Sorcerer’s Handbook

Virtual Realm, Time Continent.

“From the left side, charge through the left flank. Let me try one more time!”

“No, we already missed our chance. The car is going to explode!”

On the chaotic battlefield, a rundown sports car hastily escaped from an area smeared with purple, blue, and green. A colossal Shadow Evil Drake glanced at the fleeing tiny insect before shifting its gaze back to the two commanders in the distance.

“The Roamer, Toxic Widow.” The Shadow Evil Drake’s eyes gleamed with menace, “Withdraw now, and I’ll let bygones be bygones. Otherwise, when the Dark Hollow ascends the Enshrouded Forest, you will all be shattered like the setting sun, like blood diluting in water, dissipated in an instant, your true names obliterated!”

“We are here to force you to activate the Enshrouded Forest,” Danzel sneered arrogantly, “The Silent Spiral has already ignited, and the Sky Garden has fallen. Do you think the Dark Hollow can stay uninvolved? Come now, the fragmented Spider Tower that incited the Appointation War won’t have a perfect ending!”

“The Oasis is an ally of the Spider Tower,” The Roamer said calmly.

“Stubborn fools!”

The Shadow Evil Drake let out a piercing roar before falling abruptly silent. A sinister voice, like a feather brushing against the ears of all intelligent creatures, filled the air: “Pass through the forest, reflect the Enshrouded.”

Countless sharp, ear-piercing roars shook the entire Time Continent. Even Ashe and his group, who had escaped the battlefield, were affected, their eardrums instantly bursting. The intense noise sent them into momentary dizziness, only recovering as their soul energy automatically repaired their bodies.

Ashe gasped heavily, “Thank goodness we escaped just in time.”

Sonya glanced back, seeing such dense monstrosities on the battlefield that even the golden Rain Curtain couldn’t fully conceal them. A sense of dread filled her heart.

Next to her, Deya was so frightened that her hair turned slightly dirty, and she clung to Sonya for support.

To ascend to the Sanctuary and find the Rainbow Tail, they naturally needed to actively seek out the main cities of other factions, provoking the Spider Tower and Oasis to invade, enabling them to hunt down the commanders amid the chaos.

So far, they had encountered five Virtual Realm factions: the Star Shrine, Blood Tomb, Spider Tower, Oasis, and Garden. Today happened to be the exclusive turn of the final Virtual Realm faction.

Unlike the Garden, this faction’s main city wasn’t hard to find. Ashe and his team located it within an hour.

The Spider Tower and Oasis arrived precisely on schedule, swiftly transforming the main city from a picture of tranquility into a cesspool of chaos. However, when Ashe and his team attempted to hunt down commanders and seize opportunities, they realized this time was particularly challenging.

The Dark Hollow’s main city was unlike any other. It didn’t have a “city” at all. From the outside, it appeared to be a bottomless pit in the ground, resembling an Abyss. Apart from the main pit, the entire main city area was filled with smaller pits from which the heroic soul legion could emerge at any time. It was like a network of tunnels, making it a poor combat environment for their sports car.

More importantly, Dark Hollow’s troops were not humanoid.

While the troop types of the other five factions varied, they were all fundamentally humanoid. Even virtual realm creatures, when incorporated into these factions’ forces, would be transformed into humanoid troop types. This wasn’t because humanoid forms had any particular advantage; it was likely because the Divine Sovereigns who created these troops were humanoid themselves and preferred such forms.

But Dark Hollow’s troops were different. Once armed, the virtual realm creatures were enhanced into more savage and massive beast-like forms. Although this seemed to result in the loss of armor and troop skills, their individual combat prowess far exceeded that of humanoid troops, allowing them to single-handedly repel the assaults from two factions’ forces.

Dark Hollow’s strength was undoubtedly troublesome for the Spider Tower and Oasis, but their troubles didn’t concern Ashe. The issue was that Dark Hollow’s commanders also armed themselves as massive beasts!

The Shadow Evil Drake that dominated the battlefield earlier was the main commander of Dark Hollow’s city!

As for the other commanders, they were equally formidable, turning into rampaging Thunder Drakes or towering Storm Drakes!

Even though Ashe and his team were protected by secrecy power, allowing them to sneak up on commanders for an ambush, killing humanoid commanders was entirely different from instantly killing a massive beast.

Moreover, the battlefield was rife with area-of-effect attacks. The chaos far exceeded their previous encounters. If Ashe hadn’t invested all his resources in upgrading the Refracting Wall these past days, they would have been obliterated by unknown area-of-effect attacks while traversing the battlefield.

After several near-death attempts that bore no fruit, it was finally the Sword Princess who turned the tide. During a stealth attack, her Innate Talent “Phantom of the Resentful Dragon” suddenly activated, manifesting a dragon-like creature burning with vengeful blood flames behind her. This tenfold enhanced her Swordsmanship Miracle’s power, adding burning and piercing effects, allowing her to slay the Dark Hollow commander with a single strike. They seized the commander’s handbook, spirit for soul summoning, and a map.

