Magical Herb Plants

The next day's lessons were a bit unusual; Cen Jing let Jiang Han and Li Li study on their own for a while, then informed them that today's class would be moved to the evening.

When night fell, Cen Jing brought the two of them to Wine Immortal Ridge.

Wine Immortal Ridge was as fantastical and enchanting as ever. Mists formed by the mingling of various colored spirits made the already complex terrain even harder to discern. Strangely, however, the lower ground of the ridge remained quite dry, with only the alcoholic mist bringing a hint of dampness. The grassy paths on the ground were also very clean, suggesting that the locals maintained them quite diligently.

What slightly surprised Jiang Han was that the ordinary locals greeting the passing witches used phrases like "Good day, comrade" and "Thank you for your hard work, comrade." This seemed somewhat different from the descriptions of the downtrodden masses under witch oppression found in the history books she had read over the past two days.

Seeing the puzzled look on her face, Cen Jing smiled and said:

"Western witches have built one magnificent castle, beautiful manor, and cloud-piercing witch tower after another. They divided the European continent into piece after piece of territory to consolidate their extraordinary status, and even today, some Western witches still use the word 'slave' to describe ordinary people. But here in our country, witches at most live on Sky Islands. Since the founding of the new China, it has been a case of witches and the masses being as close as family, with ties as inseparable as water and clothing."

Li Li added, "Comrades are comrades, comrades are still comrades, and comrades are simply comrades."

...It was unexpectedly in line with the values of the people here. It was also very likely that there were simply too many witches. The reason the Westerners could play that game was that one witch could probably rule a village of over a hundred people, with powerful witches ruling even more. But if you applied that to the domestic situation, one witch could probably rule... 1.5 ordinary people?

Coupled with the unique domestic culture of witches and ordinary residents hanging out together, and the "Witch-in-training" product she had learned about yesterday—which was the result of "we are trying to find ways to turn ordinary people into witches"—it was quite normal for the status of ordinary people to be on par with witches here.

Hiking up the mountain, they could still see a few young girls and boys sitting near the summit, holding books related to mysticism. They were ordinary people; Jiang Han could not sense any magic power from them.

"Witches-in-training. If all goes well, after five or six years of study, they will become the next batch of witches... As for their magic power level, it depends on their luck. If they are lucky, they become normal witches; if they are unlucky, they become Weak Witches." Cen Jing greeted the group of children with a smile, her tone calm: "Weak Witches are not much different from ordinary people, so most of them work as assistants to witches, performing light magical duties, or they become teachers like me."

Although the Witches-in-training Cen Jing described sounded very weak, Jiang Han suspected that this teacher's true magic power value might be astonishing.

Jiang Han's perception ability had already entered a certain "extraordinary" state. Her sensitivity to magic power was like a radar—it had a massive range, but she could only vaguely sense the magnitude of the magic power.

But that was enough; most of the witch lecturers in the cram school did not have as much magic power as Cen Jing, the "Weak Witch."

Not wanting to expose the issue of the other party's magic power, Jiang Han listened silently as she introduced various aspects of Witches-in-training.

Passing through the red forest filled with alcoholic mist and circling around a mountain-top lake formed by a spring, they walked for about twenty minutes before a well-arranged, picturesque cemetery appeared before their eyes.

The cemetery under the night sky looked slightly eerie, but that atmosphere was shattered by the sheer amount of human activity.

Witches in groups of three or five were holding evening parties in the cemetery, simmering bone and meat soup in cauldrons and setting up barbecue grills.

It's a cemetery. Yeah, it's a cemetery... Jiang Han couldn't find her voice for a long time.

Who the hell holds a barbecue party in a cemetery?

Sometimes Jiang Han felt she had seen through the witch race and thought it had reached the absolute bottom of the barrel, but it would always give her new surprises or shocks.

"Cemeteries are also a type of market. We buy some 'fresh' or 'special' materials here."

"For example, the Ai Jun Mushroom, internationally known as the 'Umbrella-shaped Spiny Mushroom Species - Cemetery Fungi Genus - White Peace Steed'. It needs to be grown in cemeteries or mass graves with heavy yin energy to thrive. Because of its special growth environment, if you want to preserve it, you need to keep it in an opaque bottle—it must be a glass bottle, which is quite troublesome." Cen Jing pointed to the Ai Jun Mushrooms growing in the grave soil. "Although they are born in cemeteries, they are used in the Life School under the Necromancy branch, and are also common base ingredients for brewing magic potions with healing effects."

Species name, genus name, namer—the way witches named plants was basically the same as in her previous life, all consisting of these three parts, except the species name was placed first.

As a high-level agent of the Keyboard Bureau who knew a little bit about everything, Jiang Han—unlike Li Li, who had an expression of "What are you saying, what do you want to say"—could actually understand the scientific name. The species name was basically the adjective for the plant, the appositive noun, and the possessive noun that gave everyone learning English a headache. The genus name was the basic information of the plant, such as economic utility, growth environment, or characteristics, and the last part was just random gibberish.

Therefore, names like "White Peace Steed" often appeared, making students wish they could use a knife to get intimately acquainted with the namer's maternal relatives.

Perhaps some might think "White Peace Steed" was just four characters, but as a suffix to a scientific name, it would be: Himot. et. Moyhse, which was an abbreviation.

Added to the previous description, the formal international witch scientific name for the Ai Jun Mushroom should be:

Agaricomycotina-hamatis-crepidotaceae. et. Moyhse

Jiang Han had guessed the full name herself, because assuming the witch world required spell theory to be added, it might need another five or six words. And since the description "umbrella-shaped and spiny" didn't exist in her previous life, the roots must be even more complex—definitely several times more complex than this cobbled-together word.

However, Jiang Han was more curious about Cen Jing. It was quite difficult for a "Weak Witch" to acquire knowledge that even ordinary witches didn't understand.

While knowledge of plant materials wasn't as expensive as that of spells, it was by no means cheap. She had previously found an academic book titled Magic Potions and Plants in the library, and the price had exceeded two or three thousand yuan. Given the rigor and tediousness of the records kept by witches in this world, such a book might only contain information on a dozen or so plants; if you wanted more, you had to spend more money.

Looking at her mentor with slight surprise, Jiang Han asked, "Mentor, are you very passionate about plants?"

Cen Jing nodded and said, "Extremely. I made up my mind to become a witch because of plants. If you try to pick these plants as an ordinary person without magic power, the danger is too great."

"Then... after you became a witch, you've always wanted to study plants?" Jiang Han felt a bit envious of someone who had such a conviction.

Cen Jing nodded again. "Yes, I like plants, I like studying them, and I want to write a book that covers all the medicinal plants in the country."

She smiled again:

"If possible, I want my research and hobbies to go down in history, to become the second witch to write the term 'witch' into history."

She wants to write a complete book on plants... Jiang Han nodded to herself. Compared to the impression this mentor gave, this wish was quite positive. So, she asked with a bit of curiosity, "Then... who was the first witch to write the term 'witch' into history?"

She saw Cen Jing's smile freeze, looking a bit helpless, so she turned to Li Li for help.

Li Li's eternal, unchanging expression broke its ice, also looking a bit helpless. Seeing Jiang Han look over, she explained:

"The first witch to leave her name in history is naturally the 'First Witch', the 'first witch born in the true sense'—Fula, the first witch born in the world. She was also the first witch to cross the ocean to China relying on three things: a small sampan, water-creation magic, and bread-creation magic... and the first witch to cross the world's largest ocean with only the magic power level of a Weak Witch."

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