Chapter 9: Stingy Little Cha~

There was no need to trouble her roommate. Driven by a strong desire for knowledge, Jiang Cha preferred to spend tonight preparing for upcoming classes.

After all, she had been late for a whole month and had already fallen behind in many courses.

Back in her room, the girl snapped her fingers, and dreamy blue sparkles scattered from her fingertips, awakening the magical items in the room.

The chandelier, the air conditioner, and a clock with a very retro appearance.

It was the kind of luxurious wall clock you’d see hanging in ancient castles, chiming on the hour as a reminder, and also doubling as an alarm clock.

The virtual light screen lit up, linking to various furniture pieces. Through the central control system, she set the alarm for future times and turned off the hourly chime function.

“Seems like there’s no sign of life here.”

Jiang Cha sighed softly.

There was a commercial street in the academy, but she currently had no money at all, couldn’t buy anything, and even the witch’s robe she was wearing was something she had gotten for free from Qu Sinan.

It had the effect of enhancing magical power, but only slightly.

More practical was the “Solidification Cleaning Spell” enchanted on it—just by charging it with mana, it could trigger the cleaning spell to keep the robe neat.

“I still need to find a way to make money.”

After spending the whole afternoon catching up on common knowledge, she had indeed learned many things.

Simply put, due to the witch race’s characteristics, every witch has the ability to make magical tools, which led to a thriving flea market in the witch society.

Most witches also liked to browse flea markets—they were fun and cheap.

As long as you made magical items or potions that met any of these four criteria—good quality, cheap, interesting, or convenient—you wouldn’t have trouble selling them.

So even young witches just starting school could make money by turning their creativity into products.

If you had no ideas, you could copy existing items. There were no patents in witch society—or rather, patents only existed in theory when research papers cited them and received fees; on the production side, there were none.

This reflected their knowledge-first philosophy.

Witches’ copied products were all “three no’s” — no quality guarantee, no after-sales, no authenticity — but they could still make money by building a reputation or selling wholesale.

Of course, witches skilled in alchemy or potion-making could choose to work part-time in senior witches’ workshops, but that usually meant working while studying, with very low pay.

Generally, only witches from poor families with weak magic power would choose this path—supporting themselves while learning as much as possible.

“Start-up capital…”

Alchemy, potion-making, magical machinery—all require corresponding tools and raw materials to produce products, although they were not expensive.

But Jiang Cha couldn’t afford them now.

Besides, she didn’t have the skills.

However, she found another path in the books she read today.

The witch clubs.

Unlike clubs in her previous world, at least in Aisrun Witch Academy, clubs were more like student-run playful companies, quite professional. Many well-developed clubs even had external business and commercial ties with frontline witches.

For example, the Alchemy and Potion clubs would provide their own products, and the Battle Club would arrange for qualifying students to train at the frontline.

The money earned from these products would not only pay creators but also buy better equipment and train new members.

That’s why Jiang Cha set her sights on the clubs. She had no interest in the Battle Club—she wasn’t the type of witch specializing in combat—but the four basic subsidiary professions—Alchemy, Potion, Machinery, and Magical Puppets—were all very promising and could perfectly solve her lack of start-up funds.

Of course, getting into these clubs required exams, so besides studying, the girl had to choose a subsidiary profession to focus on, ensuring at least she wouldn’t fail theoretical tests even if she had no chance to practice.

“Which one to choose?”

Jiang Cha touched her chin, somewhat conflicted.

Actually, if she had to say which of the four branches was most important—they were all important.

And all profitable.

But most high-tech products were multi-disciplinary, and high technology meant huge profits. That was the source of her dilemma.

Should she master all or specialize for now? It was a serious question.

“Forget it, let’s just read. Maybe after understanding mana and magic better, the answer will appear?”

Although witches seemed a bit casual on the surface, their textbooks were very rigorous.

Or rather, the common personality traits of the race didn’t mean all witches shared the same character. Among so many people, some serious individuals took responsibility for this kind of work.

The logic in this book, Simple Mana Studies, was very clear.

It clearly explained the operation logic and development direction of an energy called “miracle.”

The first big chapter in the table of contents had a bold theory on the very first line:

“Mana is omnipotent.”

“Kind of like a Grand Unified Theory, a fundamental theorem that can explain all phenomena?”

“No, different.”

“The Grand Unified Theory, even if confirmed, only explains phenomena, allowing humans to understand the mechanisms behind all macro and micro phenomena and develop technologies based on those laws.”

“Mana is the opposite: it is omnipotent, so it can defy even macroscopic physical laws, twisting reality to show completely irrational phenomena—that’s what we call magic.”

