"Awoo…"
Awakened by the sunlight, Lisi sat up clutching her bear plushie in her left hand and rubbing her eyes with her right, looking completely sleep-deprived. Her sisters had returned in the middle of the night while she was asleep, and instead of resting, they had talked nonstop, forcing her to get up in the middle of the night to pee.
After peeing, her big sisters were still chatting about the Void Realm. Lisi had listened with fascination for a while, and the result was severe lack of sleep and utter exhaustion.
In truth, had Lisi not taken over the body, their body would actually have gotten plenty of sleep.
Because when a sorcerer accessed the Void Realm, the sorcerer's body was essentially placed on autopilot by the Void Realm to sleep, immediately slipping into a state of deep sleep.
For the vast majority of living beings, sleep alternated between light and deep; deep sleep provided the best rest, but it only accounted for a small fraction of sleep.
Sorcerers capable of directly entering deep sleep needed only stay in the Void Realm for two hours for their bodies to recover enough energy to run for twenty-two hours. And unless they were exceptionally unlucky, most sorcerers spent around four hours exploring the Void Realm, recovering their energy to the point where it almost overflowed.
This was one reason sorcerers formed the elite class in every country. Not every sorcerer commanded violence, but every sorcerer commanded more waking hours and abundant energy that never flagged throughout the entire day.
To put it simply, sorcerers not only possessed greater talent than ordinary people, but worked harder and had more time. Even if they went to haul bricks, they would haul them faster, harder, and stronger. Not to mention sorcerers enjoyed far friendlier reward-feedback mechanics—ordinary people might work hard and still fail, but when sorcerers worked hard, they were guaranteed gains. Even just slacking off in the Void Realm made them stronger day by day.
Though living in the same game, only sorcerers counted as players; ordinary people were merely NPCs meant to flesh out the atmosphere.
When Diya entered the Void Realm and had Lisi take over the body, it was tantamount to forfeiting the perk of "Void Realm sleep assistance." Combined with their body turning into a child's, they couldn't recover without a solid nine hours of sleep.
As for why go through such thankless trouble... naturally, it was to conceal the fact that she was a sorcerer.
The ability to enter deep sleep immediately was a sorcerer's perk, but it was also a sorcerer's telltale sign. In other words, if someone fell completely dead to the world the moment they fell asleep, their body not moving in the slightest, and slept for less than five hours, they were definitely a sorcerer. Conversely, if someone got up in the night to use the bathroom, kicked off the covers, drooled in their sleep, and slept for more than seven hours, they could not possibly be a sorcerer.
Back at the tower, even though Diya had summoned the "Mask" sorcery spirit three years ago and begun exploring the Void Realm, she had fooled everyone with this trick, such that not even a Sanctuary Sorcerer could see through her disguise. In everyone's eyes, from start to finish, she was nothing more than the innocent Princess Lisdia, who could only fall asleep while hugging her bear plushie.
Though she was no longer a princess now, she still needed to hide her identity as a sorcerer. If Annan discovered that little Lisi was a sorcerer, all their efforts would come to naught. Furthermore, Diya was already used to leaving a sister behind to watch over their physical body in reality. If she didn't, she would feel as uneasy as walking around without underwear, unable to concentrate on exploring the Void Realm.
Yawning, little Lisi washed up in the room's bathroom. When she came out, she saw Yaxiu, Igola, Harvey, and Banjie having breakfast. Every one of them looked bright-eyed and bushy-tailed—clearly having pulled an all-nighter in the Void Realm.
Just then, Annan came out of her room. Little Lisi thought for a moment, loosened her roughly tied twin tails, and walked over clutching hair elastics to tug on the hem of Yaxiu's shirt. "Daddy, do my hair."
Yaxiu, who was eating a custard Lalafell, blinked. He glanced at Annan walking over, but didn't refuse the cheeky request. He scooped Lisi onto his lap and went to work with ferocious intensity.
When it came to styling hair, Yaxiu was a true professional—with just a single botched hairdo, he completely ruined all the aesthetic potential of this little natural beauty, much like cooking top-grade Lalafell ingredients into the foulest dish imaginable. Lisi's bangs were pulled so taut that even her eyes were tugged upward by the tension, turning her pretty big eyes into something hilariously ugly.
