Sorcerer’s Handbook

“If hurt enough, then slash open with a single stroke…”

Igor woke up with a yawn and went to take a bath as usual. He had just taken off his clothes and got into the tub when the doorbell rang persistently.

Although puzzled, Igor still wrapped himself in a towel and went to open the door, finding Ashe outside.

“Let’s play rock paper scissors.”

“What?”contemporary romance

“Don’t ask, just play rock paper scissors with me, and you have to win three times!”

“Is this some kind of necessary ritual?”

“Yes!”

“Will it harm me?”

“No!”

Igor observed Ashe for a while and felt he was probably telling the truth, so he said, “Then I refuse.”

“Why?”

“Helping you is friendship, not helping you is principle. Why should I help you complete the ritual?”

“Why do you need a reason to help others?”

“Your current position doesn’t really support you saying that… And do I look like a philanthropist?”

Ashe pondered for a moment: “Do you know why mages can’t drink boiling water and have to wait for it to cool first?”

Igor was startled: “Why?”

“If you accompany me to complete this ritual, I’ll tell you.”

Could boiling water contain traces of toxins that damage arcane energy? Or is ‘boiled water’ part of some ritual that would have undesirable consequences if interfered with?

In the mage world, all things contain truths. Something seemingly trivial could be a ‘ritual taboo’ that mages spent centuries summarizing, like ‘chanting passages for the deceased’ can effectively reduce the lingering death aura.

Therefore, when Ashe said this, Igor became curious and agreed to Ashe’s request, easily winning him three times—with some mind reading ability, Igor could almost see what Ashe would play each round written on his face.

“Thanks, Igor!”

“What ritual requires someone to win rock paper scissors against you three times…”

“It’s called the padding blade ritual. I just lost to you due to bad luck, so now my luck will turn good. See you later—”

“Wait, you haven’t told me why mages can’t drink freshly boiled water yet.”

“Because it burns your tongue.”

Igor watched Ashe leave blankly, closed the door, and went back to the bathtub.

He looked at the ceiling, rubbed his temples, and fell into contemplation.

“Is it because I’ve been interacting with him too often recently that my IQ has also been affected…”

After the bath, Igor was fortunately triggered an ‘Inspiration’ spirit while brushing his teeth. He saw the splashing toothpaste foam leave a sentence on the mirror—

“Don’t try drinking freshly boiled water.”

“Who would drink that!”

The padding blade ritual completed, Ashe returned to his dorm.

“Confirm spending 30 Source Crystals for 10 draws? Note: You can manually increase the number of draws. More draws make it easier to draw rare cards!”

“Confirm spending 42 Source Crystals for 14 draws?”

“Confirmed!”

Whoosh—

It was still the extremely simple draw interface. Eight white lights, four purple lights, and…two gold lights appeared!

The eight white lights were 1 basic combat card, 4 Energy Potions, and 3 Experience Potions. Although the Experience Potions were acceptable since they could stack, drawing so many Energy Potions that a Operator could only use 1 of per week… These must be pool-polluting items!

Ashe looked on and his eyes lit up instantly: the four purple lights were 3 “Spirits’ Joy Potions” and 1 “Honey Belly Sword”.

Spirits’ Joy Potion (x3): Increases a Operator’s favorability with their spirit, speeding up their mastery. Lasts 1 week, effects do not stack.

Honey Belly Sword: Honey that can be hidden under the tongue. Bite down when needed to turn into a sword. Can pass any security check. Can be upgraded.

The Spirits’ Joy Potions were undoubtedly what Ashe needed most right now. He had just obtained his Heart Sword and Circulate spirits and couldn’t wield them freely in the virtual world, let alone resonate them in reality.

The effect was a bit strange though, supposedly increasing the spirit’s favorability towards the Operator… Did the potion make spirits go into heat…?

The Honey Belly Sword wasn’t useful yet, but Ashe would definitely need a weapon after the prison break. As seen in Shattered Lake Prison, the outside world was full of obstacles and security for escapees.

So the Honey Belly Sword, which could pass checks, was essential for fugitives.

Finally, there were two gold lights!

Alchemist’s Distillation Flask: Combine two of the same potions for a 30% chance to distill a stronger advanced potion, 30% chance to mutate into another rare potion, 40% chance of failure losing both potions.

