Miss Witch, even if we're poor, we can't sell ourselves!

Miya covered the entrance to the tree hole with several large fern leaves and took two steps back to check the camouflage effect.

Mm~ That's great.

Unless someone gets close enough to part the leaves and look inside, it's impossible to tell from the outside that there are two people hiding inside.

She patted the dirt off her hands, turned around, and continued walking deeper into the jungle.

The further you go in, the denser the vegetation becomes, and the thicker the moss under your feet.

The humidity in the air was getting higher and higher, and it was impossible to tell whether the collar of her down jacket was wet from dew or from her own sweat.

Miya used her tentacles to push aside the leaves of large ferns blocking her way, scanning the ground as she walked, not missing any potentially useful plants.

Her backpack was already half full, filled with star-spotted fluorescent mushrooms, silver-veined trifoliate clover, dark moss, hemostatic herbs, and some other varieties she hadn't seen before in the back mountains. She couldn't name them yet, but judging from the shape of their leaves and the distribution of their veins, they should be medicinal.

Then she parted a particularly thick curtain of vines, revealing a small depression surrounded by the roots of a giant tree.

In the center of the depression was a rock about half a person's height, its surface covered with a fine layer of moss.

But Miya's gaze went straight past the stone and landed on the plant at the top of it.

It is only about ten centimeters tall, with a stem as thin as a silver needle, and its whole body is an extremely pale moon white, as if someone had condensed moonlight into threads and then woven this grass.

There is only one leaf at the top, shaped like a drop of water about to fall. The veins are silver and are glowing intermittently, as if it is breathing quietly.

Miya held her breath.

She recognized the plant; she had seen it in an extracurricular reading material given to her by Teacher Bie Chenye, titled "Excerpts from the Illustrated Guide to Legendary Alchemy Materials."

It contains hand-drawn illustrations of the legendary medicinal herbs known in Bellavita.

Miya only flipped through the first few pages before falling asleep on the table, but she clearly remembered that the third page was filled with this drawing.

Moondrop grass.

Legendary.

There are no more than five known specimens of Bellavita. Three of them are in the royal alchemy workshop, one is in the underground vault of the Moon Forest, and the other is said to have been refined into an S-rank potion by an alchemist more than a hundred years ago and has since disappeared.

The illustration notes that Moondrop Grass only grows in pristine ecosystems untouched by human civilization, requiring extremely high concentrations of magic in the soil and purity of life force in the air; there have been no successful cases of artificial cultivation to date.

The leaves secrete a drop of dew during the full moon. This drop of dew is known in the alchemy world as the "Tear of Moonlight," and it is the core material for refining S-grade recovery potions and immortality potions.

And now, a glowing Moondrop Grass is growing on a rock in front of her.

Miya stood there for a long, long time, her mind blank, and then the blank was filled with a very simple thought.

How much is this thing worth?

She first confirmed that there were no magical fluctuations around her, then tiptoed closer to the stone and crouched down to examine it carefully.

The roots of the moondrop grass are embedded in the moss layer on the surface of the stone. The roots are extremely fine and almost translucent, making them easy to break when harvesting.

Miya took out a small knife from her pouch, thought for a moment, and then put it back.

Metals may damage the activity of roots.

She shaved a bamboo skewer and carefully used the tip to peel away the moss around the roots of the moondrop grass, separating the roots completely bit by bit, her movements as slow as if she were grooming a sleeping cat.

It took nearly five minutes to separate the root system.

Then she took out an empty resealable bag from her backpack, which she had originally intended to use to store Golden Tear Mushrooms, but now she could gently put the Moondrop Grass, roots and moss, into it. Before sealing it, she blew a breath into the bag to make it bulge so that the leaves wouldn't be crushed.

She held the sealed bag in her hands and looked at it again and again. The silver vein in the bag was still glowing rhythmically, as if telling her with its own frequency that she was still alive.

Miya couldn't help but chuckle, carefully placed the sealed bag into her bag, and then zipped it up.

The live chat exploded the moment the Moondrop Grass was unearthed.

【Wait, wait, wait, what is that?】

【This is moondrop grass, oh my god!】

I checked the encyclopedia, and it really does look exactly the same.

Wasn't this thing supposed to have gone extinct a long time ago?

They are not extinct, they cannot be artificially cultivated, but they may exist in the wild.

