One

"What's going on?"

She had such a sprawling estate, such an exquisite, master-crafted alchemical cauldron!

How did she end up in this cramped box of a room after a dizzy spell?

And look at all these bizarre, unfamiliar objects.

Was there actually a tiny human figure moving inside that flat square box? And it was talking?

Was this a scrying mirror crafted by some high-tier archmage?

And this bed... it was undeniably soft. She felt zero inclination to get up. Willow Vance was completely captivated by the memory-foam mattress.

Fine.

She would contact her coven leader first to ask what on earth was happening.

Willow reluctantly slid out of the embrace of the soft bed, her right hand instinctively forming a channeling seal while she muttered an incantation under her breath.

Nothing happened.

Willow blinked.…

What was going on?

She tried again. Still nothing! She was utterly dumbfounded.

After dozens of failed attempts, she finally gave up and accepted the cold, hard reality.

Her magical affinity and spellcasting talent had been completely sealed.

Could it be a rival coven? Would those bastards really risk starting a blood-feud over a single patch of moonlit nightshade?

She had been a renowned herbalist and botanical witch in the Arcane Realm, possessing a boundless pocket-sanctum featuring rolling hills, a crystal-clear spring, lush orchards, and blooming night-flowers.

Rare magical flora grew everywhere, enchanted fauna roamed freely, and her loyal familiar, a spirit-moth named Echo, looked after the grounds.

Sipping a draught of sweet dew she’d brewed herself in her spare time was the pinnacle of bliss.

Just as Willow was fondly recalling her leisurely life, a sudden, splitting headache struck her. Deprived of her magic to cushion the blow, the agony was excruciating.

After half an hour of pure torture, Willow was drenched in a cold sweat before the torment finally ceased.

Willow, having forcefully absorbed the memories of her body’s original owner, couldn't help but spit out a mouthful of sour saliva.

This is completely unhinged!

The original owner of this body was actually her distant modern descendant.

Unable to stomach the impending apocalypse heading their way in three months, and facing a miserable death, the girl had chosen a desperate dark ritual: sacrificing her own soul to drag her ancient ancestor back across the veil.

According to the memories, the original owner had been an ordinary college student facing graduation. But half a month prior, the global ambient temperature had begun to skyrocket, soaring past fifty degrees Celsius in a matter of weeks and shutting down modern society.

The sweltering heat lasted for three grueling months, claiming countless lives to heatstroke. Just when survivors thought the worst was over and rain finally came, it didn't stop, unabated torrential downpours led straight to catastrophic floods and mudslides.

That was followed by a brutal ice age, polar night, and endless frost. The original owner had barely scraped by until the third year of the apocalypse, only to starve to death amidst a total food collapse.

On her deathbed, she’d overheard her neighbors debating how best to butcher and cook her body, and she had literally died of sheer fright.

Reborn with no magical cheat codes, she had rejected a second chance at life entirely, opting instead for a blood sacrifice to summon her formidable ancestor.

Which brought Willow right here.

Willow was speechless. So, because she couldn't handle the end of the world herself, she volunteered me to handle it for her?

It took her a full three hours to sift through the alien memories and grasp roughly 80-90% of this bizarre modern civilization.

Willow picked up the glowing glass rectangle from the coffee table and tapped the screen. The digital clock read: 11:00 AM, June 8th, 4015.

In her descendant's memories, the apocalyptic weather shifts wouldn't officially hit until September 10th, but the early heatwaves were already creeping in, completely ignored by the public.

Willow grabbed a pen and jotted down the crucial dates in a paper notebook. As the old adage goes, a dull pencil beats a sharp mind.

"Master? Master?"

"Echo?"

Willow paused, her face lighting up with sudden hope. She closed her eyes, focused her mental energy inward, and swept across the recesses of her mind.

Sure enough, she sensed the familiar pulse of her pocket-sanctum.

It was an almost transparent, four-sided quartz crystal lodged in her soul. Her consciousness slipped right through, and in an instant, she arrived inside the Sanctum.

Everything inside was completely intact. Echo fluttered her iridescent moth wings closer, her tiny face overflowing with joy.

