Chapter 17: Heqin Hates Bitter Things

“Hahaha~ Tea Bao, your move was really amazing! You even shocked Mentor Carol. That expression was hilarious!”

As soon as they stepped out of the teacher’s office, Carol heard the wild laughter of some golden-haired loli behind her.

Her fists clenched slightly, but in the end, she pretended not to hear and kept walking forward as if nothing had happened.

‘Little brat, you’re dead meat!’

On the other side, the girl who laughed exaggeratedly at Lina’s expense just shrugged helplessly, a faint smile on her lips: “It’s actually nothing. Lina could do it too, right?”

“No, no! I rely on the fire magic boost from the dragon’s heart to pull that off, but Tea Bao, you did it purely by skill. It’s totally different.”

Lina waved her hand. Honestly, even though she was somewhat prepared mentally, she was still shocked.

Generally speaking, the maximum mana utilization rate of ordinary magic is 50%, and each spell model definitely has an upper limit on how much mana it can carry.

The more complex the model, the higher the mana limit it can handle—this is part of the theory behind magic grading.

So what did Jiang Cha just do?

Right before the class ended and Mentor Carol was about to evaluate the learning results, she used runes to imitate two enhancement effects: [Enhanced Casting] and [Flame Enhancement], turning a simple fireball spell into a massive fireball four or five meters in diameter, with the temperature nearly doubling.

“Strictly speaking, what Jiang Cha just used can no longer be considered a fireball spell. Developing a new spell as a first-year student—this talent is practically sage-level.”

He Qin covered her mouth, stifling a laugh.

Jiang Cha’s learning talent was indeed enviable to the point of being almost painful, but when the gap widened to such an extent, He Qin didn’t feel so down.

Moreover, such a powerful talent essentially came from her inherent magic—each witch’s inherent magic is like a built-in cheat, different from normal magic. It is actually a miracle evolved from the witch’s own mana and makes no sense in terms of limits.

It can even be said to have no upper bound at all.

Currently, in the Sage Council, there is a sage whose inherent magic is a first-level spell, [Lightning Arrow]. Yes, the very one Tea Bao and Lina used in their battle. But after long-term development, his Lightning Arrow has turned into an apocalyptic thunderbolt capable of piercing a planet—terrifyingly, the mana consumption for this apocalyptic thunderbolt is roughly the same as when Jiang Cha just released a Lightning Arrow.

Thousands, even tens of thousands of shots are no problem.

He Qin’s own inherent magic, if developed further, will have no less of an upper limit than Jiang Cha’s.

“It’s just a slight optimization, not that exaggerated. So, what’s next? The Great Library? I still have lots of books I want to read.”

The girl, who earlier was just curious to see what would happen by adding new runes to an existing spell model, felt a little shy facing her roommates’ praise.

The whole day’s relaxed atmosphere really made her a bit carried away, but in this unfamiliar world, it was better to be careful.

After all,

She didn’t even know where she came from.

“Eh!! More reading again?”

Lina pouted.

“If Lina wants to fight, she doesn’t have to come with us.”

He Qin gently rubbed her little head and softly said.

“Alright, alright~ sigh, why don’t any of my roommates fight? Such a hard life, I really have a hard life.”

The golden-haired loli placed her hands on her hips, eyes closed slightly, the smug little expression making Jiang Cha burst out laughing.

“Pfft!”

“Hey! Why are you laughi… hahaha!”

Lina couldn’t hold back either, and even He Qin couldn’t help but shake her head with a smile.

Being with these two roommates was never boring.

“Well, I’ll head off now! Contact me if anything~ love you all! Mua~!”

The golden-haired loli turned with a cheerful smile and blew kisses to the two before leaving.

“Mua mua, go on.”

The girl responded with a funny, half-hearted wave, while He Qin, like a mother, reminded softly:

“Don’t forget to come back for dinner.”

“I know!!”

…

Reading time always passed quickly. During this leisurely time, He Qin gradually got used to the sound of flipping pages nearby.

She slightly lifted her eyes.

Miss Yamato Nadeshiko glanced sideways at the warm sunlight shining on the girl sitting quietly in the library, whose beautiful hair looked especially radiant.

Her body gradually leaned onto the desk, her fair little arm stretching out from the robe, greedily absorbing the warmth brought by the sunlight.

Like a cat stretching lazily, she let out a soft hum.

“Want some coffee?”

The girl with black hair and red eyes closed her book, her eyes half-lidded, jokingly and indulgently—as if looking not at a classmate one year older but seeing a little girl next door from an adult’s perspective.

Unexplainably charming.

“I don’t like coffee.”

He Qin didn’t see the momentary mature expression on Jiang Cha’s face that didn’t suit her age. She stared blankly at the empty chair in front of her, eyes unfocused, trying to relieve the fatigue brought by knowledge overload.