How does she know about Moondrops? Why would a flesh magic student study this?

[I'm going to record this scene; those witches who practice alchemy will go crazy if they see it.]

[Someone has already moved the alchemy forum, it's already crashed]

Miya stood up and stretched her numb legs, preparing to continue walking forward, when she suddenly caught a glimpse of something reflecting light under the bushes beside her.

She crouched down and parted the branches of the bush, discovering a crushed blood fairy flower.

Several petals were crushed, dark red sap stained the moss, and the stem was broken in half.

Judging from the marks at the break, it was probably stepped on by a student who was passing by. The footprints are still fresh in the mud next to it.

Mi Ye frowned, heartbroken.

Blood Fairy is the key material for her tentacle evolution. She painstakingly collected it several times in the back mountain of Biechenye to accumulate enough for the first round of evolution. Now, seeing a Blood Fairy that has been trampled and crushed, it feels like seeing someone throw an unfinished milk tea directly into the trash can.

But she soon discovered that this was not the only Blood Fairy that had been ruined.

She continued walking, her heart growing more and more apprehensive.

There seem to be far more monsters in this jungle than on the outskirts.

Nightblade jackals, thorn rats, iron-shelled snails, and even some species she couldn't name, which would take some effort to find in the back mountains, were everywhere here.

But the key point is that most of these monsters are already dead, seemingly killed by other examinees using magic missiles.

The monsters' corpses lay scattered haphazardly on the moss, some still emitting wisps of smoke from being burned by magic, while others had turned into specks of light and were dissipating.

Beside the corpse of each monster, several Blood Fairy flowers that had been affected could be found. Some were blown apart by missiles, some were crushed by the monsters' struggles before they died, and one was even flattened by an empty recovery potion bottle that a candidate had carelessly thrown away.

Mi Ye squatted down next to a poison sac toad whose wing had just been pierced by a missile, looking at the three crushed Blood Fairy flowers under its body, feeling heartbroken for a long time.

So what kind of flower was she picking? The red one, does anyone recognize it?

I don't recognize it; I've never seen it before; it's not in any plant guides.

[It could also be a material specifically for flesh and blood magic, since flesh and blood magic is so obscure that there aren't even any textbooks about it.]

It's not surprising that no one in the comments recognized Blood Fairy. Flesh magic is so obscure that there's only one teacher and one student in the Forest of the Full Moon, and teaching materials and resources about flesh magic are extremely scarce.

Moreover, as the unique divine brilliance of Mi Ye, the Blood Fairy could not possibly have been recorded.

Mi Ye began sweeping through the area.

Use your tentacles to flip over rocks, use your knife to clear bushes, and pick up any Blood Fairy plants that have been blasted in half by missiles to see if they are still usable.

She put the petals that were more than half intact into her backpack, and had to give up the ones that were too broken.

She followed the trail of firefights that had broken out among other candidates after the exam began and discovered a pattern.

Wherever a battle has taken place, there will be the corpses of monsters that were caught in the crossfire nearby, and there is a high probability that you can find the Blood Fairy next to the monster corpses.

Miya didn't know if anyone else knew about this.

She guessed they probably didn't know, since everyone was always looking for fights, it was unlikely they would be lying on the ground studying what flowers were growing under the moss during an exam.

This was fantastic news for Mi Ye. While other candidates were vying for kill counts, she was sweeping through a treasure trove of resources that no one had bothered with.

About forty minutes later, Mi Ye squatted down under a rock wall shrouded in the mist of a waterfall, held up the seventy-third Blood Fairy flower she had just found, examined it carefully, and after confirming that the petals were intact and the stem was undamaged, nodded in satisfaction and put it into her bag.

The side pocket was already full of blood fairy flowers, their dark red petals crowded together, exuding an extremely vigorous life force.

Mi Ye silently calculated in her mind that she had used fifty flowers to evolve the tentacles, turning one tentacle into two.

The second round of evolution requires one hundred flowers.

She currently has seventy-three flowers; another twenty-seven will trigger the next evolution.

Miya stood up and looked out at the boundless jungle beyond the waterfall's mist. A fighting spirit ignited in her eyes, like the feeling of searching the entire map for treasure chests when you need ten Primogems for a ten-pull gacha.

But just then, it got dark.