"Master! Did the world change? I can't sense any ambient ley-lines out there anymore!"

What Echo left unsaid was that she couldn't even sense Willow's magical rank.

Willow had already made peace with it. Knowing the Sanctum was still functional made her feel a whole lot safer. She gave Echo a quick rundown of the situation.

"Echo, could you section off a specific warehouse zone for me? I need to stockpile a mountain of supplies."

The memories of modern delicacies like bubble tea, spicy hot pot, and crispy fried chicken looked dangerously appealing!

After giving her instructions, Willow slipped back into the physical world.

The Sanctum possessed perfect temporal storage capabilities and anything placed in Echo's designated warehouse would remain completely frozen in time, keeping food eternally fresh.

The catch? The storage warehouse couldn't house living creatures. However, the agricultural zones still functioned normally, drastically accelerating growth rates.

For instance, a patch of medicinal fungus that normally took decades could be cultivated into a millennium-old specimen in just a few months. By Willow's calculations, the internal time dilation ratio was a glorious 1:100.

Looking at the rare herbs, enchanted fish, and spirit beasts roaming her pocket realm, Willow suddenly felt another headache coming on.

It seems... Money is going to be a massive problem in this world, isn't it?

She checked her modern digital wallet: eight dollars and sixty cents. Brilliant. That was just about enough for a cheap cup of instant noodles.

Willow gritted her teeth and ducked back into the Sanctum. As the master of the realm, she could safely linger here for eight hours a day.

Echo was overjoyed by her return, doing happy little loops in the air.

"Echo, stop zooming around, my eyes are crossing. Go catch a couple of spirit-carp and gather some dry kindling. We're having a proper meal."

Echo nodded vigorously. Spirit-carp! It was so delicious! The meat was tender, bursting with flavor, and infused with residual magic that nourished both body and soul. Plus, her master’s culinary skills were absolute perfection; even basic roasting made the food heavenly.

Watching Echo’s eager expression, Willow chuckled, gesturing for the spirit-moth to get the firewood before habitually flicking her wrist to spark a flame.

Then came the deeply awkward silence.

Right. No ambient magic. I can't snap my fingers and summon a fireball anymore.

"Master, let me handle it," Echo chirped, exhaling a puff of refined spirit-breath to ignite the wood.

Silently, Willow set to work roasting the fish. Living without magic is going to be an incredible pain in the neck.

Once she had eaten her fill, Willow reached into her pouch and pulled out a small porcelain vial clearly labeled: [Purification Elixir].

Though her spellcasting was currently offline, swallowing the elixir would forcefully purge the mundane toxins from this weak modern body and supercharge her physical baseline, keeping her from becoming a liability.

Without a second thought, she uncorked the vial and swallowed it down.

Immediately, a searing agony ripped through her entire body. Echo hovered anxiously nearby, completely helpless, knowing this brutal physical restructuring was entirely unavoidable.

"Agh…!"

Willow couldn't help crying out softly. Her veins bulged against her skin, and her eyes went wide and bloodshot. Pain radiated deep into her marrow, feeling as though every single bone in her skeleton was being shattered and reforged.

She never imagined that down-scaling an alchemical cleansing draught for a mortal frame would hurt this much!

Fortunately, after half an hour of unrelenting torment, the pain finally ebbed away.

Willow climbed to her feet, took one look at her arms which was now coated in a layer of greasy, foul-smelling black sludge expelled from her pores and wrinkled her nose in disgust.

Without wasting a second, she materialized back into the real world, grabbing a five-hundred-year-old magical Reishi mushroom she'd harvested from her stash. She had dug it out specifically for emergencies. This specimen alone should easily fund her upcoming shopping spree.

After a long, scalding shower, she stepped out feeling completely light and revitalized. Grabbing the edge of the heavy oak study table, she absentmindedly tested her grip and accidentally cracked the wood with a sharp snap.

Excellent.

Her baseline physique was already superior to a peak human athlete, and with some proper physical conditioning, she wouldn't have to worry about a thing when the dead started walking.

Right now, there was only one objective on the agenda: Stockpile everything.