Chapter 779: Peaceful Daily Life and Uncertain Accidents
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 779: Peaceful Daily Life and Uncertain Accidents
Witch Academy.
"Senior Sister Yi Rui, I’m sorry to disturb you at a time like this, but I feel like something is wrong with my body. The changes from the Mana-fied Body Cultivation method are starting to slip beyond my control..."
Tan Han had contacted Yi Rui directly via communication. As soon as the connection was established, she cut straight to the point to explain her situation.
Yi Rui immediately pressed for details.
"Is it serious? Did an accident happen? Or is it..."
"Oh no, it’s not that. It’s just... a very strange feeling. It feels like I’m on the verge of success, but I don’t know what to do next. If I keep going like this, I feel like all my previous efforts will go to waste."
"That feeling?"
Yi Rui was somewhat surprised. She had experienced this herself—it was the sensation one felt when constructing the internal Self-Generated Mana shaping ritual. She had experienced that particular kind of failure more than once.
"Relax, that’s a very common occurrence during the shaping process. Didn't Xiao Han mention this to you? By the way, have you tried contacting her?"
"I tried, but her status on the Academy Network is offline. Xiao Han might be off-campus or in some special isolated space... I might be able to reach her through the connection channel of the Great Knowledge Seed, but..."
"Xiao Tan, your body is what’s important! Why don't you leave a message for Xiao Han? Maybe... she’s off grinding and out-competing us again... I’ll head over to the laboratory to check things out. Is it convenient for you to come over? Or should I come to you?"
"My body is fine; it’s just that the progress of the Mana-fied Body Cultivation has hit a snag. I’ll head to the lab too." Tan Han shook her head, indicating she was alright.
And she truly was fine. Even if the worst happened, she could save herself by stripping away the mana source—a self-rescue technique one had to learn before practicing the Mana-fied Body Cultivation method. However, to this day, no one had ever needed to use it.
After hanging up the phone, Tan Han let out a sigh.
She was currently the primary experimental subject, the one undergoing the full Mana-fied Body Cultivation experiment, simply because she was a Child of Destiny who could bring good luck.
But she knew better than anyone that she was just like any ordinary person. The luck talent granted by her status—the Spirit Eye that could see through Luck—wasn't helping much here.
Once this experiment was over, perhaps she could fulfill that promise. She reached into her storage equipment and pulled out a business card once more. Within the vision of her Spirit Eye, a thread of Luck was tethered to this card.
The name on the card was... Teryx Destiny.
The witch who called herself a Luck Alchemist.
That witch had taught her many truths and had helped dissolve many of her prejudices regarding luck.
The most important lesson was simply not to compare oneself to others.
Take Xiao Han, for example. When someone has the resolve to sever the Ley Line Shackles, their heart is already higher than the heavens; they are destined to soar in much higher realms.
As for herself... in the words of the witch Teryx, she was merely performing a form of resistance through escapism.
True resistance should be like Xiao Han’s... perhaps her methods were slightly naive at the start, but from beginning to end, she shimmered with a brilliance that Luck could never bind.
"It’s been a while since I’ve seen Mentor Teryx..." Tan Han murmured to herself.
Usually, when she wanted to see this mentor, the luck on this business card would arrange a "chance encounter" within three days at most. Perhaps this was the unique romance of a Luck Alchemist.
However, she hadn't seen this witch sister for the entirety of this holiday.
Right now, she was still someone at the very bottom, someone who could only rely on luck to constantly climb upward.
She needed to seize every opportunity to become strong.
"Self-Generated Mana... is this my opportunity after school starts? Luck, give me a little more strength..."
After finishing her monologue, Tan Han seemed to be filled with vitality once again.
She bid farewell to the Shopkeeper and the others nearby before hurrying toward the laboratory.
* * *
Dungeon World.
On the central Lake Heart Island.
Two days had passed.
Through the joint efforts of Sister Bai and me, the prototype of a small wooden cabin had roughly taken shape.
After some discussion, we decided that the cabin we were building here wouldn't be very large.
Furthermore, considering we didn't want to disrupt the spatial stability of the dungeon world too much, we didn't plan to use spatial expansion rune techniques to increase the interior space.