It was as if someone had closed the curtains in the sky, and the light turned from daylight to dusk in a few seconds.

Miya looked up at the gap in the tree canopy and saw that the small patch of sky that could still be seen was being rapidly covered by a layer of unnaturally thick dark clouds. The color of the clouds changed from dark gray to inky black, and the patterns inside the clouds were churning violently, as if something was struggling inside to break free.

Then a clap of thunder rolled through the depths of the clouds, creating a continuous rumble, and the entire sky seemed to emit a threatening growl.

A raindrop landed on Mi Ye's nose.

Then the second drop, the third drop, the fourth drop.

The light rain turned from a few scattered drops into a torrential downpour within seconds.

The rain pattered against the tree canopy, instantly turning the mossy ground into a slippery, muddy mess. Water rose rapidly in the puddles, and the temperature dropped several degrees.

Miya pulled up the hood of her windbreaker, and tentacles automatically extended out and unfolded above her head, the petals opening to form two small umbrellas that weren't too big but were just enough.

"Why did it suddenly start raining?"

Miya muttered something, then realized something was wrong.

This shouldn't be natural rainfall, as the temperature doesn't change this quickly during natural rainfall. Moreover, this rain carries an extremely obvious magical fluctuation that seeps into the skin along with the raindrops.

Sitting on the canopy, the three proctors reacted more directly than Mi Ye.

The screen in Primula's hand was shaking violently. She operated the magic detector and raised her eyebrows slightly after seeing the value that popped up.

"It's a level 3 water elemental spell; the rainfall covered the entire eastern section of the examination hall."

Primula pushed the panel to Violet beside her, her tone carrying a hint of surprised admiration.

"This is not a level that just any candidate can achieve."

Violet took the panel, examined it carefully for a while, and nodded.

"The range control is so precise, yet the magic consumption curve is very smooth. This means that the caster is continuously manipulating the distribution of clouds while the rain is falling, without wasting any extra magic. This level of magic control precision is top-notch even in alchemy."

She paused, then added.

"It should be that candidate named Mo Ning. I noticed her during the written test. She got full marks in water element theory, and her magic control precision test was also S-rank. She was very quiet and didn't say a word throughout the entire test."

"And what about the one next to her?"

Primula pointed to the edge of the screen.

The view from the observation screen switched to a high ground in the eastern district.

Two figures stood on the high ground.

One of them was wearing a dark blue cloak, the hood of which covered most of his face, revealing only his chin and two strands of light blue hair peeking out from the edge of the hood.

She raised her hands high above her head, palms outstretched, her fingertips swirling with layers of pale blue water ripples, controlling the movement of every cloud in the sky with an extremely steady rhythm.

Standing behind her was a girl with short blonde hair.

Her hair was wet and stuck to her cheeks, but her expression was not affected by the bad weather at all.

She looked up at the thunderclouds in the sky, holding a slender silver wand in her right hand, the tip of the wand pointing towards the clouds, her lips rapidly chanting incantations.

After each passage was recited, a golden bolt of lightning would flash from the tip of the staff, and a bolt of lightning would correspondingly light up in the clouds above.

Her eyes were very serious, as if she was precisely controlling the location of each lightning strike in coordination with Mourning's rainfall range.

"Her name is Ailan."

Violet glanced at the list of candidates.

"Specializing in lightning element, with above-average written test scores, but an extremely high magic output efficiency rating. She went to the same high school as Mo Ning, and the two have been partners since junior high. The data states that they had a perfect record in duo combat simulations throughout their three years of high school."

"Water element combined with lightning element, one creates rain to cover the entire area, and the other precisely strikes lightning within the rain curtain. Rainwater conducts electricity, so in this environment, the effective range of lightning magic is magnified several times. People standing in the rain are essentially standing in a conductive net, with nowhere to hide."

Primula rested her finger on her chin, gave her comments, and then chuckled.

"There are indeed a few decent candidates this year."

Hiesta, who was covering her head with her hands, looked rather unhappy.

"I've already put on my makeup."

Then she used magic to create a small mushroom umbrella to cover her head.

While the proctors were happily watching the two thunderstorm-type little witches clear the room, Miya was struggling to survive in the mud.

The rain turned the mossy ground into an ice rink, and she had to curl her toes and grip the muddy ground with the soles of her shoes to keep her balance with each step.

