Sorcerer’s Handbook

“Hmm?”

Leone looked back at the world that was gradually turning into black and white behind her.

“Did something fall down? Or is this a special virtual world phenomenon?”

On her first day in the Time Spirits, the orange dancer was still in the stage of unfamiliarity and exploration. Everything was both unfamiliar and special to her. But even so, she knew she had to run away quickly.

Otherwise, ‘time’ would catch up to her.

“I can’t believe I didn’t die from the fall…”

Ashe, who was lying on the grass, sat up and shook his head, still feeling imbalanced.

When they had rushed into the Golden Sea, they both simultaneously lost their sense of direction. The whole world seemed to turn upside down like a dice cup, making it impossible for them to maintain flight. They could only follow the pull of the virtual world’s gravity and let themselves plummet straight down.

Ashe thought he would die for sure this time after all his boasting, only to end up falling back into the Sea of Knowledge. But feeling the grass beneath his butt, he knew his dignity was at least preserved.

“Look, Observer.”

Ashe raised his head. What he saw was a spectacle that could almost rival the golden fish scales.

Golden rain was falling from the sky.contemporary romance

They were in a lush forest, surrounded by ancient towering trees that were probably centuries old. Despite the dense foliage blocking out the sun, Ashe could still see far away a white pillar spanning from the earth to the sky. Around the pillar, countless drops of golden rain spewed forth, falling upward from the ground toward the heavens.

He couldn’t help murmuring, “Is this the world of the powerful?”

“That’s the timegold rain, similar to the knowledge mist in the Sea of Knowledge,” Sonya explained. “To condense our second virtual wing with golden arcane energy, we need to follow the Ox’s footsteps and undergo the baptism of the golden rain.”

“Ox foot?”

“That white pillar is the ox foot, you look carefully, is it moving?”

Peering intently, Ashe noticed the pillar was indeed shifting, though the motion was very subtle. However, considering he was observing the movement from several kilometers away, the true speed of the pillar was likely a dozen meters per second.

“Why is it called ox-foot?”

“Because it is the ox foot. Beyond what you can see, there are threeother ox feet. Together, these four feet belong to the virtual world colossal beast, the ‘Ox’, that treads upon the Time Spirits,” Sonya explained.

“The Ox has many names – the Fate Weaver, the Celestial Ox, the Time Walker…but most refer to it simply as the ‘White Ox’.”

“The footprints plowed by the White Ox become a Golden River. The waters of the Golden River have the power to manipulate time. The plants and animals on the banks nourished by it grow at unimaginable speeds, and they in turn produce the timegold rain that falls upward into the sky.”

She stroked the setaria viridis beside her. “If we had come earlier, we would have been bathing in the golden rain now.”

“The Golden River, the inverted golden rain, the White Ox…” Ashe gazed at the sky covered in rainfall. “So this is the Time Spirits?”

Drip.

Suddenly, they both heard the crisp sound of water dripping in unison. Immediately after, the Silver Wings manifested uncontrollably and shone with a dazzling silvery radiance!

“Silver Blessing!” Sonya exclaimed joyfully. She calmed herself to feel the newly obtained power, while Ashe chose to open his Operator system.

「Death Maniac Swordswoman」

「Race: Human, Female, 18 years old」

「Trust Level: 3 (50% EXP sharing)」

「Trust Resonance – Greed: Chance to obtain better spoils when acting together.」

「Class: Soul-Shattering Silver Sorcerer」

「Class Trait: Recover 0.5% max arcane energy with each effective attack」

「Silver Blessing – Revelry/Brutality: Increase critical rate and critical damage with each enemy killed (including but not limited to sorcerer projections, knowledge creatures, monsters, sorcerers, constructed creatures, etc). Different traits may be triggered based on Operator’s cultivation path.」

「Additional Blessing Trait – Revelry: The swordswoman needs only victory to feel joy. She maintains respect and compassion for her enemies. This path triggers the ‘Revelry’ effect, granting critical damage increase. The better her mood, the greater the increase, up to 250% critical damage.」

「Additional Curse Trait – Brutality: The swordswoman’s thirst can only be quenched by death and agony. She will expend every effort to bring despair upon the disrespectful. This path triggers the ‘Brutality’ effect, granting critical rate increase. The worse her mood, the greater the increase, up to 100% critical rate.」

「Curse of Knowledge: Whirlpool Venom, Eviction Venom, Golden Fish Venom」

“It seems like a growth-type blessing…”

After sensing for a while, Sonya pondered, “Since blessings are a sorcerer’s most private secrets, and the college doesn’t have detailed information on them, developing blessings requires the sorcerer to explore on their own… Do you know what my specific blessing is?”

Ashe glanced at her: “Your blessing is called ‘Revelry’. The more enemies defeated, the higher your critical hit rate and critical hit damage.”

Although it sounded strange, ‘critical hit rate’ and ‘critical hit damage’ were not uncommon among sorcerers. Simply put, it was when the spirit suddenly felt motivated to over-perform during spellcasting, that was a ‘critical hit’.

Critical hit rate represented the frequency of the spirit’s overtime work, and critical hit damage represented the efficiency of the spirit’s overtime. In other words, this blessing could be summarized as ‘the more rival companies the Swordswoman Corporation acquires, the more efficient the exploitation of internal spirit employees becomes’.

Sonya was a little dissatisfied. “Revelry, what a weird name. I’m clearly a virtuous swordswoman, why would I be associated with the word ‘madness’?”

“The virtual world’s positioning of you may be slightly inaccurate,” Ashe said disingenuously. “You’re so quiet and cute, gentle and kind, friendly and easy-going. Even I feel this time the silver blessing given to you by the virtual world really doesn’t match your status.”

Sonya was flustered by his words. “I’m not that great…but this growth-type blessing isn’t bad. It should be very helpful for future virtual world explorations after I develop it well.”

Ashe secretly breathed a sigh of relief. The Swordswoman’s silver blessing had two cultivation paths, ‘Revelry’ and ‘Brutality’. Ashe undoubtedly hoped the Swordswoman would take the ‘Revelry’ path, as the ‘Brutality’ path was clearly very negative energy.

This wasn’t an actual mobile game where battles could be auto-piloted and auto-fought. In the future, Ashe would still have to personally accompany the Swordswoman on nightly explorations (of the virtual world). If the Swordswoman was always bursting with negative energy and causing bloody carnage whenever they fought, Ashe wouldn’t be able to maintain a good mood either.

But this path’s cultivation was clearly not something that could be determined with a simple click in-game. It required continuous daily guidance, almost like raising a daughter. As a first-time dad, Ashe didn’t have much experience. For now, he had to instill kind virtues in the Swordswoman, make her believe she was an angelic cutie, to prevent her from turning dark.

In addition, the Swordswoman’s Trust Level rose to 3, increasing the EXP sharing ratio to 50%.

Seeing this, Ashe was suddenly struck by a question: Did the Trust Level refer to the Swordswoman’s affection for him, his affection for the Swordswoman, or their mutual affection?

Come to think of it, why did he choose to guide the Swordswoman down the ‘Revelry’ path almost without any hesitation?

The ‘Brutality’ path also offered considerable benefits, and the condition of ‘maintaining a bad mood’ was much simpler than ‘maintaining a good mood’. Yet he didn’t even consider that option for a second…

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