Nine Years of Compulsory Magical Education

Jiang Han's whole body trembled. It was the first time in her life she had seen such a huge bear, and even her voice shook. "Comrade Jiang Zhenling, what is this?"

Little Comrade Jiang Zhenling placed her left hand on the Ice Bear's right paw and calmly replied, "A bear."

Jiang Han could not even be bothered to complain. She pressed on, "Where did it come from?"

Jiang Zhenling looked over, her eyes shifting slightly as she said with amusement, "The bear you bought."

When the hell did I buy a bear?

Jiang Han instinctively wanted to snap back, but then suddenly realized something. "I bought it? I..."

"Mm, you bought it." Her younger sister stroked the bear's paw and barely suppressed a laugh. "You sang one Katyusha, half of Unbreakable Union, communicated with 'Ura' for half an hour, and in the end, Comrade Natalia even gave us a fifteen-percent discount. She also threw in six fully automatic rifles and three thousand rounds of ammunition."

Damn it, what exactly did I do? Jiang Han covered her face.

After spending some time looking at the bear with her sister and listening to her introduce this large pet, Jiang Han once again felt the difference between the two worlds. This Ice Bear, supposedly from the Ukrainian region, was a type of highly intelligent magical creature. Within the boundless Folded Ice Domain, these bears could make animal-fat torches by hand. Some even used bone or stone tools. With training, they could effortlessly dismantle a Soviet-made rifle with their huge paws, then put it back together again...

With a witch's magical support, they could also learn most spells from every school below Level 5.

According to Little Comrade Jiang Zhenling, after studying for a while, this kind of bear could even earn an "Excellent" on the Witch Civil Servant A3 Test.

"Roar." It intelligently greeted Comrade Jiang Han, then rubbed harmlessly against Little Comrade Jiang Zhenling, looking every bit like an expert social climber.

"Come on, Sis. Pet her. She's a good girl." Her sister encouraged her. "She's your pet. She's harmless to our whole family."

Jiang Han swallowed again and cautiously approached the enormous bear, carefully stroking its fur.

The fur was long and soft, warm and fluffy.

Just touching it brought an unparalleled comfort that was almost impossible to describe. Even Jiang Han, who had lived twice, could not resist the urge to stroke it a few more times. The bear known scientifically as the Ukrainian Ice Bear had a body that was actually a little cool beneath its warm fur, making petting her the ultimate pleasure.

Put it this way.

It was like steaming your bedsheets, turning the air conditioner down to eighteen degrees, then curling up beneath a quilt that still held warmth. It was nearly impossible to escape... no, it was completely impossible to escape such a trap.

Jiang Han and her sister lay limp atop the bear's belly, feeling the breeze as they watched the thriving city, watched broom-riding witches streak past like comets with long flaming tails, and watched the sunset.

It was so beautiful that it did not feel real.

Jiang Han escaped from the soft-fur trap, ran back to her room, and began searching through the piles of books filling it for her old elementary school textbooks.

Based on what she knew of herself, she had kept her 1985 textbooks until 2005. If they had not been accidentally lost in 2006, she might have continued keeping them forever.

Although she had transmigrated—and become a witch on top of that—given what Jiang Han knew about herself, her textbooks should not have gone missing.

After searching carefully, she found a full set of elementary school textbooks in the corner of her wardrobe in less than five minutes:

Cultural Studies: Primitive Spell ClassificationEvocation School: BeginnerConjuration School: Beginner...

The textbook covers were plastic, and the pages were only slightly yellowed. The text was printed in fourteen-point font. Many pages contained not only Jiang Han's notes, but also quick pencil sketches, with the occasional stick figure.

After flipping through them, she confirmed that the residual knowledge and memories in this body still allowed her to understand the words written inside, as well as the English and Latin that appeared from time to time.

"Feels like this body retained more vocabulary than I remembered when I graduated from college in my previous life," Jiang Han muttered. Carrying several books downstairs, she suddenly remembered something and set them down.

"Ahem..." She drew her wand from her waist and recalled a spell she had just seen in the textbook.

More accurately, it was an entry-level spell. One only needed to construct its model in one's mind and pour magic into it to activate it. The first step was that the model referred to the spell's specific components. One needed to draw the spell model on papyrus, then dissolve that papyrus, which recorded the spell, into a bottle of spell potion. The spell model would then be entered into one's spell library.

The second step was simply to retrieve it when needed and pour magic into it to cast the spell.

The first step reminded Jiang Han of an episode from an anime called Doraemon, translated domestically as Little Ding-Dang. Brewing papyrus into a potion was similar to an item in it called Memory Bread: knowledge was written—or printed—onto it, and then one could remember it after eating it. The difference was that brewing spell potion was far from simple and involved a great deal of specialized knowledge.

For example, many advanced spells required different potions. Fireball Spell was one of the most classic Level 3 mid-tier spells. Its potion required lava, the horn of a certain demon, the reverse scale of an extremely violent drake, and a precious jade. It had to be brewed using a special method, then drunk at sunrise on the day it was made, at six o'clock, in order to memorize the Fireball Spell model.

—The greatest trouble was not collecting the materials, not even racking one's brains to create a Fireball Spell model suited to oneself, nor was it having to begin at midnight and finish within six hours. It was that if there was no sunrise at six o'clock after it was finished, or if it was rainy and overcast in the morning, then the potion was wasted on the spot... completely wasted. It could only be drunk like cola, then turned into tears flowing out.

Looking at the casually scribbled note in the textbook that recorded the Fireball Spell's usage—"June 25th, 6 o'clock, rainy"—and the traces beside it that had been soaked by tears, Jiang Han could practically feel the despair and grief contained in that short line.

Fortunately, spell models were also stored within the body, so Jiang Han did not need to make the basic potion again.

Guiding magic was unfamiliar to her, but thanks to this body's unimaginable talent, in less than half a second the surging magic flooded backward into the spell model, nearly blasting cracks into the model inside her mind.

If Jiang Han had not possessed a clear understanding of her own magic back at Natalia's shop, she finally did now.

The textbook said: the casting time for a basic spell included "a hand gesture," "a phrase or half-phrase of spiritual words—usually Latin," "one second of guided magic," "if conditions permitted, the use of an amulet made of spells—usually a finger-joint-sized piece of silver," and "the spell's name had to be spoken to deepen the connection with it."

The contents of this elementary school textbook did not apply to Jiang Han.

She merely thought of the model and poured magic into it, releasing the spell without even needing to say anything.

Mage Hand.

A basic spell. Its function was to summon an invisible floating spectral hand before the caster and grant control over it.

Jiang Han felt as though she had gained a third arm, and in that marvelous instant, she could use it with ease.

The invisible hand she summoned lifted the books placed on the table. It was somewhat strenuous, but it succeeded.

"That's it. That's what magic is!"

The joy of using a spell for the first time was like tasting mung bean popsicles for the first time during the scorching summer of 1994.