Witchcraft Plants

The next day's lesson was a little unusual. Cen Jing had Jiang Han and Li Li study on their own for a while, then told them that today's lesson would be held in the evening.

That night, Cen Jing took the two of them to Wine Immortal Ridge.

Wine Immortal Ridge was as fantastical and enchanting as ever. Mist filled with liquors of every color mingled together, making the already complex terrain even harder to navigate. Yet, strangely enough, the ground in the lower part of the ridge was quite dry, with only a touch of dampness from the liquor mist. The grassy paths were also very clean, suggesting that the locals maintained them diligently.

What surprised Jiang Han was that the locals greeted passing witches with phrases like "Hello, comrade" and "Thanks for your hard work, comrade." That seemed a little different from the oppressed, toiling masses under witch rule described in the history books she'd read over the past two days.

Noticing her puzzled expression, Cen Jing smiled.

"Western witches built one grand castle after another, beautiful manors, and witch towers that reached into the clouds. They divided the European Continent into one territory after another, consolidating their extraordinary status. Even today, some Western witches still use the word 'slaves' to describe ordinary people. Here in China, witches live at most on Sky Island. Ever since the founding of New China, witches and civilians have been one family, closely connected."

Li Li chimed in. "A comrade is a comrade, a comrade is still a comrade, and comrades are comrades."

...That was unexpectedly in line with Chinese values. It was also possible that there were simply too many witches. The Western system worked because one witch could probably rule a village of a hundred or so people, while a powerful witch could rule even more. But in China, one witch could probably rule...one and a half ordinary people?

And with China's unique culture of witches and ordinary residents hanging out together, along with the "we're working on turning ordinary people into witches, too" approach that had produced the witch-in-training she'd learned about just yesterday, it seemed perfectly normal for ordinary people here to have equal standing with witches.

They hiked up the mountain. Near the summit, they spotted a few young girls and boys sitting with books on the occult in their hands. They were ordinary people; Jiang Han couldn't sense any magic from them.

"Witches-in-training. If all goes as expected, after five or six years of study, they'll become the next generation of witches... As for how much magic they'll have, that depends on their luck. If they're lucky, they'll be a normal witch. If they're unlucky, they'll be a weak witch." Cen Jing greeted the children with a smile, her tone calm. "Weak witches aren't much different from ordinary people, so most of them work as assistants to witches, doing jobs that involve only minor magic. Some become teachers, like me."

Despite the way Cen Jing described witches as weak, Jiang Han suspected that this witch's actual magical power might be astonishing.

Jiang Han's ability to sense magic had already entered the realm of the supernatural. Her sensitivity to magical power was like a radar: it had an enormous range, but could only give her a vague sense of how much magic someone possessed.

Still, that was enough. Most of the witch instructors at the cram school had less magical power than Cen Jing, even though she was a witch-in-training.

Jiang Han didn't call her out on her magical power. She silently listened as Cen Jing explained the ins and outs of witch-in-training life.

They passed through a redwood grove thick with liquor mist, then went around a mountaintop lake formed by a mountain spring. After about twenty minutes, a sprawling, picturesque cemetery came into view.

Beneath the night sky, the cemetery looked a little eerie, but the crowds of people dispelled the gloom.

Groups of witches had set up evening feasts among the graves, simmering bone broth in cauldrons and setting up barbecue grills.

A cemetery. Yeah, a cemetery... Jiang Han couldn't speak for a long time.

What the hell, they were having a barbecue party in a cemetery.

Sometimes Jiang Han felt she'd seen through the witches, that they'd reached the absolute bottom of the barrel. Then they'd surprise or horrify her all over again.

"The cemetery is also a kind of market. We come here to buy 'fresh' or 'special' ingredients."

"For example, Ai Jun Mushroom. Its international scientific name is 'spiny umbrella mushroom species, cemetery fungus genus, White An Jun Horse.' It can only grow in cemeteries or mass graves with a strong yin energy. Because its growing conditions are so unusual, you have to store it in an opaque bottle if you want to preserve it—and it has to be glass. It's a bit of a hassle." Cen Jing pointed to the Ai Jun Mushrooms growing in the grave soil. "Although they grow in cemeteries, they're used by the Life School, a branch of the Necromancy School. They're also a common base ingredient in healing potions."

The scientific names witches gave plants were generally made up of the same three parts as in Jiang Han's previous life: the species name, the genus name, and the name of the person who'd named it. The only difference was that the species name came first.

As a seasoned armchair expert who knew a little about everything, Jiang Han understood the scientific name, unlike Li Li, whose expression said, "What are you talking about? What are you trying to say?" The species name usually consisted of a descriptive word for the plant, a noun in apposition, and the possessive noun that gave English learners headaches. The genus name described the plant's basic information, such as its economic uses, growing conditions, or characteristics. The last part, meanwhile, was just made up on the spot.

That was why names like "White An Jun Horse" kept appearing, making students want to grab a knife and get intimately acquainted with the namer's family.

Some might think "White An Jun Horse" was only four characters, but in the scientific name it appeared as a suffix: Himot.et.Moyhse. That was an abbreviation.

With the description before it, the full international witch name for the Ai Jun Mushroom should be:

Agaricomycotina-hamatis-crepidotaceae.et.Moyhse

Jiang Han had guessed the full name herself. If the Witch World required a magical explanation as well, the name might need another five or six words. And since the description "spiny umbrella" didn't exist in her previous world, its roots would surely be much more complicated—several times more complicated than the word she'd cobbled together.

But Jiang Han was more curious about Cen Jing. This wasn't the sort of knowledge most witches knew, and it must have been difficult for a witch-in-training to acquire.

Knowledge about plant ingredients wasn't as expensive as knowledge about magic, but it certainly wasn't cheap. Jiang Han had once found an academic book called Potions and Plants in the library. It cost more than two or three thousand yuan. Given how meticulous and exhaustive witches in this world were about documentation, a book like that might contain information on only a dozen plants. To learn about more, you had to spend more money.

Jiang Han glanced at her mentor, a little surprised. "Do you love plants, Mentor?"

Cen Jing nodded. "Very much. I decided to become a witch because of plants. If I were an ordinary person without magic, it would be far too dangerous to gather them."

"Then...after you became a witch, did you still want to study plants?" Jiang Han felt a little envious of people who had a conviction of their own.

Cen Jing nodded again. "Yes. I love plants. I love studying them. I want to write a book that covers every potion plant in the country."

She smiled again.

"If I can, I want my research and my passion to be remembered through the ages. I want to become the second witch to write the word 'witch' into history."

A book about every plant... Jiang Han nodded to herself. Compared with the impression her mentor gave, that dream was pretty wholesome. Curious, she asked, "Then...who was the first witch to write witches into history?"

She saw Cen Jing's smile freeze. The woman looked both amused and helpless, so Jiang Han turned to Li Li for help.

Li Li's usually unchanging expression softened, and she, too, looked a little helpless. Still, when Jiang Han looked her way, she explained:

"The first witch whose name was recorded in history was naturally the 'first witch,' the 'first witch to be born in the true sense'—Fula, the first witch in the world. She was also the first witch to cross the sea to China on a small sailboat, using only Water Creation and Bread Creation...and the first witch to cross the world's largest ocean with the magical power of a weak witch."

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