Chapter 811 – Three Thousand Mirror Ruins 78

Chapter 811 – Three Thousand Mirror Ruins 78

The moment Mo Lan stepped onto the floor of Hundred Arts Tower’s third level — so polished it could reflect a person’s silhouette — she immediately sensed a spatial fluctuation ripple from beside her.

She turned instinctively and saw the girl who had been sitting next to her at yesterday’s new student registration, having just arrived via teleportation at the same moment.

The instant the girl noticed her, she lowered her head, her hands nervously clutching at the hem of her clothes, looking as though she wished she could shrink right into the wall.

Mo Lan’s eyes lit up, and she greeted her with a radiant smile. “Hi! What a coincidence! We teleported here at almost the same time.”

The girl flinched backward like a startled little rabbit, her head drooping even lower until her face was almost impossible to see, leaving only the slightly reddened tips of her ears visible.

She mumbled an almost inaudible “Mm.”

Looking at her, Mo Lan was reminded of Vasida at the Witch Academy enrollment ceremony all those years ago — except Vasida had been starving, while this classmate seemed to be genuinely socially anxious.

Mo Lan leaned in closer, tilting her head to try to see the girl’s expression. “My name’s Mo Lan. What’s yours?”

“Qu… Qu Luo…” The girl’s voice was as faint as a mosquito’s buzz, as if uttering even one more word would drain every last ounce of her strength.

“Qu Luo? What a lovely name!” Mo Lan praised without missing a beat.

“Th-thank you,” Qu Luo managed.

Watching her look as though she wished she could vanish on the spot, Mo Lan finally couldn’t help but laugh out loud and decided to stop teasing her. “Alright, alright, I’ll stop scaring you. Room 307 is this way, right? Let’s go!”

With that, she took the lead, heading in the direction indicated by the hallway signs.

Qu Luo seemed to have been released from a binding spell. She secretly let out a breath of relief, then hesitantly glanced at Mo Lan’s retreating figure before finally taking small, tentative steps forward. With her head lowered, eyes fixed on Mo Lan’s heels, she followed behind like a little tail — soundlessly, maintaining a careful distance.

The two arrived before a full-length square mirror labeled “Room 307” and passed through the mirror surface one after the other.

Inside was a small room resembling a parlor. A short-haired female teacher who appeared to be around thirty was sitting in one corner of a sofa, sipping tea.

Hearing their arrival, Mei Ye looked up.

Mo Lan quickly greeted her. “Good morning, Instructor!”

Qu Luo followed in a voice as faint as a gnat’s. “G-good morning, Instructor!”

Mei Ye nodded and spoke with brisk economy. “Sit! Materials!”

The two hurried to sit on the side sofa and, almost simultaneously, retrieved their prepared course selection proposals and monthly study plans from their respective mirror emblems, presenting them with both hands.

In the instant they handed them over, both instinctively glanced at what the other was holding — and both froze in surprise at the same moment.

The stack of papers in each of their hands was impressively thick.

Instructor Mei Ye took the materials, and upon seeing the far-beyond-normal thickness, a barely perceptible glimmer of satisfaction crossed her eyes. It seemed both prodigy students had taken this seriously.

However, when she opened the first page and saw Qu Luo’s course selection proposal, that satisfaction instantly froze, transforming into bewilderment. Listed on the proposal, all alone, was a single course — “Dark Ravine Exploration Guidance.”

In the column for her reasoning, written in clear, neat handwriting, was: “The mirror space is the best classroom. Hands-on exploration is the best training.”

Instructor Mei Ye silently pushed her glasses up and raised her eyes toward Qu Luo, who was practically trying to squeeze herself into the gap between the sofa cushions. “…You’re only planning to take this one course?”

Her voice remained steady, but carried unmistakable puzzlement.

Qu Luo gave a nervous nod, her fingers wringing the hem of her clothes with white-knuckled force.

Instructor Mei Ye took a deep breath and suppressed the urge to rub her temples. If not for the fact that Qu Luo had attached an astonishingly detailed monthly study plan — one that precisely scheduled every single hour across this lone guidance course, self-training, and extensive independent exploration of mirror spaces — she truly would have assumed this child simply refused to attend crowded classes because of her social anxiety.

For students in the prodigy class, the school required instructors to grant the maximum degree of freedom, but necessary reminders and responsibilities had to be fulfilled.

She pointed at the course, her tone growing several degrees more serious. “Student Qu Luo, the ‘Dark Ravine’ mirror space is a four-star mirror space! While three-star mirror beasts make up the majority inside, the probability of encountering four-star mirror beasts is far from low! Your current strength is Three-Star Second Stage. Isn’t exploring a four-star mirror space at this point far too reckless?”

The enormous energy gap between three-star and four-star made fighting above one’s level extremely difficult to achieve.

What’s more, a four-star ninth stage was still four-star — and even within the same star level, mirror beasts generally possessed greater combat power than humans.

Yet upon hearing her strength and the risks questioned, Qu Luo — who had kept her head down the entire time — suddenly looked up.

Though her cheeks were still flushed and her eyes didn’t quite dare to meet Mei Ye’s directly, her tone was extraordinarily resolute, carrying an unquestionable confidence. “I can do it!”

Mei Ye studied Qu Luo’s remarkably determined — even somewhat stubborn — gaze, and ultimately said nothing more.

It was only the start of the semester. They still lacked understanding of each other, and excessive interference would do more harm than good. Whether certain arrangements were reasonable was something they needed to experience and hit walls over firsthand before they’d willingly make adjustments.

She merely offered a measured reminder in an even tone. “Remember — act within your limits. If you encounter danger you cannot handle, use the mirror emblem’s emergency teleport-to-school function immediately. Keeping yourself safe comes first.”

Qu Luo nodded emphatically, then quickly lowered her head again, as if that brief flash of confidence had exhausted every last drop of her courage.

Compared to interacting with people, she truly preferred going on a rampage in the mirror spaces.

Mei Ye then picked up Mo Lan’s course selection proposal.

The substantial weight of it in her hand immediately made her heart skip a beat. When she opened the first page and saw the course names packed so densely they covered every inch of space, she instinctively let out a breath of relief — good, at least this child appeared to be humble, studious, and taking a steady approach!

But when she turned the page and found there was more… turned another page, still more… after flipping through page after page, that breath she hadn’t fully released caught right back in her throat, worse than before.

In her decade-plus of teaching, she had never seen a course selection proposal this long! Other students counted their courses by the “class.” This child of Mo Lan’s was practically counting hers by the “page”! The sheer thickness of it — someone could mistake it for an entire course catalog.

Mei Ye pushed her glasses up and scanned the course names in disbelief. She discovered they covered virtually every course related to martial combat, unowned mirror space discovery and exploration, and mirror space management and development — and even included several obscure mirror beast cooking courses.

She raised her head and looked at Mo Lan, incredulity seeping into her voice. “You’ve… selected every single course in the martial combat, unowned mirror space exploration, and Mirror Lord categories?”