Chapter 79 – A Wild Sorcerer Appears

In the virtual world, the sea of knowledge.

“Werewolves who can’t transform when exposed to moonlight… your prison really has a diverse population, no wonder it’s a multi-racial nation.”

Sonya lay at the bow of the small boat, gazing up at the hazy sky. “But what exactly was the gourmand’s ritual? I’ve never heard of such a brutal and bizarre ceremony. Could he have been trying to summon a gluttony-aligned arcane spirit?”

In theory, the easiest arcane traditions for a sorcerer to master aren’t the external ones like fire, earth, and sword magics that are readily accessible. After all, external traditions still require deliberate training from the sorcerer to gain experience.

Internal traditions, on the other hand, can level up even without the sorcerer intentionally training them.

What are internal traditions? They’re the physiological activities that every sorcerer has to do every day.

Eating, sleeping, listening, watching, excreting… These unavoidable physiological activities since childhood could be converted into arcane tradition experience. If so, nearly every sorcerer would have seven or eight mastered arcane traditions.

Unfortunately, that’s only theoretical.

The seemingly simplest and most effortless internal traditions actually have much higher barriers to entry than external ones. However difficult external traditions may be, there’s always a possibility of getting started as long as one puts in the effort. But with internal traditions, racial talents are nearly always required. If you aren’t randomly born with an internal talent, you’ll likely never independently master an internal tradition in your lifetime.

What Sonya referred to as the “gluttony tradition” was one such internal tradition, usually only found among cannibalistic races. And not all cannibals can learn it either, only a small portion of cannibal sorcerers suddenly gain insight into the gluttony tradition.

Internal traditions can’t be taught. What is there to teach about eating, defecating, and sleeping?

Moreover, internal traditions have deep connections to inner desires, emotional changes, and personality quirks. This knowledge can’t be imparted through words alone. It’s something that can only be comprehended, not explained.

Sonya’s guess wasn’t unreasonable. After all, eating and the gluttony tradition are nearly one and the same. Many believe that cannibals possess the gluttony talent precisely because they eat human flesh.

“Igor has a different take,” said Ashe, biting his fingernails. “He thinks that in this ritual, eating is just the tiniest part. The true core steps aren’t about eating, but about love.”

“Love?”

“Have you ever farmed before?”

If it were anyone else, Sonya would definitely feel doubly insulted.

Firstly, suspecting that a young and pretty girl sorcerer like her had farmed before was insulting.

Secondly, doubting that a country bumpkin from an agricultural town had never farmed was even more insulting!

“….Go on, I understand what you mean.”

“Igor thinks Langna was farming,” Ashe said, lying at the stern. “He planted seeds of love in the targets’ hearts. Through the bloodiest intimacy — eating them — he quickly nurtured those seeds to take root and grow, equivalent to fertilizing and cultivating them.”

“Though Renard refuses to admit it, he has gradually lost interest in everything else. The only thing that still ignites his desires is participating in Langna’s rituals. Even if Langna suddenly changed his recipes, Renard would likely voluntarily add his own name.”

Just listening to this made Sonya feel muddled. “So after the seeds of love have sprouted and matured, what will Langna harvest? Their souls?”

“Igor couldn’t guess either. It’s probably related to the soul, but not just the soul.” Ashe said, “But that’s their business — we just need to be sure of one thing: Langna and Renard have an inseparable bond, and that’s what we can utilize.”

“So as long as you’ve persuaded Renard, it’s akin to gaining Langna as an ally.” Sonya reminded, “But aren’t they both vicious death row convicts? Is this really okay?”

Unlike Igor the fraudster with hardly any combat ability, Renard was the Woodpecker Gang’s golden mouth, skilled in traps, firearms, concealed weapons and more murderous techniques. Langna was even more terrifying as a Moonshadow werewolf, considered a high-tier threat even among two-wing sorcerers.

Compared to them, Ashe and Igor were like two little lambs that only knew how to bleat.

Once they lost the prison’s protection, it was hard to imagine a good outcome for Ashe and Igor when facing these two utterly wicked death row inmates.

“The prison isn’t a talent market. I don’t have many choices,” Ashe said helplessly. “Just finding two capable and willing escapees is lucky enough. Can’t be picky about their characters either, just have to hope Shattered Lake Prison’s rehabilitation of convicts is very successful.”

Ironically, Ashe hoped the rehabilitation wasn’t too successful, so he could find prison mates daring enough to escape with him. Yet he also hoped the rehabilitation was extremely successful, molding those daredevil escapees into model citizens who’d only escape to contribute to society.

