Chapter 51: The Wondrous World of Witches

The witch civilization is truly wondrous.

They always swing between sci-fi and fantasy, then smash Jiang Cha’s formerly materialistic worldview to pieces.

And it’s not just once or twice — every time she frantically studies knowledge and common sense and finally thinks she understands this world, some suddenly popping thing gives her a hard slap and tells her:

“Think you understand the witch civilization? You’re still far from it!”

From the earliest automatic book-making machines, to the later biomimetic sky‑carriages, from alchemical plaster patches to the Tech City — Jiang Cha’s worldview has been shattered over and over again, and now she’s completely resigned.

From the moment she stepped out today, when Mortel suddenly showed up driving a sleek black sedan wearing sunglasses and told her to get in, she already had a vague sense something was off.

After all, you can’t seriously say that a “world fragment” is actually hidden fifty meters east of the next intersection in some building, right?

That’s unrealistic — a “fragmented world” is about to collapse, not a glass orb planet that can keep its internal rules intact at that size.

Then Mortel just drove the car into the sky.

They were on a sea‑crossing bridge — but unlike ordinary sea bridges, the road surface tilted upwards, and the material was so transparent it was almost invisible. Only a tram of magical light guided the driver forward.

Though that scene was a little fantastical, Jiang Cha didn’t complain, because while that bridge was unnecessary, she believed that witches were capable of such things, and it fit the witch style.

Wasteful, useless — but very interesting.

After all, they already had sightseeing biomimetic carriages; what’s wrong with a sky‑high sea‑view road? It’s not like they can’t build it.

Then Mortel hit the accelerator; with a burst of nitrogen, she shot them out of the atmosphere.

Jiang Cha: “….”

“Oh, you’re asking about this?” Mortel said coolly, in response to her complaint. “Once your alchemy reaches a higher stage, you’ll know — this thing is called a ‘psychic-sensing drive device’. You control direction directly by mind.”

“Never mind…” Jiang Cha muttered. She had been intending to complain about how the car could travel and drift-turn in space — there’s no road surface! How are you drifting!?

But thinking it over, it wasn’t impossible. Whether by using vector thrusters and magic for special effects, or by condensing and dissipating a magical road surface in real time, none of it is extremely advanced in civilian tech.

She decided not to complain further.

Mortel’s explanation of how she controls the car was based on that reasoning. The rest of the technology, even if Jiang Cha hadn’t studied it, she could roughly guess. Explaining it would just waste breath.

“Pretty cool, right? Little Jiang Cha, this car is one of my shop’s flagship products. It’s selling very well.”

“Heh… haha… yeah, it’s very cool.” Though drifting through asteroids in space was undeniably flashy and cool, Jiang Cha just couldn’t get excited. She just wanted to piece together her shattered worldview and see if she could glue it back.

…

Although space‑cars are indeed cool, and Mortel’s custom modifications let it reach 60 light‑years per hour, the place they were going was tens of thousands of light‑years from Earth.

So they still needed a transfer.

They drove to a space station — though “station” is too modest a term; it was more like a witch‑style floating island in space. A “small” space island floating in orbit, serving as a transfer hub, much smaller than Tech City.

“Get out~”

“Where is this?”

Having seen Tech City, the girl wasn’t overly shocked by the “small” space island. She just blinked in curiosity.

“Mosk Space Station.”

“Because of the Witch Universe Development Pact: to protect Earth’s environment, large space stations can’t be built in the solar system. So we transfer here and register.”

The technology for totally zero-mana-pollution spatial teleportation linking Tech City and Witch Island is extremely expensive — so expensive even witches resent it. They only use it at a few key nodes.

And that teleportation only works point-to-point for small items; living beings or large objects can’t pass through. It’s not comparable to the ultra-large space gates that swallow ten-thousand-meter-long, two-thousand-meter-wide starships.

Yes — starships.

“See? Witch starship tech is pretty good, huh? Sigh — as your master I only pray that in my lifetime you’ll gift me a Guardian-class starship.”

“Wake up, Master — dawn’s come, you know?” Jiang Cha teased as she watched Mortel’s grandstanding. A Guardian-class starship is the mainstay of witch fleets. One shot can destroy a star system; two can obliterate rotating arms. Its scale far surpasses the little freighter they had.

The price of a Guardian — well, Mortel would probably have to toil nonstop for 500 years to afford it. Jiang Cha never expected to own one.

“Also, master, could you at least show some ambition? You’re a master of all branches — why not craft one yourself?”

“You brat, do you want me to be arrested by the Tribunal so you inherit my property?”

“I’m not inheriting your Red Light Street bills!”

“…”

Civilian ships, even if illegally modified to become warships, are just penalized or fined. But military starships use classified tech; even masters making them secretly would be crimes. Approval is held by the Sage Council.

In peaceful years, approval has grown stricter. Most existing starships are worn-down wartime models.

The Guardian-type starship Mortel desires is the newest model — building one from scratch would lead to severe sentencing: at least 200 years in prison, likely 500 years of hard labor, given her talents.

“Humph, you brat.” Mortel laughed, unfazed by Jiang Cha’s retorts. It was just idle chatter while waiting in the approval queue. If she took it to heart, she wouldn’t be the carefree Mortel.

She actually liked her relationship with Jiang Cha. This little apprentice’s innate magic was useful to her research, and her talent and personality were top-tier. Her old friends must envy how much time Mortel got to spend playing with her disciple.

Especially Armand — he got a socially-awkward introverted disciple, all communication via comms, year-round. Pitiful.

“Work hard, okay?” Mortel said.

“Hm?”

“Quickly ascend to Grand Witch and develop intelligence magic. Otherwise we’ll both be stuck eating magic exhaust forever — can’t even afford to cut in line.”

“Correction: you’ll be eating dirt. I get intellectual property income, you know?”

“…”