Ashe perked up instantly—with this flask, those pool-polluting potions could be reprocessed. Although there was also a chance of loss, at least there was hope, like buying lottery tickets.

Random Spirit Summon Card: The Operator performs a summoning ritual to independently summon a rare spirit of their current level, instantly advancing the spirit’s faction level to match the Operator’s. Note: rituals vary in restrictions, duration, and requirements based on the spirit, but will not exceed seven days.

At first glance, this gold card didn’t seem that special, just summoning a spirit. Ashe could get 12 in one night.

But upon closer look, the key was not the spirit but the ‘current level’!

He now knew mages were split into Single-Wing Silver, Two-Wing Gold, Three-Wing Saint, Four-Wing Legend ranks. So if Swordswoman advanced to Two-Wing, using this card on her would surely summon a Two-Wing spirit—higher-Wing spirits were naturally better.

But mages needed sufficient faction level to summon matching spirits.

Without Gold rank in a faction, she couldn’t summon a Two-Wing spirit, and so on!

So this gold card’s true effect was: instantly advance a Operator’s random faction to their current Virtual Wing level and obtain a spirit of that level!

For a One-Wing mage, it was just an Experience Orb + spirit. But for Two-Wing and above, it was terrifying.

Mastering an unfamiliar faction from nothing in under seven days!

Reason told Ashe this card became more valuable later, but the current situation left no room for hoarding.

To succeed, he had to convert everything into combat power. Regretting that a sliver of power cost them the escape and landing in Lorein’s cooking pot was unacceptable.

First the Distillation Flask. With 7 Energy and 4 Experience Potions, he combined them into 2 Advanced Energy Potions and 1 Advanced Experience Potion.

Advanced Energy Potion: Adds an advanced action point during training for 7 days. Eliminates Operator energy consumption, increases positive feedback and mood, small chance of increasing Trust Level.

Advanced Experience Potion: +50% skill exp gain during training for 7 days, stacks up to 100% on an Operator.

That should have been it, but Ashe put in 2 Spirits’ Joy Potions as well.

He still had 1 left if it failed, and if it succeeded…

Spirits’ Frenzy Potion: Greatly increases a spirit’s favorability towards the Operator, vastly speeding up mastery. Lasts 1 week, effects do not stack.

The name was sounding more and more like an aphrodisiac…

Ashe opened Operator Management, and the game suddenly prompted:

“Death Maniac Swordswoman’s training has ended. Please review the growth report and set this week’s regimen soon.”

Growth Report 4.12-4.18

Swordsmanship Faction: 0 → Silver

Light Faction: 0 → Silver

Water Faction: Beginner → Silver

Arcane Energy: 0 → Silver Half-Wing

Training Evaluation: A!

Due to an A evaluation, Death Maniac Swordswoman gained the Sorcerer Handbook’s Job Enhancement:

One-Wing Swordsmage → Annihilation Silver Swordsmage

Annihilation Silver Swordsmage: Recover 0.5% max arcane energy whenever dealing damage.

Ashe was surprised there was an evaluation and high scores gave special rewards—job enhancements.

Although unrelated to him, a stronger Swordswoman obviously increased exploration efficiency, and Annihilation Silver Swordsmage seemed quite useful.

The Silver water faction was from the 2 Experience Orbs yesterday, swordsmanship and water.

With Share Experience, he had let Swordswoman have both. Seeing her touched reaction in-game, he could almost hear the “Your bond with Death Maniac Swordswoman has deepened” prompt.

Then he opened Training Regimen.

Death Maniac Swordswoman

Current Mood: 6 (0% exp bonus)

Available Actions: Rest, Amuse, Train, Combat

Suggestion: Swordswoman hasn’t had rest/amusement for a week. Appropriate leisure can effectively improve mood, work-life balance enables better training.

Ashe hesitated slightly: Swordswoman had complained many times about lacking rest, and she had helped him so much in-game that in justice, he should let her relax…

Bang bang! “Ashe, come out! We have to find the last teammate today!” Igor’s voice came from outside.

Ashe instantly snapped out of it: Leaders must set an example and take the lead. If even he couldn’t rest, how could Swordswoman?

I reject your suggestion!

done.co