Shopping for Ingredients

"You've been told what the ingredients are. Now you can go browse on your own."

"Here's a list of materials you need to buy. Don't worry, Dream Garden is covering the cost. Your grade for this lesson will depend on the quality of the ingredients you buy. If you get a high score, I can put in a request for you to receive lessons in some rare spells." Cen Jing smiled as she handed one list to Jiang Han, then slipped the other into Li Li's hand. She also gave them the money for their purchases.

And two miniature spatial pouches.

"A shopping assignment..." Li Li looked at the list in Jiang Han's hand, as if trying to figure something out.

She already had a feeling something was off. The turnover rate for tutors at the cram school was low to begin with, and it was rare for an instructor to have an emergency and arrange a substitute teacher right away. As for shopping assignments like this, she'd never even heard of one. Witches usually learned to identify ingredients by spending money on them. After buying materials a few times and getting burned once or twice, they'd soon get the hang of it. But that sort of thing didn't happen at a stingy cram school.

"What if we have money left over?" Jiang Han asked, glancing at the list.

"Hmm... That is a good question. Whatever you have left, you can keep as pocket money. Think of it as compensation from Dream Garden for disrupting your regular lessons." Cen Jing smiled.

Her answer made Jiang Han nod happily. It would go a long way toward easing the hardship of having only fifty dollars in her pocket. Li Li, on the other hand, looked thoughtful. She stood quietly to one side, staring at the list in her hand.

"What's wrong? Does something seem off?" Jiang Han asked.

"...No, it's nothing."

Li Li felt she might have found the answer. Miss Jiang Han, who stood before her, was someone of no ordinary status. Yet even Li Li herself didn't quite understand what that meant, which was why the Dream Garden training center kept sending her signs of goodwill. It also made Li Li intensely curious:

In the world of witches, someone's extraordinary status usually came down to one of two things.

Powerful abilities

or noble birth.

She knew her new partner had to have connections. The "special privileges" and "special treatment" the training center had given her—benefits that Li Li herself had even shared in—only reinforced her suspicions.

Jiang Han was a little curious about why Li Li had suddenly gone quiet and become even more withdrawn.

But she didn't think too much of it. This Fox Witch was pretty cool unless the topic was cars or dragons...

Oh, right. Besides dragons and cars, she also seemed to like tofu?

Jiang Han stopped paying attention to the Fox Witch's state of mind and watched the pretty witch walk away. Then she stayed where she was and studied Dream Garden's shopping list:

"180 grams of Amethyst Silver-Filtering Solution. I remember high-level spells from the Transmutation School need this."

"300 grams of Dusk Gold. What a big spender."

"50 grams of Emerald..."

She scanned all the ingredients on the list. Most were minerals, with a few plants mixed in. The shopping budget was roughly equivalent to two semesters' tuition at a regular elite cram school, and the amount had been set just right. Jiang Han couldn't help admiring Dream Garden's professionalism.

Anyone who could afford cram school tuition wasn't likely to run off with the money and disappear into the city.

They'd judged the psychological line with remarkable precision.

After recalling the stalls Cen Jing had pointed out while explaining the ingredients, Jiang Han had a rough shopping route in mind. She turned to Li Li and asked:

"Do you have a lot of things to buy?"

Li Li's fox ears twitched. "About the usual amount."

Dream Garden was quite generous. Li Li's shopping list also included mostly minerals and a few plants, and the budget gave her enough room to benefit from the assignment.

That only made her more curious about why Miss Jiang Han was receiving such preferential treatment from Dream Garden. It was quite possible that Li Li had been specifically brought in as Jiang Han's partner because of her.

Li Li wasn't worried about being used or anything. As someone who stood to benefit, she was simply intensely curious.

"Assignments that let students make money are pretty rare," Li Li remarked, probing indirectly.

She put away her list and headed off in another direction first. Before leaving, she glanced at Jiang Han again. "I'll go buy the plant ingredients."

"Oh."

This witch was acting a little strange all of a sudden. Maybe shopping assignments really were rare... Jiang Han thought that made sense. After all, cram schools charged tuition; they weren't charities. Assignments that actually let students make money had to be few and far between.

Jiang Han followed the other route she'd planned. Since Li Li seemed to want to split up for a while, she'd better not follow her.

That wouldn't be polite.

But Li Li's tight black outfit and the fluffy blue-and-white cloak she wore over it had a sexiness rating of a hundred. Anyone who followed her without warning would look like a wolf—no, like a shinobi. That would make it even less polite...

After imagining Li Li's shapely figure for a moment, Jiang Han turned her attention back to shopping. She weaved between the stalls, asking one vendor for a price, then another.

She'd never been much good at this sort of thing. But in her other life, circumstances had forced her to learn, and her younger sister had taught her a thing or two. She'd developed a passable knack for haggling. With her delicate, lovable looks in this life, she had no trouble buying the items on her list for ninety percent of their market price.

"Gemstones, got them... Plant ingredients, got those too... Hmm, I still need to buy some Light Mint Tangerine. Hiss, the notes say it can be used as an ingredient in Mana Tofu, as well as in some Evocation School spell components. But can you really eat a mint-flavored tangerine?"

Should she spend a little of the money she'd saved...? Jiang Han hesitated as she arrived at a stall displaying quite a few cauldrons.

The cauldrons were filled with various fruits and melons.

The Light Mint Tangerines were among them. They looked like fully ripened persimmons. Jiang Han flipped through her notes and confirmed they were edible.

She pulled a food bag from beside a cauldron, filled it with tangerines, then picked up one more. "I'll take these."

"That bag's 600." The witch selling the fruit looked mature and pretty, with a healthy complexion. Her robe was white beneath the collar, so her tan seemed to have come from the sun. She held a long pipe in one hand, took a puff, then pointed at the tangerine in Jiang Han's hand. "I'll give you that one if you give me your phone number."

"...I don't have a phone." Jiang Han's face flushed quite naturally. She really wasn't shy, but her body in this life seemed a little too sensitive. Her face often went red at the slightest hint of embarrassment.

The stall owner took a puff of her pipe, kept her gaze on Jiang Han's face for several seconds, then asked, "Your mailing address, then?"

She really didn't give up... Jiang Han's face was still red. Under the other woman's increasingly appreciative gaze, she asked for some paper and a pen and wrote down her home's mailing address.

As long as you wrote the recipient's address on a letter, the postman would deliver it right to their home, without fail. It might take a day, but almost anywhere in the country only took a day to reach, thanks to a wondrous spell called Anywhere Door... Most of that day was spent receiving and sorting the mail and assigning deliveries. The next day, the local postman would set out with the letters.

After Jiang Han gave her mailing address, the witch at the stall became especially warm. Besides giving her a Light Mint Tangerine, she also gave her a box of Moon Mint Leaves about the size of a cigarette case. They were an ingredient that could come in handy for making tofu, and could also improve the taste of potions.

After buying the ingredients, Jiang Han looked over her list again and leisurely followed her planned route through the market. Once she'd bought everything else, she took out a Light Mint Tangerine.

"You can eat the peel of this kind of tangerine too..." She took out her wand, tapped the fruit, and used a cleaning spell to wash it. Then she held it in both hands, opened her mouth, and took a bite.

Her eyes widened. "Mmm, mmm... delicious..." she praised through a mouthful.

The tangerine was sweet, but the peel had a refreshing hint of mint. Best of all, the flesh wasn't too soft. It was firm and chewy, and when she bit down, she could hear it crackle. Then juice burst out, cool and refreshing.

She finished the tangerine in a few bites and wiped her mouth.

Aside from being expensive, this tangerine really had no flaws.