transformation potion and drink it down.

For this trip to the Gushing Spring Forest Sea, she needed not only to collect beast cores from various mirror beasts and analyze the skill imprints within them, but also to properly train and improve herself—both in terms of magic and martial arts.

When she encountered mirror beasts, if she could fight them with martial techniques, she would use martial techniques.

If martial techniques weren’t enough, she would use Witch Magic.

She would try to fight using power equal to or even slightly below that of the mirror beasts, so that both her martial techniques and her Witch Magic could be honed through combat.

By transforming into a different appearance, no one would connect her to that middle school student “Mo Lan” in the outside world. Even if she encountered other Mirror Explorers in the Gushing Spring Forest Sea, she wouldn’t need to be timid or worry about her identity being exposed.