Sorcerer’s Handbook

In the Virtual Realm, on the Time Continent, three sorcerers drove away from the nest of the Vassal Spider Dragon, leaving behind a burning mine pit.

It was a perfect raid: the entrance was just wide enough for a sports car to fit through, so they charged in and ran over five juvenile Vassal Spider Dragons, then poisoned and killed another twenty-four.

Facing the overlord creature, the Consort Spider Dragon, whose home and offspring were devastated, they paid the utmost respect—first setting a fire, then surrounding and beating it, giving it a dignified funeral.

Terrain kill, fire attack, mobbing—they were very familiar with this sequence of actions, gradually elevating the grueling battle into a slaughter akin to grinding monsters, to the extent that Deya became somewhat sentimental: “If there’s a god in the Virtual Realm who protects Knowledge Creatures, should we pray to them for forgiveness of our sins?”

“If there really is one, then it’s them who should be praying to us,” Sonya said, pressing down on Deya’s stray hair. “Let’s hope the sorcerers don’t find them.”

“Speaking of which, I once read a fairy tale book. There was a story called ‘Don’t Let the Sorcerer Find You,’ where the main character was a spirit trying to escape the control of a sorcerer…”

“Did it succeed?”

“No, it got caught again.”

“That’s indeed a good fairy tale.”

As the two friends were deepening their bond through banter, suddenly, a disdainful male voice interjected: “Do you think your mothers are proper mothers?”

Hearing Ashe’s sudden question, Sonya was not polite at all: “What else would they be? Are you suggesting your mother came wholesale?”

After a night of bickering with Ashe, their interaction had become increasingly casual, not to mention that Ashe’s remark dared to touch a soft spot in Sonya’s heart. If it weren’t for the Witch being nearby, Sonya might not have responded so elegantly.

“No, it’s just that recent events have made me reflective,” Ashe said. “Different societies, different regions, different cultural traditions, and different people all give rise to different fruits of kinship.”

Mother, kinship, recent events?

Deya’s ears twitched, observing Ashe through the rearview mirror.

“If relationships were a dish of condiments, my relationship with my mother would probably be three spoons of sugar, five chili peppers, a small cup of bitter melon juice, a slice of lemon, and a few marshmallows mixed into a dry dish. Whenever I’m ready to face hardship, dipping into this dish helps me chew through it.”

Hmm…

Hmm!?

The Witch and the Swordswoman both gave the Observer a subtle look—wait, you have a mother too?

Although everyone has a mother, in Sonya and Deya’s minds, the Observer was supposed to be an ancient being who had been sealed for thousands of years and had recently risen from the coffin. To him, the childhood spent with his parents should be nothing more than trivial dust in his long life, shouldn’t it?

But they couldn’t be sure, after all, they were just young women in their twenties, how could they possibly understand the psychological workings of someone who had lived for hundreds or thousands of years? Perhaps this nostalgic attitude towards life is the norm among those who live forever.

Sonya thought for a moment, “My relationship with my mother is about two spoons of sugar, one spoon of vinegar, one spoon of soy sauce, all brought together with hot oil…”

“Why is there hot oil?”

“I’d like to know why there’s hot oil too,” Sonya said mildly: “Destiny really is a chef who doesn’t play by the rules.”

Then both turned to the Witch, and Deya hesitated a bit: “I… I’ve never met my mother.”

After a brief silence, Sonya asked, “Which Resource Point are we heading to next?”

“Let me see,” Ashe said. “We’re almost back to the Star Hall area with the detailed Map, but there isn’t much of interest at the edge of the Star Hall Area. Let’s keep moving forward to see if there’s anything worth scavenging…”

Although her two teammates were very tactful and quickly changed the subject, Deya didn’t want to drop it: “Observer, why are you suddenly reflecting on kinship issues? Did something happen in reality?”

“Nothing much,” Ashe thought for a moment and said: “It’s just that recently I’ve experienced some things that made me realize that the relationship between children and adults might not just be about kinship, but could also be a stark alliance of interests.”

“Oh.” Deya’s eyes widened, her body leaning forward subconsciously: “That’s a strange relationship indeed.”

“I’ve even seen children use interests to threaten adults, forcing them to comply.”

“Wow, really?”

“There’s no trust between adults and children; they trust Contracts more than emotions.”

As the similarities mounted, Deya began to tremble, her suspicions seeming to be confirmed. The Witch, suppressing her inner turmoil, asked casually, “This is actually the first time I’ve heard of this… By the way, Observer, how old is this child you mentioned?”

Ashe thought for a moment: “Hmm… about eight years old?”

The Witch was taken aback, “Only eight years old?”

“I didn’t ask in detail, but she should be around eight,” Ashe wasn’t too sure himself.