Initially, they also needed to kill the Oasis commander to obtain an Oasis map, completing their collection. However, both the Spider Tower and Oasis were aware of their commander-hunting strategy. Every commander was now surrounded by dozens of soldiers, leaving no openings for the Sword Princess and the Witch to exploit. Even attempting a forced ambush ended in swift repulsion.

Returning to the battlefield was out of the question. Since Dark Hollow had used Divine Intervention, the Spider Tower and Oasis would naturally retaliate in kind. The battleground had transformed into a deadly zone of Divine Interventions clashing.

The Refracting Wall’s durability had been exhausted. Even if the sports car was in mint condition, it would likely be blown to pieces within a minute in that hellish battlefield.

Ashe drove them to a safer location, stopping by the Golden Flow River. This way, even if the heroic soul legion pursued them, they could cross the river to escape.

“It’s been a tough night for you all,” Ashe sighed in relief, smiling. “Watching you cross the battlefield had my heart racing.”

“But we’re still missing a part of the map,” Sonya slammed the seat in frustration. “Just one piece short…”

“Let’s divide the spoils first,” Ashe suggested, taking out a commander’s handbook. “Who wants it?”

“Sword Princess should have it!” Deya immediately said. “She worked the hardest and if it weren’t for her single strike killing the commander, we wouldn’t have gained anything.”

Ashe handed the handbook to Sonya, whose cheeks reddened slightly. “It was so dangerous, I had to give it my all.”

Deya muttered, “If you didn’t push so hard, maybe it wouldn’t have been so dangerous…”

While the Sword Princess and the Witch playfully bickered, Ashe summoned another part of their loot-a soul summoning spirit with six faces, each gleaming in different colors.

While Ashe hadn’t unlocked all the Advanced troop types, he could arm himself with the troop types from any faction: the blue troops from the Star Shrine, the red troops from the Blood Tomb, the purple troops from the Spider Tower, the orange troops from the Garden, the green troops from the Oasis, and the cyan troops from Dark Hollow…

He had even upgraded special mixed-colored troops to the ‘Six-tone Anchor.’

“Six-tone Anchor: 6 layers of armor, 100% anchoring, 6 soul power consumption per unit.”

The 100% anchoring meant that once a troop was armed with this, neither Ashe nor his team would suffer any external damage. However, it also meant they couldn’t affect the outside world either.

This would be perfect for crossing the Golden Flow River, but it fell short for scavenging the battlefield. The heroic soul legion was adept at looting, and if they didn’t immediately claim the commander’s spoils, those items would quickly be taken by other legions.

As Ashe gazed at the spirit emitting six colorful lights, a strange thought crossed his mind, but he quickly dismissed it—it was six-tone, not seven-tone.

After stowing away the spirit, Ashe unfolded the virtual realm map and said, “Though we’re missing one piece of the map, we already have five-sixths of it. If there’s any crucial Intelligence, we should be able to discern it.”Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Sonya and Deya nodded, eagerly awaiting Ashe’s findings. Ashe carefully studied the map, and soon his furrowed brows relaxed, a small smile playing on his lips.

“Did you find anything?” Sonya asked cautiously, hope lighting up her eyes.

Ashe looked at her and shook his head with a smile. “Nothing!”

“Then why do you look so relaxed!?”

“Should I be wearing a look of deep anguish instead?” Ashe spread his hands. “If the Rainbow Tail were so easy to find, there wouldn’t be so many two-wing sorcerers trapped on the Time Continent.”

“Not finding a clue is normal. After all, the Fate Questioning only said we need to ‘obtain the Complete Realm Map of the Time Continent,’ but it didn’t guarantee that this would lead us directly to the Rainbow Tail. At best, it might provide some aid, and not even direct aid,” Ashe explained. “Ultimately, ascending to the Sanctuary using the Rainbow Tail isn’t exactly the traditional path. While we can have high hopes, we shouldn’t pin all our hopes on it.”

“Everyone’s tired tonight. Why don’t we call it a night here? After all, our mission for the Golden Wings has already progressed, so there’s no need to linger on the Time Continent—”

“No.”

Sonya grabbed Ashe’s hand firmly and said, “We can’t give up yet.”

Ashe glanced at her and nodded with a smile, “Alright, let’s keep searching for the Rainbow Tail. Sword Princess, you will achieve Sanctuary.”

“We will all become Sanctuary sorcerers.” Sonya looked at Deya. “Witch, do you remember those hypotheses about the Rainbow Tail?”

“Of course, I remember. I never forget anything I’ve read in the Sorcerer’s Handbook,” Deya replied. “The White Bull Hypothesis and the Seven Sorcerers Hypothesis.”

“The White Bull Hypothesis proposes that the white bull’s four legs act as a conduit for the Rainbow Tail. When white light enters a triangular prism, it refracts into a rainbow. So, when a sorcerer’s soul enters the white bull’s four legs, it refracts into the Rainbow Tail.”