Sticking out her tongue, showing a childish side that didn’t match her Yamato Nadeshiko aura.

“It’s too bitter.”

“Don’t like bitter drinks?”

The girl tilted her head slightly, imitating He Qin by lying down on the desk, her fair arm stretching out from under her robe, deliberately brushing against the girl beside her.

Warm and cold at the same time.

Sunlight, black hair, the girl’s voice, the strange sensation of skin touching skin.

All this made He Qin a bit shy but unwilling to show it. She just looked at Jiang Cha strangely and quietly wondered:

‘Jiang Cha, isn’t that a bit too…’

On the surface, she still pretended not to care.

“I hate all bitter things.”

“Does Jiang Cha like coffee? The front desk at the Great Library gives out free mana coffee. It’s made from pretty good beans ground by mana dolls. It’s not bad.”

“That’s what Lina said. That kid often complains that only coffee can keep her in the Great Library for more than ten minutes.”

“Hahaha~ that’s so like Lina.”

The girl smiled softly, closing her eyes and resting her head on her arm, touching heads with He Qin.

“Coffee, huh… I don’t know if I’d like it, but being with He Qin, I feel milk tea might be more fitting?”

“Why?”

He Qin was a bit puzzled.

Milk tea… she did like it very much, but she wanted to know why Jiang Cha said that.

“Because He Qin really feels like milk tea. After spending the day together, warm and sweet, a girl who brings happiness.”

“Brings happiness…”

He Qin’s pupils dilated slightly then contracted, her body trembled lightly before calming down, lowering her eyes and sitting up.

“Alright, break time’s over. Let’s keep reading. Jiang Cha, if you don’t understand anything, you can ask me.”

“Okay.”

The girl still lay on the desk like a lazy cat, unwilling to face the hardship of life without little fish snacks.

But she still got up.

Relaxed now, the cat-like aura around her didn’t fade—cute and lazy.

Her movements became even closer.

Compared to when they first studied quietly side by side, now the girl often leaned on He Qin gently and leisurely, reading the knowledge in the book.

—The degree of infiltration was too high. If they didn’t slow down, the fatigue from reading would be overwhelming.

…

With the increase of knowledge, Jiang Cha gradually understood what her inherent magic really brought her.

First was her brain.

The inherent magic gathering information was constantly evolving her brain—from the barely functional third-level evolution when she first woke up to the eighth evolution now due to the pressure of infiltration.

Other witches also evolve their brains and strengthen their willpower when resisting knowledge infiltration during learning, but nowhere near as fast as Jiang Cha, and only during study would they evolve.

Like a game progress bar, Jiang Cha’s kept ticking rapidly all the time, while ordinary witches only get one or two slow ticks when learning.

Then came her super strong computing power.

This was already shown in previous battles—only mature battle witches can use the high-level skill of offsetting a strong magic with a weaker one. Even a newbie in battle like her could use it.

Finally, the mental coefficient.

Strangely, this so-called information gathering inherent magic shouldn’t normally strengthen the soul.

But it did.

Jiang Cha couldn’t find an explanation in any book; perhaps it was a mutation caused by becoming an inherent magic.

During testing, Researcher Morin said it was a permanently solidified enhanced version.

There were quite a few such examples in the witch world, but now witches who could write their own spells didn’t care about new inherent magic enriching their spell libraries anymore.

If Jiang Cha wanted, she could even analyze her own inherent magic and upload it to the magic network for some pocket money.

Academy instruction, family collections, guild rewards, magic network paid downloads—these were the four main channels for witches to get magic, with magic network downloads becoming the most important.

‘But I don’t have money to analyze magic, and no one would download this magic anyway.’

Her inherent magic consumed about 500 mana per magic ring, about 200 per second, doubled when converted to normal magic, fixed consumption, permanently solidified.

This was like directly occupying mana recovery capacity, greatly reducing a witch’s stamina.

Jiang Cha’s 60,000+ mana barely sustained this inherent magic, halving her expected per-second recovery rate from over 400 to about half.

For other witches… they would need at least 100,000 mana to support it easily, like a great witch.

Although a witch’s mana grows permanently as long as she lives, at the level of 10,000+ mana (great witch level), the focus shifts more to mana intensity.

If mana were cotton, mana intensity represented the hardness of that cotton—the more compact, the fewer gaps, the higher the intensity.

—There are also factors like mana traits affecting recovery speed and unit strength, but those were things Tea Bao would consider when building her traits, so not mentioned now.

Lina had very high mana intensity. Jiang Cha, on the other hand, had never trained hers.

That’s why in their battle Lina got a 10:1 mana efficiency ratio. If mana intensity were similar, 3:1 would already be very good.

—Besides mana intensity, Lina also had red dragon traits boosting fireball power, which was the main factor.