The tiny umbrellas that the tentacles had transformed into seemed overwhelmed by the downpour. Rainwater seeped in from the edges of the petals, trickled down the tentacles, and into her sleeves, soaking both of them.

The light was so dim that you could barely see the trees ten steps away, and the sky above the treetops was blocked by dark clouds, causing visibility to plummet.

The precise identification required to find the Blood Fairy is simply impossible under this light.

The dark red petals were already inconspicuous against the dark green moss, and now that it was dark and raining heavily, even finding one's way was difficult.

Another bolt of lightning struck above the treetops, briefly illuminating the surroundings.

In that fleeting moment of light, Miya saw a rather thick ancient tree not far away. There was a small crack in the trunk, just big enough to accommodate the upper body of a person.

She slid and crawled over, squeezing herself into the crack and pulling her knees up to lift her feet off the water.

The inside of the crack was dry, and the smell of moss mixed with the fresh scent of tree sap was much better than the muddy, rotten smell outside.

She wrung out the water from her cuffs with her tentacles and breathed a sigh of relief after confirming that the waterproof layer of her backpack was intact.

The Moondrop Grass, Star-Spotted Glowing Mushroom, and Silver-Veined Trifoliate Flower inside are all delicate plants; they'll be ruined if they get into water.

Then she hugged her backpack to her chest and shrank into the deepest part of the tree crevice, staring blankly at the roar of the torrential rain hitting the tree canopy outside.

Then she remembered the two little witches in the tree hole.

The tree hole wasn't too far from where she was sheltering from the rain; it was only about a ten-minute walk away.

Before leaving, Miya covered the cave entrance with a few fern leaves, but that little bit of shelter was no match for the torrential rain.

She remembered that the space inside the tree hollow was not large. Although the two of them could keep warm by squeezing together, the entrance was open, and the rain would definitely soak them if it slanted in.

When she left, the two little witches had just had their magic drained by her, and they probably hadn't recovered much yet. Once their magic was gone, their physical condition was similar to that of an ordinary person, so it would be strange if they didn't freeze if they were left in this kind of rain for too long.

Mi Ye frowned and glanced outside. The rain showed no sign of stopping, so she unzipped her backpack and took out two slices of ginger that she had picked earlier in the back mountain of Bie Chenye.

She crushed the ginger with her tentacles, squeezed out the juice, and applied it to two leaves of the hemostatic herb. Then she rolled the leaves into two small rolls and stuffed them into her jacket pocket. She pulled the hood up again and plunged into the rain.

The condition of the tree hole was roughly as she had predicted.

The fern leaves had long been blown away by the wind and rain, and the rainwater that had seeped in from the entrance had accumulated in a shallow layer at the bottom of the tree hole.

The two little witches huddled at the very back, soaking wet and with pale lips.

They saw a hooded figure suddenly emerge from the cave entrance. The two instinctively wanted to use their restored magic to attack, but then they saw the person's face clearly.

"you--"

"Don't speak, open your mouth."

Miya squatted down and put two leaves of hemostatic grass coated with ginger juice into the mouths of the two women, then unscrewed her water bottle and handed it to them.

The girl with the dark green ponytail paused for a moment, took the water bottle and drank a few sips, and then the short-haired little witch also drank a few sips.

"Ginger is good for dispelling cold, and hemostatic herbs can also warm the body. Chew them up and swallow them."

As Miya spoke, she stood up, patted the mud off her knees, and put the leaves back down.

Her expression remained the same, feigning indifference, but the tips of her ears were red from the cold rain.

"You all stay put and don't move around. This rain is strange."

The woman with the dark green ponytail looked at her, her lips moved, and in the end she only managed to squeeze out three words.

"...Why?"

"There aren't that many whys."

Miya stood up, pulled the hood of her down jacket tighter, and turned to rush back into the rain.

Was she taking an exam or volunteering?

【Mother】

[I'm a fan of angels, anyone know what I mean?]

[First Impression: Cute and Adorable - Single Fan]

Miya was struggling to walk back, leaning against a tree trunk. Rainwater streamed down her hair and into her collar, soaking her jacket inside.

She sneezed, the sound as soft as a kitten's cough, then sniffed and continued searching for the next Blood Fairy in the mud.