Chapter 5: Magic Scroll
The apprentice dormitory was about eight hundred meters away from the magic tower.
As she pondered, Janna arrived in front of a cold white, cylindrical-shaped building.
“Ding—”
Janna’s single-occupancy dormitory was on the third floor.
As the mechanical elevator swiftly rose, a curved corridor appeared on the opposite side.
Walking down the hallway, she finally stopped at a corner.
“Dear Miss Janna, you have been away for ten hours and fifty-eight minutes. In every minute and second of that time, your loyal servant has been eagerly awaiting your return…”
“Alright, door spirit, did anyone come looking for me this morning?”
“No, Miss Janna. Apart from a damn puppet mouse, no one has been here.”
As she lifted her head slightly, a nearly two-meter-tall alchemical magical painting appeared before her.
Inside the painting was a half-length portrait of a nobleman, around fifty years old, dressed in a formal black satin suit, wearing a top hat, a monocle over his left eye, and sporting a pair of pointed goatees.
However, his incessant chatter and sycophantic expression significantly diminished the noble aura the portrait originally conveyed.
“Knock knock knock—”
Ignoring the door spirit’s babbling, Janna tapped the painting lightly with two knuckles.
The painting, originally hanging on the wall, turned like a revolving door and was gently pushed open by her.
“Bang—”
As the painting closed, a roughly 60-square-meter, somewhat cluttered room came into view.
There was a redwood soft bed, a short round table, and a not-so-spacious washroom.
Apart from these basic facilities, most of the room’s space was taken up by various magical plants and a massive experiment table.
“Return to place—”
Looking at the messy room in front of her, Janna made a casting gesture and swiftly activated a Cleaning Spell.
Under the power of her max-level Cleaning Spell, the room, which previously had no place to step, became barely clean and tidy.
“Too much stuff, too small a room. No matter how I organize it, it still looks like this.”
With a casual wave, she tossed the gathered dust and trash into the bin beside the bed.
“In the future, once I earn some money, I really need to rent a bigger room. Otherwise, there won’t be enough space for my experiment materials.”
…
Pulling out the chair beside the experiment table, Janna sat down and carefully retrieved the magic scroll from the inner pocket of her wizard robe, something she had long looked forward to.
She carefully smoothed it out on the table.
“Confidentiality Contract.”
Unfolding the scroll, the first thing she saw was a standardized confidentiality contract issued by White Coral Academy.
The main content prohibited apprentices from casually disclosing the witchcraft knowledge within the scroll and emphasized protecting the Academy’s intellectual property rights.
“This contract lasts for about twenty years. After that, the restrictions automatically dissolve.”
The twenty-year limitation was due to the magic on such standardized contracts not lasting indefinitely. If an apprentice or official witch intended to leave the Academy, they would sign a higher-level, one-hundred-year confidentiality contract to maintain knowledge monopolies.
Without hesitation, Janna picked up the feather quill beside her and signed her name on the contract.
Instantly, the contract was validated, and the restrictions on the scroll were lifted.
“《Low-Rank Spirit Summoning Ritual》...”
Murmuring as she read the contents of the scroll, Janna noticed all the text was written in Mykethan.
Moreover, several segments used standard Elvish.
Although not extensive, it still required a certain level of proficiency to fully understand.
“As expected, it’s in Mykethan. Luckily, I came prepared.”
When choosing paid courses, Janna had specifically taken Mykethan, which was closely tied to the mystic branch of summoning. To save money, she had only taken five lessons.
Even in that short time, Janna had utilized her past-life language learning techniques to quickly master the grammar of Mykethan.
She even adopted a drill-heavy approach for translation practice, tackling a wide array of exercises on short and long sentence constructions.
Though her spoken communication still wasn’t fluent, Janna was confident in her reading comprehension of Mykethan.
“If I had more academic credits back then, I could’ve continued with the oral practice sessions... But nearing midterms, there was no way to spare attention for electives.”
First-year apprentices had six compulsory courses: Ancient Magic History, Basic Spellcasting (Pronunciation and Gesture Standards), Introductory Herbology, Introductory Biology, Defense Against Dark Magic (Wizard Combat), and Elvish Language.
These core courses were free during the first year. From the second year onward, all classes were charged by the hour.
It was during this period that Janna maximized her financial planning.
Besides the six free compulsory classes, she used her monthly Academy stipend to take two paid electives—Mykethan and Introductory Contract Studies.
Thanks to that, while other apprentices were still overwhelmed by their core classes, Janna had already used her self-taught contract knowledge to perform her first contract summoning during her first year.
She had even been lucky enough to summon a very friendly spirit realm creature—the Celestial Finch.
“Although the summoning went smoothly back then, I really was a bit reckless. If it weren’t for my naturally strong soul perception, any mistake could have easily triggered a backlash from the summoning array.”
Contract summoning was one of the densest disciplines in mysticism.
The contract array had to be perfectly drawn, and accurate location of the spirit realm coordinates along with precise tuning to the soul’s resonance frequency was absolutely critical.
Any misstep could cause soul backlash. If not treated properly, it could even result in permanent cognitive damage.
“Hoo—”
Taking a deep breath, Janna focused her mind on the scroll in front of her.
The path of a witch was filled with thorns.
Even with the System on her side, without sufficient accumulation of knowledge, all the experience rewards would ultimately be in vain.
…
“Tick—tick—”
The mechanical clock’s second hand continued ticking.
As Janna’s study session grew longer, her brows furrowed tighter.
“Just like in Introductory Contract Studies, the spirit summoning process also requires constructing a contract array with spirit power. Aside from a few minor differences, the logic for inscribing the first half of the array remains similar. Except for the summoning method and the one-way locator... it really isn’t simple.”