Chapter 821 – Three Thousand Mirror Ruins 88

Several years slipped quietly away amid one exploration after another.

On this particular day, Mo Lan had just successfully claimed ownership of a newly discovered, resource-rich large mirror space. She was preparing to do as she had done before—silently teleport back to the Golden Oasis and head to the next location marked by a bargain-priced information tag—when she unexpectedly discovered that the Golden Oasis mirror space had rejected her entry.

The spatial barrier firmly blocked her out.

A chill ran through Mo Lan’s heart. Something occurred to her, and she hurriedly rolled up her sleeve to look at the mirror emblem on her arm—the one that had accompanied her all this time.

Sure enough!

The originally pure-purple star mirror emblem had, at some point, acquired a distinct ring of cyan along its edges!

She immediately recalled what was written in the 《Mirror Emblem User Manual》: a cyan star mirror emblem denoted an honorary graduate, while a star with cyan edges signified an ordinary graduate.

Mirror Ruins University’s program lasted only five years. Once the five years were up, regardless of where students were or whether they had completed their studies, they would automatically graduate.

After graduation, a student’s status changed to alumni. While they could theoretically still remain at the school to study, all benefits were drastically reduced.

Fees for school dormitories, use of the library space, elective courses, and other services would skyrocket.

More importantly, the mirror emblem’s teleportation function and free exploration access to the school’s affiliated mirror spaces would be revoked.

At the same time, the student mirror emblem coordinates held by the school’s logistics office would be completely destroyed upon graduation. From that point on, the mirror emblem’s space would become entirely the graduate’s private storage space, fully decoupled from the school’s logistics office.

“It’s already… time to graduate?”

Mo Lan stroked the fresh ring of cyan on her mirror emblem, murmuring softly, a hint of dazed wonder in her voice.

When she had first entered the Golden Oasis, she had done so as an enrolled student with free access, able to stay and explore indefinitely.

But now, as a graduate, she would either need to return to the school’s Mirror Hall and purchase an expensive time-limited exploration pass to enter the Golden Oasis again, or she would need to go back and apply for a teaching position—school faculty could naturally use the school’s mirror space resources for free.

Mo Lan deliberated only briefly before making her decision: forget it.

Returning to teach would certainly grant her convenience, but teaching duties would consume vast amounts of her precious time and energy. The Three Thousand Mirror Ruins World was, after all, merely a place where she was staying temporarily.

And purchasing a pass was not only troublesome—more critically, a graduate who had been “missing” for several years suddenly reappearing would be difficult to explain. What had she been doing all this time? It would easily attract unwanted attention.

“Fortunately, the gains from these past few years have already far exceeded expectations.”

Mo Lan surveyed the vibrant, newly claimed mirror space, feeling little regret.

Taking stock, she had now successfully taken control of five mirror spaces: the small mirror spaces were the moss-covered forest and Ember Valley; the medium mirror spaces were Cat Paw Wilderness and Shattered Star Bay; and the large mirror space was the Verdant Forest Sea.

Among them, only the Verdant Forest Sea before her could be called a resource-rich mirror space. The other mirror spaces didn’t contain many high-value mirror beasts or magical material resources.

Since she no longer planned to exit through the Golden Oasis route, her next priority would be dealing with these mirror spaces she had already acquired.

Mo Lan first teleported to Ember Valley, the most barren and resource-poor of her spaces. There, she set down a large number of empty beast cages she had prepared in advance, creating a temporary relocation site.

Then she began shuttling between the mirror spaces under her control, capturing various mirror beasts.

Although her Book of Cards could already craft all the materials found on these mirror beasts, living mirror beasts themselves were crucial for maintaining a space’s ecological balance and vitality.

She selected carefully, capturing several pairs of each species to ensure they could reproduce in their new environment.

Only after completing this massive “migration” project did Mo Lan summon the Book of Cards.

She removed her spiritual imprints from the space cores of the moss-covered forest, Cat Paw Wilderness, Shattered Star Bay, and the Verdant Forest Sea one by one, then tossed each into the Book of Cards as card-crafting materials.

After finishing all of this, Mo Lan attempted to craft cards.

【Card Design: Moss-Covered Forest Mirror Space】

【Estimated Mana Cost: 1,010,232,934,234 Mana】

【Estimated Appearance: Appearance Template 1】

【Estimated Function: Small mirror space, no vegetation】

.

【Card Design: Cat Paw Wilderness Mirror Space】

【Estimated Mana Cost: 10,020,394,845,955 Mana】

【Estimated Appearance: Appearance Template 1】

【Estimated Function: Medium mirror space, no vegetation】

【Current Difficulty: Severely insufficient card-crafting energy…】

.

【Card Design: Verdant Forest Sea Mirror Space】

【Estimated Mana Cost: 100,029,384,984,445 Mana】

【Estimated Appearance: Appearance Template 1】

【Estimated Function: Large mirror space, no vegetation】

【Current Difficulty: Severely insufficient card-crafting energy…】

Mo Lan had only done a simple design based on the original size and terrain of each mirror space, yet the terrifying Mana costs had already stunned her.

She had originally assumed that with roughly three trillion nine hundred billion Mana worth of disposable Mana saved up, crafting a large mirror space might be somewhat difficult, but crafting a medium mirror space should pose no problem.

She hadn’t expected that even crafting a medium mirror space card would leave her severely short on energy.

She didn’t dare imagine what the consumption would look like if she tried to replicate the complete ecological chain, all the vegetation, and the planned Dream Chronodisk time-altering ability into the mirror space. The cost would be absolutely horrifying.

“It seems I can only make a small mirror space for now.” Mo Lan sighed.

She quickly adjusted her card design plan.

Since she couldn’t pursue grandeur in spatial area, she would push diversity and intricacy to the extreme.

She decided to merge the distinctive ecological environments of her several mirror spaces together, creating a small mirror space with exceptionally rich ecological terrain.

The fundamental spatial rules would be modeled after the most stable and energy-rich space—the Verdant Forest Sea.

The center of the space would follow the layout of the moss-covered forest: a tranquil large pond, with a small patch of green moss meadow beside it where the Moss-Forest Guardian could take root in the future.

Beside the pond, large stretches of sun-drenched open fields would be reserved for her future magical plant garden.

The outer ring of the space would be the ecological zone, divided by a thin but sturdy layer of spatial barriers into multiple small ecological areas of varying sizes, each replicating one of the distinctive terrains from the mirror spaces she possessed.

Towering mountains, rolling hills, pristine snowpeaks, romantic bays, open grasslands, deep forests… Each area would be modest in size, but would strive to be distinctive and vivid.

Finally—and most importantly—there was her home.

Mo Lan produced a Witch’s home blueprint. She had been designing it ever since arriving in the Three Thousand Mirror Ruins.

It was the kind she loved—a fairy-tale witch-style house with a pointed roof.

Mo Lan placed it beside the large pond at the center of the mirror space.

(End of Chapter)