Deya, suddenly deflated like a balloon, stopped distracting the driver and buried her head in the Swordswoman’s lap, lost in thought.

Although Deya and her sisters had been watching the drama unfold in the mirror, they were also shocked by the peculiar mother-daughter relationship between Qenna and Annan, which had been discussed in Lise’s mind for a long time.

Now that the Observer had brought up the topic of mothers after arriving in the Virtual Realm, Deya naturally began to form peculiar associations—

“Could the Observer actually be Ashe?”

This association wasn’t formed overnight but was the result of several days of accumulation.

After all, Lise spent her days with Ashe, and Deya spent her nights with the Observer. Even if she hadn’t initially thought in this direction, over time, a strange déjà vu emerged: Are your brains damaged in the same place? Why do your thought patterns seem as if they’ve been rotated 360 degrees?

And you both wear the same dark red coat!

More importantly, during last night’s Battle with the Broken Home Firm, the sisters subtly saw Ashe cast a warm yellow barrier to protect Annan.

And the Observer’s most frequently used Sword Barrier happens to be a warm yellow barrier as well!

Of course, most Defensive Miracles related to the Earth Faction are primarily yellow, but the accumulation of these coincidences, along with the catalyst of the mother topic, solidified Deya’s suspicion of “Observer being Ashe,” prompting her to subtly inquire about the Observer’s real-life situation.

Initially, Deya thought the Observer was referring to Annan and Qenna, but the Observer mentioned an eight-year-old child, clearly not Annan who was obviously not that young. Clearly, Deya had made a mistake.

Nestled in the Swordswoman’s lap, Deya rubbed her head against her and pondered why she had associated Ashe with the Observer.

It was mainly because of the Dark Red Trench Coat.

If one didn’t see the front, Ashe’s silhouette in that trench coat was almost identical to the Observer’s.

But the issue was that the Dark Red Trench Coat had been a gift from Lise to Ashe! Lise had bought that gift because she thought the Observer looked handsome in a Dark Red Trench Coat, and so she got one for Ashe.

It turned out that Lise had deliberately dressed Ashe in the Observer’s style, hence the resemblance between Ashe and the Observer.

As for their modes of thinking and styles of speech, upon further reflection, they weren’t that similar.

After all, the Observer spoke very freely, often mocking himself, and occasionally shared jokes with the Swordswoman that Deya couldn’t understand—thanks to explanations from the White Queen and the Black Butler, Deya also understood what those jokes were.

Comparatively, Ashe, though mischievous, was gentler in demeanor and more upright in conduct, almost never telling such jokes in front of Lise. Even when Harvey and Igor discussed something frightening, he would immediately cover Lise’s ears, showing great care for her.

As for the warm yellow Defensive Miracle… it was probably just a coincidence!

After separating the Observer and Ashe in her mind, Deya found this to be more logical: The Observer could observe her anytime and anywhere, so what need was there to disguise himself as Ashe and stay around her? Not to mention that Ashe was a Contractor specifically chosen by Lise, it was unlikely that the Observer would have planned that far.

Although Deya had not known the Observer for very long, she knew that he was not one to lie. Since the daughter the Observer mentioned was only eight years old, he was definitely not talking about Annan but narrating the story of another parent-child pair unknown to her.

Is Lise around eight years old?

When the Witch suggested this, Ashe realized he actually didn’t know the exact age of his adoptive daughter. Lise’s appearance was indeed deceptive: her teeth were even neater than Ashe’s, which made it unclear whether she had lost her baby teeth yet; she was about as tall as a fire hydrant, seeming under ten years old, but it could also be due to malnutrition.

Indeed, Ashe’s reflections were triggered by witnessing the dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship between Annan and Qenna, which made him think about his own unique situation with Lise.

The focus was on himself, not Annan.

After all, Ashe had always been straightforward. Why should he care about a dispute over interests between a capitalist boss and her feudal Noble mother? Initially, Ashe had some sympathy for Annan, who had been harshly treated by Qenna, but it turned out that it was the daughter who had schemed against her mother first. Ashe felt he couldn’t meddle in such high-level conflicts.

Once the mother and daughter had reached an agreement, Qenna placed—or rather, confined—them in the Double-tiered City of Fanmula. It was then that Ashe and the others realized that dividing Fanmula’s Double-tiered City into six areas was intentional, designed to give each Emblem Family its own domain.

In stories and anime, one often sees three major families in a star city, usually consisting of a ‘minority of Family members’ and ‘a majority of commoners.’ However, Fanmula was entirely dominated by six major Families—there were no people outside these six Families in the city. Everyone in the same area belonged to the same Family, and there was a deep Bloodline identification among family members, who also strongly rejected outsiders.

Rather than calling it a city, it was more like a continent formed by the merger of six nationalist countries.

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