Yaxiu wasn't intentionally picking on Lisi, though; he was genuinely terrible at doing hair. His mother had short hair, and his brother had kept a crew cut for over twenty years without change. Where would he have ever had the chance to learn how to tie hair?
Yet it didn't matter that Yaxiu couldn't do hair. As long as he made Lisi ugly enough, it would trigger the house's automatic aesthetic correction mechanism.
He held Lisi, and together they stared at Igola across the table.
Stare (=⊙w⊙=)~
Stare (=^w^=)~
One second, two seconds, three seconds. The moment Annan sat down, Igola finally couldn't take it anymore. "Come here, I'll braid your hair. Yaxiu, the only thing your hands are fit for is sculpting flowers out of shit."
"Next time you want your hair braided, just go straight to Auntie Bojin. He won't refuse if it means sparing his own eyes," Yaxiu said with a chuckle as he set Lisi down.
While Igola produced the pocket comb he always carried and began grooming Lisi's hair, Harvey, who had already finished his breakfast, walked out onto the living room balcony, lit a stick of cat grass, and asked, "Miss, any arrangements for today?"
"There could be, or there could not."
The Scarlet-Gold Drake-Lizard suddenly appeared on Annan's shoulder. She tore off a piece of a bagel to feed it, saying, "Today is May 4th. The 10th is when you officially start work. Before then, you're free to do as you please; you don't need to accompany me."
"Free?" Harvey narrowed his eyes. "You call our current state—unable to contact the outside world, unable to go outside for fresh air, unable to even study sorcery factions—'freedom'?"
Though Harvey had not assumed—and could not possibly assume—an attacking posture, the young butler silently took a step forward, putting himself between the necromancer and the young mistress.
Yaxiu glanced at Igola. Igola was focused on braiding Lisi's hair, only trading a brief look with the cult leader—*Nothing to do with me. I didn't conspire with Harvey; he started this fight on his own.*
"Then what kind of freedom do you want?" Annan turned her chair toward the balcony, tilting her head slightly, her amethyst earrings glittering in the sunlight. "I don't imagine you just want to go smell flowers, bask in the sun, and soak in some exotic foreign flair, do you?"
"I want to go to the sewers on the first basement level."
The sunlight seemed tinged with purple. A chilling cold flooded every corner of the room like spilled mercury. Yaxiu set down his Lalafell; Igola drew Lisi into his arms.
They had almost forgotten—though Annan had enlisted them through despicable means, she was a Two-Winged Sorcerer in her own right. Compared to a mind sorcerer who wasn't suited for direct combat, a necromancer heavily reliant on the battlefield environment, and a deadbeat sorcerer who had only stepped onto the Time Continent for the first time last night, the combat prowess of the Purple Moth, who dared to bargain with the Four Pillar Cult, was very likely superior to all three of them combined.
Not to mention the sixty-something expired youth, Banjie, standing right beside her.
"...Looked it up in the Book of Gospel?" Annan flicked her earring with a light ping. "Let me guess what search terms you used to find this—'Where in Azula can one murder without drawing the attention of the Red Hats'?"
"Actually, it was 'Where in this city are corpses most likely to appear?'" Harvey replied. "I was expecting the name of some shoddy hospital, but it seems Azula's medical environment is quite respectable."
"I might not have mentioned it, but... whether one upholds public order and good morals is a very important metric for the Book of Gospel's rankings." A hint of violet seemed to glaze over Annan's eyes. "Without my orders, none of you are permitted to kill anyone—not even a single Lalafell."
"I never said I was going to kill anyone." Harvey took a final drag and flicked the cigarette butt out past the balcony railing. "When a necromancer wants corpses, there are plenty of 'legal' ways—"
The young butler pointed a finger. An icicle shot from his fingertip, crossing ten meters in an instant to freeze the cigarette butt in midair. With a gentle hook of his finger, the frosted butt arced through the air and landed in his palm.
"It doesn't matter inside the house, but throwing a cigarette butt outside violates the *High-Rise Residential Public Security Regulations* and the *Public Security Administration Measures*."
Banjie said calmly, "Please refrain from actions that will damage your own value. The *Book of Gospel* is watching you."
Chapter 225