Chapter 812 – Three Thousand Mirror Ruins 79

Chapter 812 – Three Thousand Mirror Ruins 79

Mei Ye did a rough mental calculation. “If you add up the class hours for all these courses, they’d more than fill five whole years! Are you planning to never set foot outside the school and get real combat experience in the mirror spaces?”

This was the complete opposite extreme—preparing to drown herself entirely in a sea of theory.

Mo Lan shook her head. She had her reasons prepared well in advance. “Teacher, I checked carefully—all of these courses offer a ‘private instruction’ mode. At my learning speed, by conservative estimate, I should be able to finish them all before graduation.”

She paused, then added, “Besides, once I leave the school, there will be plenty of opportunities to explore mirror spaces. But the chance to study these courses so systematically would be nearly impossible to find again.”

Unowned mirror spaces were her true objective. The owned mirror spaces within the school held limited appeal for her—the mirror beast materials from those could easily be obtained through trade.

But the knowledge available at this school? Miss this chance, and it would be gone for good.

“…” Mei Ye felt this child was speaking pure fantasy.

With that many courses, even just sitting through each one once would require a staggering investment of time and energy. How could she possibly finish them all? Let alone actually master that knowledge!

But she had to admit—Mo Lan’s judgment of the courses’ value was spot-on. These were indeed areas of knowledge that would be extremely difficult to acquire systematically after leaving the school.

In the end, Mei Ye could only offer the same reminder she had given Qu Luo: “…If you find the course load far exceeds what you can handle, remember to make choices and cut back in time. Biting off more than you can chew helps no one.”

She then picked up Mo Lan’s monthly study schedule, and froze once again—in stark contrast to that thick stack of course selection forms, the study schedule was just a single thin page. The arrangements on it were absurdly simple, practically summed up in one sentence: attend classes during all daytime hours, go to the library space to borrow relevant books after class, and return to the dormitory at night to study independently.

Time for rest, cultivation, and meals was nowhere to be seen on this schedule—presumably to be squeezed in wherever possible.

Mei Ye looked at the two students before her. One couldn’t wait to put down roots in the mirror spaces and never come back—the moment her guidance session ended, her entire schedule revolved around mirror space exploration and adventure. The other couldn’t wait to set up permanent camp at the school and never leave, overflowing with desire for knowledge, either in class or on the way to borrow books from the library.

The two prodigies of this year’s youth class had gone to two diametrically opposite extremes.

She rubbed her temples, feeling that her future mentoring work would likely be anything but easy.

Fortunately, though, these two students were in the same cohort—similar in age and similar in ability. They could sharpen each other perfectly.

“Your plans and priorities are completely different. Each has its merits, but each also has its blind spots.

Theoretical knowledge needs real combat to test and internalize. Practical experience also needs theory to synthesize and refine.

Here’s what we’ll do—from now on, the two of you will have a formal sparring match once every month.”

“Sure!” Mo Lan was eager to try.

Qu Luo, however, looked as if she had just heard something utterly terrifying. Her head shook like a rattle drum, her hands waving frantically. “N-no… Teacher… I…”

Mei Ye simply took Qu Luo’s protest as a matter of personality and ignored it. “This isn’t a suggestion—it’s a requirement. You can choose the school’s public training rooms for the venue, and I will be present to supervise.

The purpose is to let you verify what you’ve each learned and discover your own weaknesses.

Mo Lan, the things you learn in the classroom need to be honed through real confrontation. Qu Luo, the experience you accumulate in the mirror spaces also needs to be properly digested.”

Qu Luo: “!!!”

Help! she screamed silently inside. The teacher didn’t understand at all!

She only knew how to blow enemies’ heads apart—she had no idea how to spar with a classmate!

What if… what if she couldn’t control her strength? What if she instinctively used a killing move? Just imagining that scene filled her with suffocating panic.

Looking at Mo Lan’s thoroughly enthusiastic expression, then sensing Teacher Mei Ye’s unyielding resolve, Qu Luo felt herself drowning in an ocean of despair. She wanted nothing more than to dig a hole in the ground right then and there and bury herself completely, never having to face the “disaster” that awaited her in one month’s time.

The mirror surface of Classroom 307 rippled once more, and Mo Lan and Qu Luo emerged one after the other.

Mo Lan’s steps were light and brisk, already planning to contact her course instructors and schedule her class times.

Qu Luo, trailing behind her, looked as though every ounce of life force had been drained from her body. Her steps were heavy, her small face crestfallen, an aura of visible low pressure and anxiety hanging around her—as if she hadn’t just finished an orientation session, but had been sentenced to a one-month suspended “prison term.”

Just as Qu Luo was drowning in her deep dread of the future “sparring match,” Mo Lan, walking ahead, suddenly slowed her pace and turned around.

“Hey, Qu Luo! When you go to the mirror spaces, the mirror beast materials you hunt and the magical plants you collect—could you sell some to me? I’m super interested in studying those things!”

She had just caught a glimpse of Qu Luo’s course selection form and knew she was very interested in exploring mirror spaces. Mo Lan happened to need someone who could supply her with materials.

The proposal instantly pulled Qu Luo out of her “sparring nightmare,” if only briefly.

Sell materials?

Qu Luo, who had been keeping her head down the entire time, instinctively raised her gaze just slightly at these words. She stole a quick glance at Mo Lan, then immediately lowered her eyes again, giving a tiny nod and letting out a barely audible “Mm.”

Seeing her agree, Mo Lan’s smile grew even brighter. “Then it’s a deal! Here’s to a great partnership!”

“I’m heading back to the dorm now.”

Without even waiting for Mo Lan to respond—not daring to look at her a moment longer—Qu Luo fumbled to activate her mirror emblem’s teleportation function.

Whoosh!

A spatial ripple flashed and vanished, and her figure disappeared from the spot in an instant.

“…She sure runs fast.” Mo Lan looked at the empty corridor and couldn’t help but chuckle and shake her head.

This new classmate’s level of social anxiety truly exceeded her imagination.

Still, securing a stable source of materials was an unexpected bonus.

In high spirits, Mo Lan also activated her mirror emblem and returned to her own dormitory.

The moment she was back, she threw herself into her intensive “semester preparations.”

She moved a desk right next to the mailbox in the Teleportation Room, and following the classroom mailbox addresses noted after each course, she wrote letters one by one to the instructors of every course she intended to take, requesting to schedule class times.

Since many new students were probably still familiarizing themselves with the school and the peak course selection period hadn’t arrived yet, the teachers’ replies came back remarkably quickly.

Mo Lan filled each confirmed class time into her schedule, fitting them together like puzzle pieces, precisely filling every available daytime slot.

When she finally set down her pen, she looked at the densely packed schedule with barely any gaps between entries and nodded in satisfaction.

“Done!” She let out a long breath and leaned back in her chair.

For the next week’s daytime hours, she would be moving between different classrooms and training grounds, engaging in one-on-one intensive study sessions with each of her instructors.