Rather than a house, it was more like a large, integrated living space. There weren't many partitions to divide the interior; instead, different functional areas were distinguished by various pieces of furniture.
The style would be more retro, with a design focused on warmth, comfort, and functional integration.
As for the Transcendent-related items—like magic potion cauldrons and lab benches—they were more for decoration and atmosphere.
After all, if one really wanted to do experiments, who would do them here?
Any random laboratory would be more comfortable to use than this place, wouldn't it?
However, these alchemy tools weren't entirely useless. For instance, trying to hand-brew a bottle of Pink Potion here should be perfectly fine.
This place was defined more as a spot to enjoy a vacation with Sister Bai.
Using an entire dungeon world to create a natural-style, uninhabited resort island... perhaps only someone like me would be so extravagant...
But no matter how many problems there were, they were all trumped by the phrase "I like it."
"Hmm... there are still so many things we haven't bought. We’re almost out of the retro-weathered decorative materials for the exterior. And the wood... for the wood, let's choose this one for another layer. It’s a nine-in-one material that’s rot-proof, moisture-proof, insect-proof, and has a natural exotic fragrance..."
"Those are all part of traditional enchantment crafts. Let's choose some materials with better wood grain instead. We can add the rune reinforcements ourselves later; the quality will be better that way," Sister Bai suggested.
"That’s true~" After all, with our foundation in rune studies, our quality would definitely be much higher than those industrial mass-produced enchantments.
"So, is that all for now? I’m going to go buy them then~" I noted these down in my memos and then asked.
"Xiao Han, you really do just come up with ideas on the fly, don't you?"
"Aww~ You only know what you need and what you don't once you're actually on-site!"
But that meant I’d have to run to a lot of places at once.
Aside from the large timber, other interior decorations, handicrafts, and materials had to be purchased from different locations.
Fortunately, the Witch Academy had quite a few handicraft shops and markets in the peripheral areas. After all, for many students, a villa they would live in for ten years needed their own bedrooms to be decorated.
Since the new students hadn't been enrolled for long and it was currently the latter half of the Freshman Competition, there were still many places selling these little trinkets to attract them.
I looked at the area around the house foundation and seemed to think of something else.
"Sister Bai, speaking of which, should we go to the gardening shop or the flower shop to buy some decorative plants to plant around here? Or maybe set up a small flower bed or a little vegetable garden on the edge?"
"Good suggestion~ Then let's re-plan the design around the building." Sister Bai nodded.
Suddenly becoming so busy made it feel as if there wasn't enough time.
But the one thing we didn't lack was time.
So, in the end, we planned once more, confirmed the scope of the outer flower beds and the types of plants to be grown, and then prepared to head out.
"Ling Yi~ We’re going out for a bit. We’ll come back to see you in a while~" I called out to Ling Yi, that cute little plant spirit.
"Mm~ Okay! Safe travels~"
At the moment, Ling Yi was staying in a tree. This tree had been named using the transliteration of the word "World Tree" from the plant spirit's cognition.
So, this great tree, originally called the Omni-Link Main Network Tree, now had its own name.
It was called... the "Tree of Hera."
Over the past two days, through my spells and wood-elemental energy nourishment, plus the care of little Ling Yi, it had already grown to the height of two people. Its trunk still wasn't very thick—it didn't even look as grand as the trees in a roadside green belt—but its growth speed was absolutely beyond question.
Ling Yi lived on the branches of this Tree of Hera. Originally, I had planned to help her build a temporary little hut, but she had refused.
Plant spirits can grow in symbiosis with plants. Since she had chosen this tree as her home, she wouldn't build her house in an unnatural way.
This sense of ritual was just like how Sister Bai and I chose to build our own little cabin by hand.
After establishing communication with a great tree, a plant spirit will carve out a hollow in the tree to serve as their home. This kind of hollow doesn't cause any harm to the plant, and if the plant spirit leaves for too long, the hollow will gradually heal over.
The current Tree of Hera wasn't yet large enough to carve out a hollow big enough for Ling Yi to live in, so Ling Yi was currently very protective of it, accompanying it as it grew.
She even ate and slept on the tree, as if performing the most primitive of symbiotic rituals.
