Chapter 42: City of Technology 002

“This kind of thing takes a lot of time. Let’s wait until your break to talk about it. Moli!”

Halfway through her sentence, Mortel abruptly changed the topic and called toward the back room.

“What now, Mom?”

Moli came out of the alchemy chamber still wearing her signature leather armor. She placed a gift box she had just packaged on the front counter, her expression slightly impatient.

“The assessment center—can you take Jiang Cha there?”

“Why can’t you go, since you’re her teacher?”

Though she was still sniping at her mom, Moli didn’t hesitate to grab Jiang Cha’s hand.

“Come on, you’re going to take the basic alchemy certification, right?”

“Mm. And a few others… Master, what about the end-of-month test?”

The girl nodded shyly, then looked to Mortel with some uncertainty.

“Eh, don’t worry about that. You think I don’t know your progress?”

“…”

“Though, you could stand to take it a bit more seriously,” Moli added with a sigh, seeing Jiang Cha go quiet again.

But Mortel wasn’t wrong—Jiang Cha had been coming by the shop almost every weekend to get help with her questions. If anyone knew how far along she was in her studies, it was them. The end-of-month test was basically pointless.

“Is the assessment building hard to find?”

After leaving the house, and noticing that Moli still hadn’t let go of her hand, Jiang Cha flushed for just a moment before asking softly.

“It’s a pain, honestly. No idea what those old witches were thinking, but they decided to make the Alchemy Guild’s location super hidden. Newbies always end up wandering for like half an hour their first time.”

Moli sighed, clearly remembering her own struggles.

“I got totally screwed over back then.”

“I see.”

Jiang Cha nodded. Given Mortel’s personality… it didn’t feel right to ask why she hadn’t gone with Moli back then.

That’d just be rubbing salt in the wound.

And sure enough, the Alchemy Guild was ridiculously hard to find. The urban planning on Academy Island was already chaotic, with little winding alleyways all over the place.

In just over ten minutes, Moli had led Jiang Cha through at least ten different back alleys.

Basically, they’d come out of one alley, walked a few steps on the main road, then dipped into another one. Jiang Cha felt like if she were even slightly bad with directions, she’d never find her way back.

“Say, Moli-jie… do you know what that ‘shortcut’ Master mentioned is?”

“Probably a world fragment.”

Moli thought for a moment, then explained to the puzzled girl:

“I heard her mention it before. She got it as payment for a commission from a friend—a world fragment.”

“World fragment?”

“Yeah. It’s a piece of a broken world. Normally, a shattered world should be completely barren, without a trace of life, but these fragments sometimes contain leftover rules and a kind of instinctive ‘self-repair’ mechanism. That lets them evolve into a weird little world of their own.”

“Everything inside is incomplete—beings, events, even what we call the ‘world script’—the lines of fate that drive the story—are all messed up.”

“Doesn’t that make it… kind of useless?”

Jiang Cha looked surprised. These kinds of broken worlds couldn’t generate resources, were far less stable than the resource world Lili owns, and could vanish completely at any moment.

“Even so, it’s still a ‘world’. And in the moment it shatters, any witch inside can gain all sorts of benefits.”

“Ask my mom for details later. She knows more.”

Moli shrugged.

She wasn’t like Jiang Cha, who had awakened as a witch naturally. She hadn’t needed something like that when she started out, so her knowledge came mostly from books and was a bit fuzzy.

“I think my mom’s planning to have you go in during spring break. It’s just a month away. Fragment worlds are dangerous—so focus on getting stronger this month, alright?”

“We’re here.”

After walking for nearly half an hour, Moli finally stopped.

They had arrived in… well, how to describe it?

A cyberpunk underground market? A fantasy-world slum?

In any case, it was run-down. The street was lined with all sorts of strange witches in black robes, peddling their goods from small stalls.

“Surprised?”

Moli glanced at Jiang Cha with a smirk.

“Mm, a little.”

Jiang Cha’s expression was subtly conflicted.

“I thought the Alchemy Guild would be, I don’t know… grand and fancy. It’s a guild, after all.”

“Hahaha~ Nope, this is just how they are. Hey, boss, open up!”

Moli laughed and shouted toward one of the stall-witches.

“What’re you buying?”

The witch replied in a hoarse voice, sounding extremely disinterested.

“If you don’t open the door, I’ll go home and tell my mom on you.”

“No no no! Please, anything but that! Don’t let that damn Mortel show up—I’ll open up! Right now!”

Like someone had just dropped a nuke, the witch who had been so indifferent moments ago instantly changed her tune. Her face broke into a toadying smile, voice full of nervous energy.

Even her tone changed.

She didn’t look old at all—actually, she looked pretty young. By witch standards, probably about the same age as Moli.

“So~ What’s little Moli here for today?”

“Bringing my little sister to take a certification test.”

“Oh? This is that damn Mortel’s new apprentice?”

The stall-witch raised her eyebrows, looking Jiang Cha up and down with interest.

“Yup, this is Mortel’s little monster apprentice… Now open the door before I open it myself. Don’t blame me if the guildmaster docks your pay!”

“Alright, alright! I’m opening it!”

Jiang Cha didn’t catch what kind of spell or technique the woman used—it looked like just a hand gesture, and she couldn’t even detect any magic fluctuations.

But the dilapidated wall behind her suddenly shimmered, and a spatial portal opened up.

“Alchemy Guild sure is fancy.”

“All the guilds are. This is Academy Island—we’ve got tons of little witches coming in for certifications every day. May as well put the portals to good use.”

“Let’s go.”

The moment she stepped through the portal, Jiang Cha knew something was different.

Unlike before, this spatial tunnel felt… stable. Incredibly stable.

There was barely any magical presence. In fact, it was nearly a magicless environment.

Other than the magic within her own body, she couldn’t draw on any external mana at all.

But before she could run more tests or gather data, the tunnel came to an end.

The architecture on this side was completely different.

The buildings were made entirely of a sleek silver-white metal, giving off a futuristic, high-tech vibe. Even the wide streets beneath their feet were paved in the same material.

“Welcome to Techno-City 002. May you find your path to truth within these walls.”

A bright and gentle female voice rang out—not mechanical at all, but warm and welcoming—snapping Jiang Cha’s mind out of its awe.

This city wasn’t built on land.

She looked up, gazing at the brilliant stretch of outer space above.

This was a floating artificial witch island—suspended in the void of space.