Ais's original plan had been to use Mirror Jump — entering through one of the mirrors necessarily present in a clothing shop to teleport directly inside. But the potion only mentioned that every mirror had a Mirror Realm behind it, so even though her Witch instincts told her that this situation constituted two separate mirrors, she was still a little curious what the combined Mirror Realm looked like when two mirrors faced each other.
"Life. I really never thought I'd end up coming to a shop like this alone, buying clothes for myself."
Her mood was complicated. And when she remembered that she'd permanently lost the right to bring a girlfriend here, the complication shifted briefly toward sadness.
Not that she'd had any objection to same-sex relationships in her previous life — but even now, she didn't feel any particular need to explore them. Did people really need a partner to get through life? Wasn't being alone perfectly fine? Especially in her current situation.
Since she was in a hurry, and had absolutely zero experience coordinating outfits, she skipped deliberation entirely: shirt, jacket, trousers, and boots — all in one color. Black, which wouldn't show dirt and washed easily. As for undergarments — since nobody else would see them, she eliminated pink as an option and selected everything else at random.
The shop was dark, but Ais still went to the changing area first. She withdrew the ice from her clothing, condensed it back into her hand, and used black flame to neutralize it before leaving it on the floor for the moment.
The Witch potion had granted cold resistance, so even in the dark, in the middle of the night, she had enough composure while changing to take note of her own body for the first time.
"Seriously — how is this justified? That woman has an excellent figure and she doesn't come anywhere close to this. Why am I two jin? Not two liang — two jin, minimum. No downward pull whatsoever. Is that scientifically plausible? You've never respected science, I know, but do you have to show off supernatural superiority right here?"
She grumbled to herself internally — and only after pulling on the shirt realized she'd forgotten to pick up any undergarments.
"Fine. It's not actually a requirement for a Witch."
She hesitated briefly, then decided not to compromise on that front for now. She quickly finished dressing and looked down at the abundant floral vine embroidery on the fabric, muttering the words "flashy" and "over the top" to herself in a continuous loop.
After tucking the lace from the cuffs she'd missed earlier inside the sleeves, Ais considered what to do with her original clothing.
Leaving it here was out of the question. Carrying it to the church while turning herself in was equally off. She looked at the block of ice at her feet and had an idea — just throw it into the Mirror Realm.
But clothing worn for a long time was another matter. Even she, now a Witch, could use this clothing to curse its original owner within the same city, given assistance from a ritual — provided an evil god answered. So to be safe, she decided to divine the risk first.
She picked up the ice from the floor and tested her Ice Manipulation on it. She found that with minimal spiritual energy, she regained full control over it.
Fair enough. She shaped the ice into a small wand.
Since she only needed to check whether an action carried risk, she used the other divination method Witches commanded — the wand — for a quick check.
A small ice wand wasn't technically a proper wand, but wands and magic mirrors were both just tools for presenting insights. They were essentially the same as tarot cards in tarot reading, or pendulums in pendulum divination. Specific materials genuinely did improve a divination's effectiveness — but that didn't mean ordinary materials caused it to fail.
After seven silent repetitions of "Directly placing these clothes in the Mirror Realm poses a risk," she watched the previously upright wand tilt decisively to the left — indicating no.
That surprised her. She'd assumed she'd at minimum need to disrupt the connection between the clothes and herself using black flame and a spell before the risk cleared. She'd checked first only out of thoroughness — to verify her assumption, not because she'd expected to be wrong.
"That's strange."
Puzzled, she connected the thought to those three lackeys' mirrors that had abruptly failed. She immediately divined whether she had stepped out with her left foot this morning.
That was the kind of question — something she'd done herself, then forgotten — where a divination failure should have been impossible.
But the wand stood completely still: divination failed.
Understanding now, she used the mirror to divine David John's appearance. As expected, the mirror showed her face before the advancement. A divination on whether he was dead failed outright.
"So this is what — death in a mystical sense?"
Now that she understood why those three lackeys' mirrors had failed, Ais shook her head. It was a little funny, and a little fitting.
With nothing left to worry about, she carried her old clothes over to the shop's fitting mirror. Though the only light was a soft, dim blush of crimson moonlight, she could see herself clearly in the glass.
She let out a quiet sigh. The only thing that could console her was that her height had barely changed. Being a large man meant being tall — certainly above 185 centimeters. She was hovering around 185 now as well, which would be remarkable by the standards of her previous world. For this era? A woman at 175 was already rare. At 185, she was practically singular.
"At least better than being short."
She tried to console herself weakly. She'd been about to drop the old clothes directly into the fitting mirror — but then remembered that the big idiot wasn't an orphan. She processed his "relics" first with black flame and a spell, then tucked them into a mirror she'd made from ice.
Once she smashed that ice mirror, the Mirror Realm corresponding to it would cease to exist. Even if the fragments still counted as a mirror, the Mirror Realm of the fragments would no longer be the same one as before.
As for what would happen to clothing stored in a Mirror Realm once the mirror was broken, Ais genuinely didn't know. The potion only warned Witches not to be inside a Mirror Realm when a mirror was about to shatter — it said nothing about what happened to items left inside.
She placed 2 pounds in a conspicuous spot in the shop and didn't bother with change. She pressed her hand to the fitting mirror and spoke the Ancient Hermes word for "jump."
Only at that moment did she understand what the thirty-meter mirror-sensing ability was actually for — that was how Mirror Jump determined its destination.
"No wonder the potion never mentioned how to control where you end up."
She settled on her target in her mind — and before she'd even had time to react, her vision blurred for an instant. When it cleared, she was outside the shop.
"Smooth. The range and medium limitations are a bit strict, though, and the activation feels a touch slow."
Though she'd mentally critiqued Mirror Jump without much warmth, she had no real complaints. Other than the transformation, the Witch potion had nothing worth objecting to.
After neutralizing the ice mirror that held the big idiot's "relics," she suddenly realized she could use the Mirror Realm as personal storage. It couldn't hold anything with a strong personal connection — items long used or closely associated — but it was still very useful.
"Mirror magic really is wonderfully convenient," Ais couldn't help thinking.
Beyond the inherent utility of the abilities themselves, mirror magic had one huge advantage over the dark arts a Witch commanded: the casting material was almost always just a mirror. For a Witch who could conjure ice from nothing, this effectively meant no material cost at all.
And it was inexpensive in spiritual energy, too. Unscientific as it sounded, conjuring a piece of ice roughly the size of a vanity mirror consumed about as much spiritual energy as a single use of Full-Force Strike. For a Witch, whose total spiritual energy had increased dramatically, this was simply not worth worrying about.
Author's Note (this chapter): Her mood was complicated. And when she remembered that she'd permanently lost the right to bring a girlfriend here, the complication shifted briefly toward sadness.
邱小姐爱梳妆 Not necessarily.