“But I don’t really need to worry. When it comes to safety, Igor is far more concerned than me. He’s already planted suggestions in Renard, intensifying his sense of danger…” Ashe said, “Not exactly deceit, just making Renard clearly realize — as long as he doesn’t kill Langna, his craving to be devoured by Langna will never disappear.”

Sonya kicked Ashe’s legs back down. “Then wouldn’t they just kill each other after breaking out?”

“Kill each other? I bet not just that. If possible, Igor would definitely have them attract and occupy the Heresy Court’s attention before slipping away himself.” Ashe smiled wryly. “And he’s still holding one of my promises. I haven’t even decided how to handle that yet.”

The promise couldn’t be too outrageous. It had to be something the other party could accomplish without triggering innate resistance, like commanding them to “commit suicide”. That kind of request went against innate drives and was unreasonable.

Therefore, Ashe could only have Igor “help” him escape, not “make” him escape. The latter strict command would be invalid.

But even so, Igor could still make things difficult for Ashe. For instance, during their escape, if Igor ordered Ashe to “cover our rear”, Ashe would be unable to refuse this reasonable demand.

Even if hundreds of Blood Mad Hunters charged at them, Ashe would still have to pause to surround them, demonstrating the action of “covering the rear” before continuing to flee.

“What do you plan to do? Did you make any plans for after the escape?”

“I roughly have some. First find this body’s nemesis, an elf professor named Sylin. See if I can get revenge. If not, at least steal some of his money, then find a way to survive.”

“Isn’t that just playing it by ear? Aren’t you afraid the outside is even more dangerous than prison, where at least you’re safe daily?”

“It’s adopting a progressive approach in the adventure domain to achieve lasting gains, using abstraction, transmission and attribution analysis as handles to empower life, improving the logical considerations for escape… ”

“Say something a child can understand.”

“I chose this path, so even if it gets hard I’ll willingly walk it. Regret is for my future self to worry about. My present self just needs to consider how to avoid future regret.” Ashe leisurely said, “You don’t want to see me crying my eyes out everyday in prison, right?”

“Show me. I love watching others bawl until snot drips from their faces.”

“And there’s still you.” Ashe sat up.

“How can I help you?” Sonya rolled her eyes.

Ashe said, “Through our bond, the stronger you are, the stronger I become. So if you don’t want to explore the virtual world alone in the future, be more proactive in training. Don’t always leave on time. Don’t lead such a comfortable life at your age. Have the courage to step out of your comfort zone!”

“When you put it that way, I suddenly feel very tempted to slack off. Yes, no training, just playing around.” Sonya muttered lazily and stretched. “Did you recover your arcane energy?”

“Mostly recovered.”

Earlier, they had encountered an adolescent froth dragon and nearly exhausted their arcane power before barely driving it away. So they had to rest in the boat. Times like these were often when they shared about their daily lives.

To be honest, these rest times were quite frequent. Ever since condensing over half the Silver Wings, the difficulty of both Legacy Isle and knowledge creatures had risen sharply. The most common situation was knowledge creatures depleting their arcane power before fleeing.

Ashe suspected the knowledge creatures were intentionally draining them.

But the Swordswoman said this was normal. They couldn’t instantly obliterate knowledge creatures, lacked control abilities like stuns, and didn’t have a speed advantage either. So it was hard to pin down knowledge creatures.

This was also the plight most silver-level sorcerers faced — they often only excelled in one area. In the real world, they could still cooperate in teams, but in the virtual world, having a major shortcoming in one aspect led to severe tactical flaws.

This situation often didn’t improve until sorcerers reached the two-wing gold or even three-wing Saint domain, when they could finally polish their arcane systems. But by then, they would face new challenges in the virtual world.

Ashe opened the virtual world map, though there wasn’t much to see. The 24 surrounding grid areas were all “Don’t Waste Your Effort” no-reward zones. In these cases, they could only randomly pick a direction to try their luck—

“Ah!?”

Sonya was puzzled. “What’s wro—”

Ashe instantly covered Sonya’s mouth with his hand, holding one finger to his lips.

Sonya blinked blankly before quickly realizing. She lowered her voice and asked, “There’s a sorcerer nearby?”

Ashe nodded, turning to look at the mist-shrouded sea.

On the virtual world map, another yellow marker identical to Ashe and Sonya’s had suddenly popped up in the neighboring area!

In the mist 10 meters from their boat, space opened up a tiny Gate of Truth. A figure fell out from inside.

Right before hitting the water, she burst out in smoke, transforming into a tiny bat frantically flapping its wings forward.