After greeting Ling Yi, I also left some fruit for her. Although it was impossible for a plant spirit to starve to death in a forest, Ling Yi clearly preferred eating fruits imbued with various natural energies over naturally absorbing plant essence.
Moreover, I discovered she really liked the taste of Fool's Dream Drink, so I left a small jar of it for her nearby.
As Sister Bai and I stepped out of the dungeon world, I suddenly felt unread messages coming from the Interconnected Academy Network via the Tree of Great Knowledge.
"Hmm?"
"What’s wrong?" Sister Bai naturally noticed my reaction.
"Someone contacted me. I didn't receive the notification inside the dungeon world. Well... the Tree of Great Knowledge itself has the information... I just didn't pay attention..." I might have been doing something very focused with Sister Bai when the message arrived.
"Did something urgent happen?"
"Tan Han... Yi Rui... these two have been messaging me one after another about my cultivation method." Somewhat surprised, I opened the messages; they were from Tan Han.
After a quick scan, I roughly understood what was going on.
Tan Han had hit the architectural threshold for Self-Generated Mana. I should have explained this to her before, but she might not have understood my meaning at the time, leading her to encounter a situation similar to Yi Rui's.
After all, Tan Han's progress was a bit slower than Yi Rui's; she had only just caught up these past few days.
What Tan Han lacked now was... how to implement the architecture of Self-Generated Mana, which shapes the essence of life, onto her witch racial concept and bloodline information.
And this was a true test of luck. Many things that came naturally to me would prove difficult and treacherous for others.
In fact, after deciding to use Tan Han as the primary experimental subject, I had also explained the subsequent steps to Yi Rui and the other sisters.
The idea was for them to continue pushing the resonance method for the ten-thousand mana source limit in the lab, and if they still had the energy after going back, they could try to architect Self-Generated Mana on their own.
But so far, there had been no movement. This wasn't just a sign that their chances were slim; it was also a reflection of the fact that the techniques we currently possessed were immature.
"Xiao Han, if it’s something important, go and take care of it first~ There’s always a priority to things. I can go and buy those items myself." Sister Bai’s voice reached my ears at that moment.
"But... I still wanted to go shopping with you, Sister Bai... Sigh... alright..." I started to speak with some excitement, but my rationality quickly calmed me down.
"Was Xiao Han being a little selfish just now? It’s fine~ You know that no matter how much time passes, I’ll wait for you. Life is always full of sudden accidents. Balancing the uncertainties of life with the conflicts of plans is the true way to experience life."
"This is a compromise!" I argued, though I knew very well that if everything in life went exactly according to one's wishes, that would be a disaster in its own right.
"Well, if you don't want to compromise, then go and fight it~ Settle this matter beautifully, then come back and brag to me, how about that?"
"Hmph~ Then I’m going, okay?"
"Go on~" Sister Bai said with a smile.
"I’m really leaving..." To be honest, I hadn't reached the point of being tired of staying with Sister Bai yet, and I didn't really want that peace to be interrupted by something outside the plan.
"Go! If I finish buying everything and you’re not back yet, I’ll wait for you in the dungeon world, and then we’ll build our little cabin together."
After bidding farewell to Sister Bai, I ignored everything else and took the most efficient route, appearing at the laboratory via a teleportation spell.
They said they were at the lab now; it was better to ask them in person if anything was wrong.
Besides, they arrived at the lab before me this time! So they can't say I’m the one out-grinding them!
"Ahem... did something happen?" My figure appeared in the lab. I saw several figures busy at work—some were sisters who had returned early, but the most prominent were Yi Rui and Tan Han, as they were the busiest.
"Xiao Han? You’re here. Did you see the messages we left for you?"
"Yeah, it hasn't been that long, has it? About half a day... Looking at you two, it seems you haven't handled it yet. Is there a problem?"
"Yes, Tan Han's current situation is very unique. I tried to make an attempt using the theoretical foundation you gave us. Although it was a bit rash..." Yi Rui glanced at her mentor nearby as she spoke, indicating she had her mentor there as a safety net. "But there seems to be some progress... though... not much..."
"Is that so? Let me see~" I said with some anticipation, then stepped forward.