“Really…”

The girl rubbed her temples, feeling a headache.

This theory wasn’t exactly conflicting with the “common knowledge” left in her brain—at least it completely overturned it.

She glanced back at the table of contents.

The first big chapter, Mana, introduced the essence of mana.

Next came various applications of mana, such as the second chapter which fully explained mana’s advantages and disadvantages as an energy source—the disadvantage was almost none.

Again, mana is omnipotent.

Next was mana’s role in alchemy, in potion-making, combined with technological machinery, and so on. Jiang Cha hadn’t finished reading.

These things could be studied with teachers in future courses; for now, she only needed a general understanding. This book, Simple Mana Studies, was exactly as titled—just a simple introduction to the essence and functions of mana, mostly theoretical without much practical impact.

It wasn’t aligned with Jiang Cha’s immediate priorities, so she put studying it aside for now.

The girl closed her eyes to rest for five minutes, relieving the fatigue brought by the flood of knowledge, while analyzing and understanding the new information.

[Information Gathering]

This spell, jokingly called a last-minute cramming aid, was really useful for learning. Jiang Cha’s version was an optimized and specialized form of her innate magic, consuming an incredible amount of mana.

This was her innate magic, with a mana utilization rate of 96.32% in tests.

This meant if other Great Witches used this spell (even with more than 60,000 mana, more than her), due to the 50% max utilization limit on non-innate magic, they would need almost twice the mana Jiang Cha used to maintain it.

Jiang Cha consumed 214 mana units per second to maintain the spell; doubling that would be 428 units.

That was more outrageous than forbidden solidification magic, which even Great Witches couldn’t normally sustain—it required the Sage-level mana supply like the academy dean’s.

And even if they could supply it, others couldn’t match Jiang Cha’s effect—normal magic was originally simplified imitations of witches’ innate magic; counterfeit products naturally were inferior.

Such an absurdly costly innate magic gave Jiang Cha a kind of cheat-like effect: extremely strong learning ability.

Yes, it was that simple, but very important.

Other things, like complete control of every muscle or martial arts talent, were side effects. Maybe in a martial arts world that would be the main effect, but in a witch society full of combat-specialist Great Witches with star-level power, improving learning ability was the real priority.

Miss Moore was right; she really was a genius.

A learning genius.

This gave her the confidence to consider whether to specialize or do all subsidiary professions.

After understanding mana’s nature, she decisively chose to do all of them.

This would maximize her talent and quickly bring her to a comfortable living standard—after all, the school required tuition!

Tuition was very expensive.

Although Jiang Cha’s special situation allowed her to apply for a scholarship, it only lasted until the end of the first year. In other words, if she couldn’t earn enough for next year’s tuition within one year, Aisrun Magic Academy wouldn’t continue investing in her.

This was one of the top magic schools in the witch world. Without ability or money, she could always go to a public school instead.

That one was free.

“Since I have this ability, I won’t waste it. Tomorrow I’ll borrow some books from the big library.”

First-year students only had four main courses; subsidiary professions started as electives in the second year. But first-years could still borrow subsidiary profession books from the big library.

At this prestigious school, besides rich second-generation witches who coasted, most first-years had already started self-studying.

Ah, except battle-specialist witches—they didn’t bother studying subsidiary professions, spending all their time in the Battle Club.

“Open the window!! Elf express delivery!!”

A childish shout interrupted the girl’s thoughts. The knocking on the window was noisy in the quiet night.

Jiang Cha looked up.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t a witch knocking, but a tiny cat-eared, cat-tailed little girl—a miniature version, reduced several times.

About thirty centimeters tall, like a figurine.

Riding a sci-fi high-tech motorcycle floating in mid-air, radiating faint magical energy—of course, a pocket-sized figurine version.

“Elf? Or some magical creature?”

Jiang Cha didn’t immediately know the species of this little creature but opened the window to let her in.

“This is your academy express delivery form. Please confirm and then sign with your mana information.”

The little one wasted no time, throwing a paper slip at the girl right after entering.

Jiang Cha looked carefully. It was some life supplies sent by the academy. After signing absentmindedly, she quickly pinched the little one as she flipped back onto the bike.

But the little one didn’t get angry, instead looking a bit happy.

“According to regulations, first time is free. Next time you touch me, it’ll cost five witch gold coins.”

“Well then, wishing the witch a good night! I gotta rush to the next delivery!”

The magical cat girl tossed a suddenly appeared package and sped off.

Only the somewhat dazed Jiang Cha stood still in place.

Sure enough, the witch society was still hard to adapt to.

But…

“They actually charge money? Next time I won’t touch.”

She was very poor, after all.