“The Seven Sorcerers Hypothesis states that as long as seven pairs of Golden Wings are gathered, the sorcerer will transform into seven drops of rain. These seven drops, along with the Reverse Golden Rain, will ascend to the Distant Sky Domain. The so-called Rainbow Tail actually refers to seven sorcerers.”

Sonya continued, “We can cross-reference the ‘Complete Realm Map of the Time Continent’ clue given by the virtual realm with these two hypotheses to see if we can find any similarities.”

After pondering for a moment, the Witch quickly gave up. “I can’t make any connection whatsoever. How does obtaining the Complete Realm Map bring us closer to the Rainbow Tail?”

“Since I couldn’t find any clues on the map, let’s consider it a red herring from the virtual realm,” Ashe suggested. “The map itself might be meaningless, but the process of searching for it could bring us closer to the Rainbow Tail.”

“The only way to obtain the virtual realm map is by killing commanders,” Sonya mused. “Does killing commanders bring us closer to the Rainbow Tail?”

“The commanders’ spoils include a commander’s handbook, a map, and a soul summoning spirit,” Deya explained. “The map is the bait from the virtual realm, and the commander’s handbook has no such clues. So that means…”

Under the watchful eyes of Sonya and Deya, Ashe summoned the soul summoning spirit. The crystal hexagon radiated a different color of light from each of its six faces.

“I was just wondering if this thing has anything to do with the Rainbow Tail,” Ashe said. “But… it only has six colors, and the Virtual Realm also only has six factions.”

Deya suddenly came up with a possibility: “Could there be a seventh faction in the Virtual Realm that we can only find by collecting all the maps?”

“Or maybe the last color is hidden within the white bull’s four legs?” Sonya suggested.

“Do the black and white from the static domain count as colors?” Deya pondered. “Are we supposed to take the soul summoning spirit into the static domain?”

With just one color missing, various possibilities flooded the Sword Princess and the Witch’s minds. However, Ashe shook his head after hearing their ideas and said, “Do you remember the Golden Fish?”

“Although one example might not be entirely convincing, I believe that the Rainbow Tail is probably similar to the Golden Fish. What limits your ability to find them isn’t geographical location, but rather, your abilities, the number of people, and your imagination. No matter where you are in the Sea of Knowledge, you can find the Golden Fish as long as you fly upward. The Rainbow Tail is likely the same way. No matter where you are on the Time Continent, you’ll find it if you know how to look.”

Honestly, Ashe’s point might not make much logical sense, but having seen the Golden Fish herself, Sonya instantly accepted it. It’s like reading two books by the same author: if you encounter an amazing narrative twist in the first, you’ll struggle to believe they’d write a cliché story devoid of any clever reasoning in the second.

But this way of thinking led to a dead end. Deya held her head and muttered, “Find it anywhere… the Rainbow Tail…”

Sonya, biting her nails, scanned the surroundings: “Resource point? Special building? Miracle Wonderland? Where exactly is the last color?”

Meanwhile, Ashe was relaxed, lying back in his seat and staring at the sky drenched by the Reverse Golden Rain. “Don’t worry. You all will reach Sanctuary sooner or later. Don’t waste too much energy on the Rainbow Tail.”

Sonya grumbled, “But I want to reach Sanctuary now!”

Ashe smiled and said softly, “Thank you.”

He looked at the sky and suddenly realized that he had been rushing through his time on the Time Continent, not taking a moment to appreciate the scenery around him. Only now, after completing their journey on the Time Continent, did his belated curiosity emerge. “Sword Princess, why does the rain on the Time Continent flow upwards?”

“Because it’s rain from the Golden Flow.”

“And why does rain from the Golden Flow upwards?”

“It’s always been that way,” Sonya replied, clicking her tongue. “Stop pondering about the rain and focus on figuring out where the Rainbow Tail is.”

“I’m thinking, I’m thinking,” Ashe said dismissively, but his mind was still preoccupied with why the rain flowed upwards. He was always like this; when faced with a difficult problem he didn’t want to deal with, his mind would start wandering to random thoughts to avoid reality.

Because time itself flows upwards? That doesn’t make sense.

Because the golden rain is actually a gas? But it doesn’t feel like it.

What could it be…

Suddenly, a recent memory surfaced in Ashe’s mind:

“…I was engulfed and swept away by a river composed of rainbow-colored streams, and by the time I came to my senses, I had arrived at the Distant Sky Domain…”

Ashe abruptly sat up and muttered, “Yeah, why does the rain flow upwards?”

Sonya was genuinely angry this time. “We’re seriously thinking about the Rainbow Tail, and you can’t—”

“That’s the answer to the Rainbow Tail!”

Ashe stood up and pushed the Sword Princess and the Witch back into their seats. His face was lit up with a realization, and he asked excitedly, “Why does the rain flow upwards?”

“Because the rain is meant to flow upwards, because the sky isn’t the sky, and the ground isn’t the ground!”

“Because the entire world is upside down. The Time Continent is actually above, and the sky is below! The golden rain hasn’t reversed its course; we are the ones who are upside down!”

“The Rainbow Tail isn’t above us; it’s beneath us!”

“The Golden Flow is the last color we need to find!”